Radonitsa is distinguished from most days of the dead by the specific instruction that grief is out of place on it. Families travel to the cemetery bringing food and drink, share a meal at the graveside, and in many communities pour a small portion out onto the grave itself or leave it there directly, treating the deceased as included in the gathering rather than only remembered by it.
The greeting exchanged is the Paschal one, Christ is risen, answered He is risen indeed, carried over directly from the Easter season the day falls within, which frames the visit as continuous with resurrection joy rather than as a separate register of solemn remembrance. Clergy have periodically pushed back against the more exuberant end of this practice, particularly against alcohol consumed at the graveside, while accepting the meal and the visit itself as a legitimate and very old form of piety toward the dead.
The day falls specifically on the Tuesday of the second week after Pascha, though some regions instead keep the preceding Monday, a minor calendar variation that has never developed into a serious point of division between communities that otherwise recognize the observance as the same feast under slightly different local timing.