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On Tuesday, Arkady Shishkin, a senior official at the Ministry of Sport, Tourism, and Youth Policy, told Interfax that the Ski Russia-2010 Championship shall open the eighth annual Kaluga Oblast Health Week. This is the sixth time that the Ski-Russia competition was in Kaluga Oblast; organisers expect that 8,000 entrants shall compete in the event. The first starters will be around 400 professional skiers and students of sports schools. Behind them will be leading citizens of the area, which, as a rule, are usually headed by Governor Anatoly Artamonov. Then, all comers are welcome to start the course. Ski Russia-2010 coincides with the Maslenitsa celebration, so organisers are providing free sleigh rides and tobogganing at the festival and shall treat everyone to tea and bulochki (rolls). At the end of the event, they’ll burn the effigy of Winter, per tradition.
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Let’s get in the Maslenitsa mood with Marina Devyatova! It’s from a New Year’s concert… but what the hey, its great fun!
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On Wednesday, a source in the Chelyabinsk Gorsoviet said on 14 February that residents would enjoy traditional amusements, fun quizzes, and pancakes a metre wide at the local Maslenitsa celebration. Holiday festivities begin at noon at the Gagarin Park of Culture and Rest and at the Pushkin City Garden. The Garden will host sack races, tug-of-wars, and arm-wrestling competitions. There’ll be a special children’s area where professional animators will hold several programmes involving pirates and clowns. At 13.00, professional chefs and invited guests will start baking pancakes one-metre-wide. At Gagarin Park, holiday guests shall have a theatre performance, contests, comedians, and performances by local creative artists.
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Maslenitsa, musical background by the rock band Ivan Kupala
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In Odessa, organisers will hand out tea from a 350-litre (93 US gallons 78 Imperial gallons) samovar on Deribasovskoy to all comers to mark Maslenitsa on Forgiveness Sunday. Visitors will be able to attend festivities at a fair folk and see a show with a three-metre-tall (10-feet-tall) bear, the Ukrainian website Левый берег (Levy Bereg: Left Bank) said on Wednesday. A variety of competitions, surprises, and gifts awaits all visitors, and an ice show shall mark the end of the holiday celebrations.
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Maslenitsa in London 2009
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On Wednesday, the website Passion.ru said that doctors and nutritionists emphaise the importance of observing moderation during Maslenitsa feasting. According to doctors, if you gorge yourself overly much on pancakes, it can lead to gastrointestinal distress. In addition, pancakes are fatty food; overindulgence in such adversely affects not only the stomach, but also affects heart, kidney, and liver function. Doctors recommend that an average woman should eat no more than three or four pancakes per day, and an average man, four or five pancakes. People who suffer from chronic stomach disease would do better to abstain from traditional pancakes and seek suitable substitutes. For example, you can substitute regular wheat flour for buckwheat flour, and replace sugar with honey.
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Russian Orthodox chant for Lent
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The Gorsoviet in Aleksin in Tula Oblast, in response to requests from Orthodox clergy, nixed the idea of burning a Maslenitsa effigy. According to the Thursday issue of the Tula edition of Komsomolskaya Pravda, the Gorsoviet said, “This is a pagan custom; this day is Forgiveness Sunday”. Earlier, local clergy asked local residents to abandon the pagan custom and not burn an effigy of Winter. Fr Gennady Stepanov, the rector of Assumption parish, told us, “By and large, Maslenitsa isn’t a Church holiday, it’s a run-up to the beginning of Lent, which the Church shall start shortly”. He emphasised that we should devote this time to addressing “our inner problems, forgiving each other, to seemliness, so that we could enter a period of renewal in our spiritual life with a pure soul. The task of Orthodoxy is to show people that pagan idolatry lies in the darkness of sin. In particular, if we burn effigies of winter during Maslenitsa, that could give people a taint of evil. If we follow pagan traditions, we run a great risk of inviting the demons of idolatry [into our lives]. The Church doesn’t wish to deprive anyone of human joy or celebration; it doesn’t condemn the desire to have fun. Rather, it advises us to attend to our religious duties. The Orthodox faith tells us that true joy is found in spirituality, so, we can’t endorse ignorance of that”. Previously, the Moscow Gorsoviet announced that the Great Maslenitsa celebration in Moscow this year would be the first without the traditional burning of the effigy of Winter, as, firstly, it’s contrary to fire safety regulations, and secondly, it frightens small children.
