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I used the original caption from the original post I saw on vK. Maslenitsa is the last fling before the onset of the Great Lent. It’s our Russian Mardi Gras… it lasts the whole week before Clean Monday, the beginning of the fast. You party hearty until the cannon goes off at midnight… then, “Maslenitsa’s over! It’s Lent! It’s time to fast”. As everyone knows, “A house is not a home until there’s a cat in it”… such is our Russian folk wisdom. Therefore, even our cats and our other animals share in our festive mood, too. Maslenitsa has pagan roots, like so much else in traditional Christianity, but don’t let that make you drop it. That’s crackbrained… the Church has “baptised” many things, and Maslenitsa is one of them (besides being tonnes o’ fun). The last day of Maslenitsa coincides with the Sunday of Forgiveness on the formal Church calendar. We ask forgiveness of others and extend it to those who ask it of us. Besides this, the women of the family go to visit the family graves, asking forgiveness of the departed, laying blini on the grave (and sometimes pouring out some vodka, too). In country parts, many people do kindnesses to animals.
Christ came to transfigure and redeem the WHOLE world… not just mankind and not just “religious” things. Think on that…
BMD
Voices from Russia 
New Year Greetings from Aleksei Zhuravko… A Real Hero and a True Mensch and Stand-up Guy
Tags: Aleksei Zhuravko, Banderovtsy, celebrations, civil unrest, DNR, Donbass, Donetsk People's Republic, Happy Holidays, happy new year, holidays, Holidays and Observances, LNR, Lugansk People's Republic, New Year, Novorossiya, patriotic, patriotism, political commentary, politics, Russia, Russian, Ukraine, Ukrainian Civil War, ukrainian nationalists, war and conflict
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Dear Friends!
2017 is passing… we’re supposed to be cheerful, as the New Year is coming soon. I’m trying to be in the mood, but my soul hurts for my motherland. As a man who’s had a tough road, I want:
This year, I want to ask my friends and my relatives for the trouble I bring them from my position. Moreover, I ask forgiveness from those people who, despite everything, continue to believe in me and work with me. I know it’s very difficult and not easy for them. I’m sure there’ll be a time when all this horror is in the past. We’ll remember this always.
I want the next year to take all that’s best from this year, with all the troubles left behind. That’s what I want. I want the Ukraine in the New Year to be without war and to see the end of the Kiev junta. I hope that in the coming year, our real patriots and professionals would return to the country… people who’d actually change something in the state and lift our motherland from the abyss that it’s now in, instead of issuing empty talk and screaming.
PS
For these three years, I’ve had to live in another country in political exile; I really miss all of you.
I hope the New Year will bring you all that you want!
Our Cause is right!
God is with us!
Victory will be ours!
In respect,
Aleksei Zhuravko
30 December 2017
Aleksei Zhuravko
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