The Shrovetide Week, Part 2

  I'd like to continue my previous post telling you about the old and re-create Russian traditions of welcoming Spring.

Shrovetide, like any Carnival is inconceivable without abundant feasts, festivals, games but still performances are the main component of the carnival. 

The old picture on the box cover

Celebration of Shrovetide in Yaroslavl, 2012

Church included Shrovetide among its celebrations, as it is held in the week before Lent. At this time, according to the ordinance of the Orthodox Church is not allowed the use of meat, but is permitted consumption of dairy products, including butter and eggs. People were trying to eat dairy products, eggs, fish - and of course, the main dish, pancakes before Lent which lasts 40 days before Easter.

In the villages people made the symbolizing winter Straw scarecrow, they established it on a snow hill and were sledging with songs. Guys arranged fights and a capture of a Snow Town.

Celebration of Shrovetide in Yaroslavl, 2012

 

 'The capture of a Snow Town'  by Vasily Surikov, 1891

The driving in a sleigh was an integral part of a holiday. The guys who were going to get married, bought a sledge and drove in a sleigh-and-three horses, called 'Troika'. They put the best harness on horses.

 

  'Shrovetide' by Boris Kustodiev, 1919

'Shrovetide' by Fetisov, 1990

According to the Christian tradition, people asked for forgiveness and kissed three times as a sign of reconciliation at the last day of Shrovetide week, in "Forgiveness Sunday". All Shrovetide traditions are intended to banish winter and to wake nature. Their symbol was a Straw Scarecrow dressed in women's clothes. People had fun and then, with a good conscience, burned Scarecrow and said goodbye to carnival until the next year.

 The old picture on the box cover

 

  Celebration of Shrovetide in Yaroslavl, 2012

Did anyone of you, my friends-bloggers, drive in a sleigh?

Would you like to drive in 'Troika' in sunny spring day? 

 

I will show you my burning Scarecrow in part 3, to be continued.

 

   

 

The Week of Shrovetide (Part1)

   In Russia Shrovetide celebration began and lasts for a week in March. This holiday was recently revived and people are trying to re-create old traditions of a Pancakes week. I love celebrating Shrovetide, as the coming of spring and a farewell to a long and cold winter.

Pictures 'Winter' and 'Summer' by Russian artists Klimenko and Nagornaya

 

Everyone like to go to the nearest park and to watch a straw man burning, to eat pancakes with sour cream or caviar (for every budget). I love celebrating spring arrival and a farewell to winter in my garden. 

Since ancient times festivals were timed to the day of the Vernal Equinox (March, 20-21). The New Year had began. In Egypt, people celebrated the fertility goddess Isis, in Greece the people honored the goddess Cora, Demeter and Athena. The celebrations in honor of the goddess Minerva in Rome were held for five days after the Equinox.

With the adoption of Christianity in Europe, the pagan holidays were filled with new content, keeping however a lot of archaic features. In pagan Russia a Shrovetide week began in the Vernal Equinox, and was the heir of an older festival associated with the cult of spring bear

 Picture 'The Sorcerers' by Russian artist Panasenko

As for a pancake that was the symbol of the sun and life, it became the main Shrovetide week delicacy.

How is the Shrovetide Week celebrated in your country?

to be continued....

Waiting To Grow

These days, the sun has begun to appear more frequently, and looking at these hyacinths  I wait for warm days.
Although snow isn't melting, snowstorm is sometimes, and again it seems that the spring won't come soon.  
That's what I saw when I came in my garden yesterday. I've found a poem about plants waiting for spring under the snow. 
Here it is:

WAITING TO GROW

Little white snowdrop just waking up,
Violet, daisy, and sweet buttercup,
Think of the flowers that are under the snow,
Waiting to grow!

And think what a number of queer little seeds,
Of flowers and mosses, of ferns and of weeds,
Are under the leaves and under the snow,
Waiting to grow!

Think of the roots getting ready to sprout,
Reaching their slender brown fingers about,
Under the ice and the leaves and the snow,
Waiting to grow!

the poem by  Frank French

I noticed footprints on a path, I've guessed it was the neighbor's cat called Privet (that means 'Hello'). He was on duty, and I am sure that there are no mice under my house anymore.

 All right! Then I took a shovel in my hands and I began to clean the paths under the nice bright sky.