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Belarussian paratroopers pour ice-cold water over their heads in Maslenitsa celebrations.
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On Thursday, sources at the State Museum of the History of the City reported that it opened a festival of ice sculptures devoted to Maslenitsa and St Valentine’s Day in St Petersburg . On a spit of Zayachego Island, acknowledged masters from different Russian cities built a fabulous ice town. Here, visitors can see the hero of Gogol’s story, The Night Before Christmas (Ночь перед Рождеством), and Vakula astride a pig with horns. The sculptor’s efforts portray an accordionist with a bear, a man on a goat, and girls on a sled with pancakes, along with other Maslenitsa motifs. The largest ice sculpture, was four metres (13 feet) high and three metres (10 feet) wide, will portray two people carrying a stuffed Maslenitsa effigy for the fire. A museum spokesman told us, “We’ll mark Valentine’s Day with two sculptures, one based on the story of the Bremen Town Musicians and a huge icy heart, in which, as the master carver assured us, we can ‘breathe love’. Therefore, interested persons could lean over to kiss it and make a wish”. To create the ice sculptures, organisers brought 600 ice blocks from Ozerkov measuring one-cubic-metre. The total weight of the ice was 70 metric tons (77 short tons). The festival brought together champions of Russian and international competitions, and the winners of competitions in St Petersburg, Ufa, Chelyabinsk, and Astrakhan.
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Video of Larissa Lusta singing at a Victory Day concert on 9 May 2009
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On Thursday evening, outside the walls of Mirozhsky Monastery in Pskov, the opening ceremony of the first all-Russian Maslenitsa took place. According to our correspondent, Dede Skobar (Grandpa Pigeon) and the little girl Maslenka (Butter) hosted the festivities. After a blast to herald Maslenitsa and the playing of the anthem of Pskov, they began a festive parade, “Fair Lady Maslenitsa”. Sergei Pernikov, Vice-Governor of Pskov Oblast, said at the ceremony, “It’s very symbolic that the festival will happen by the walls of one of the oldest churches of Pskov and Russia, the Cathedral of the Transfiguration at the Mirozhsky Monastery. Our guests will have a lot of fun, there’ll be a snow town, and a charity event centred on baking pancakes”. He noted that the proceeds from the festival would go to a building fund for parish of Ss Vera, Nadezhda, and Lyubov, and their mother St Sofia in Pskov, and wished that everyone would celebrate Maslenitsa “with a broad and happy smile, always in a good mood”. Governor Pernikov declared the all-Russian Maslenitsa open, and, then, there was a fireworks show, and the festival programme began. About 3,000 citizens and guests of Pskov attended the opening ceremony. On Thursday, a charity event, “Pancake Record of Mercy”, was held, with actress Natalia Surkova and singer Larissa Lusta as the special guests of the affair. For charity, the pancakes sold for 3,100 Roubles (102 USD. 75 Euros. 65 UK Pounds) apiece. Maslenitsa celebrations in Pskov will last until the end of the week. During this period, the city will host folk festivals, concerts, music festivals, art exhibitions, and a crafts fair. For the holiday festivities, the authorities prepared a special area in the town with 50 specialised pavilions, which featured products from Pskov and Pskov Oblast, Novgorod, Smolensk, Yaroslavl, Tver, and other Oblasts, as well as merchants and artisans from Belarus, the Ukraine, and the Baltic states.
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Let’s have some more good stuff from Marina Devyatova…
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On Friday, a source at the Perm Gorsoviet said that they’d hold a winter street basketball tournament in the Perm city centre on Saturday, “The First Pancake isn’t a Lump!”*, dedicated to Maslenitsa. The competition is open to all comers regardless of age, gender, or level of sports training, subject to availability of winter boots. The participants will have to wear winter boots for the contest. In case players lack winter boots, organisers shall provide boots of various sizes. The tournament shall follow the rules of street basketball. A game lasts for 10 minutes, but the game ends early if one team scores 16 points or the difference in the score is over eight points. The players of the winning team will receive an invitation for a St Valentine’s Day event at a bar-restaurant and a gift certificate for 1,000 Roubles (33 USD 24 Euros 21 UK Pounds) for a meal.
