DNR Greeks Celebrate their Ethnic Planting Festival Despite Shelling and Heavy Rain

The artos… the centrepiece of the Artoo Planting Festival

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Iaia has a cane… and she knows how to use it!

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Today, our correspondent on the scene reported that the Greek community in Starobeshevo held their traditional ethic planting festival… Artoo… despite junta attacks and heavy rain. Ivan Mikhailov, the head of Starobeshevo Raion, told our reporter, “About 200 people from all over the Republic gathered for the Artoo holiday. It wasn’t just Greeks, but there were people of all different nationalities. This holiday is just another proof that there’s interethnic peace here in the DNR. We don’t do it the way that they do it in Kiev, where they treat ethnic minorities like second-class citizens. We’ve kept our realm harmonious*“.

• You can take Мы сохранили мир in two ways… “We’ve kept the peace” or “We’ve preserved the world”… actually, I think that Mikhailov is playing on words here… a play on words that doesn’t carry over into translation… drat!

Traditionally, the Artoo festival includes rolling a large round bread on four hard-cooked eggs downhill. The Greek people determined how rich the future harvest would be by seeing how the bread “wandered down the hill”. Mikhailov said, “Unfortunately, this year, we couldn’t follow the Artoo customs to the letter. Because of the shelling and the bad weather, we had to modify the main event of the holiday… rolling the Artos (a large special bread) down the hill on four hard-cooked eggs. This year, the Greek people rolled the artos in a social hall. Of course, it wasn’t quite as spectacular, but the ceremony showed that this year will be fruitful in our area, that’s good news”.

D V Pushilin, the Vice-Chairman of the DNR Peoples Soviet and head of the Ispolkom* of the Donetsk Republic public movement, attended the festivities, saying, “This is a wonderful holiday. The most important thing that we must realise is that our Republic was, and remains, a multi-ethnic entity. Everyone has their own holidays, and it’s important to take part with them, to understand them”.

• Ispolkom: Executive Committee

19 April 2015

DAN Donetsk News Agency

http://dan-news.info/culture/doneckie-greki-otmetili-nacionalnyj-prazdnik-urozhaya-nesmotrya-na-obstrely-i-prolivnoj-dozhd.html

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