* This is a play on an Old Russian folk saying, “Pervy blin komom”… “The first pancake is a lump”.
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Ivolginsky Datsan in Buryatiya, one of the main Buddhist monasteries in Russia, some 0.5 percent of the RF population is Buddhist.
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on Thursday, the newspaper Kachkanar Quarter (Качканарский четверг) said that the monks of the Buddhist Shatchuplinga Monastery on Mount Kachkanar (Sverdlovsk Oblast) are going to celebrate Maslenitsa with competitions, dances, and burning an effigy of Winter. This year, Maslenitsa coincides with the Buddhist New Year on the lunar calendar. The monks, who live on the mountaintop year-round, organised a holiday in the open-air for all comers. They’re inviting adults and children over seven-years-old to the festival. The monks shall offer tea and sugar to their guests, but they warned that their celebration would be entirely non-alcoholic. The last time they celebrated this holiday was in 2003.
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Otche Nash (Our Father) by Nikolai Kedrov, sung in Staroslav
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This year, according to a recent poll, nearly a third of all Russians will observe Lent in varying degrees; the rest aren’t going to fast. On Friday, sociologists from VTsIOM told us that despite the fact that most Russians continue to ignore fasting during Lent, this year, in comparison with 2008, that number decreased from 83 percent to 62 percent, giving the results of a nationwide study held in February. According to their data, the largest numbers of non-fasters are under 34 years of age (67-71 percent) and atheists (87 percent). However, the number of those who follow the rules of fasting increased over two years from 16 percent to 32 percent. Sociologists found that 6 percent of Russians (two years ago, it was 4 percent) intended to fast only during the last week of Lent; this was higher amongst seniors (8 percent), and the wealthy (14 percent). This year, 22 percent plan to comply with the fasting rules partly, compared to 9 percent in 2008. Those willing to modify their usual menu, in the main, are older than 35 years of age (24-27 percent), those with average and lower incomes (22-24 percent), and professed Orthodox Christians (27 percent). Finally, those who plan to comply fully with the Lent is now 4 percent (two years ago, it was 3 percent), mainly the elderly (6 percent) and professed Orthodox (4 percent). Women more often than men expressed a desire to follow the fasting rules (41 percent vs. 20 percent). According to the poll, most Russians know about the Lenten abstinence rules, 61 percent know that it restricts diet choices. Fewer people are aware of the restrictions on behaviour (no lying, don’t do evil, don’t cheat), only 23 percent know this (mainly Orthodox, 27 percent). A smaller number thought that Lent requires abstinence from alcohol (8 percent), reducing time for ordinary life (6 percent), and abstinence from sex and entertainment (4 percent).
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Ural Cossack Choir in Vienna… Veruyu (The Creed) by Gretchaninov sung in Staroslav
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For Orthodox believers, Lent begins on 15 February and will end after seven weeks on Easter, which, this year, is on 4 April. The strictest weeks of Lent are the first and last ones. On Monday and Tuesday of the first week, if one follows the customs strictly, you don’t eat at all. In the remaining days of Lent, the rules state that believers shouldn’t eat meat, eggs, and dairy products. If one follows the canons strictly, one can eat fish with scales on the Feast of the Annunciation and the Entry of Our Lord into Jerusalem (Palm Sunday), and can eat fish roe on Lazarus Saturday, but you can consume other seafood at any time. {One must note that, in practise, in Russia, believers eat fish throughout Lent… this depends on social class, though… peasants are more likely than the upper classes to avoid fish completely during the Lent. However, the late Patriarch Pimen Izvekov blessed people in the world (including clergy and seminarians) to eat fish during Lent… the strict rule is more monastic than lay.: editor} On feastdays and weekends, the strict interpretation allows a little wine. Generally, the elderly, the sick, young children, pregnant and lactating women, travellers, prisoners, and those in the forces on active service are exempt from the fasting rules.
9 to 12 February 2010
Interfax-Religion
http://www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=34123
http://www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=34134
http://www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=34138
http://www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=34141
http://www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=34159
http://www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=34160
http://www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=34166
http://www.interfax-religion.ru/?act=news&div=34167
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