NEWS

2007–04-10

A Russian Project

The most eagerly awaited event of the ballet season takes place at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg from 12 to 22 April: the seventh “Mariinsky” International Ballet Festival.

The festival will be opened on 12 and 13 April 2007 by an unprecedented creative promotion-a “Russian Project”, featuring four ballets in two evenings: “Apollo”, with choreography by Balanchine to the music of Stravinsky; “ The Awakening of Flora”, a reconstruction of the ballet of Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov to the music of Drigo; and two new ballets by the young choreographer Alexey Miroshnichenko-“Like an Old Organ-Grinder”, and “Ring” A special event in the festival will be the programme “The Bolshoy at the Mariinsky”, demonstrating the new image of the Bolshoy Theatre, which has started to develop dynamically with the arrival of a new choreographer, Alexey Ratminsky.

The festival schedule also includes the now traditional participation of stars from the world’s greatest ballet houses in the Mariinsky productions.

2007–04-06

Russian Easter

There are many holidays which Russians like to celebrate, and when Spring finally arrives after the long winter, one of the most beloved holidays is Easter, or “Pascha” in Russian. This feast day is full of kindness and light, and is associated with belief, hope and love. During the Soviet times this holiday was almost not celebrated as religion was banned, though some people still colored hard-boiled eggs and baked Easter cakes (called “kulichi”) even though they didn’t bring them into Church to be blessed, which was the tradition. After the 1917 Revolution, most churches were closed and their property confiscated and redistributed by the government. Since the 1990s and Perestroika, however, the Russian Orthodox Church has enjoyed a big revival. According to the statistics, Easter is one of the most popular religious holidays at present: 84% of Russians baked Easter cakes and colored hard boiled eggs, 37% visited cemeteries, 22% attended church services and only 7% said they were not going to celebrate Easter.

This year Orthodox Easter fell on the eighth of April, coinciding with the Catholic Easter – an occurrence which happens rarely, as the Russian Orthodox church uses a lunar calendar and the date for Easter shifts every year, while the Catholic Easter date usually stays constant.

Russian Easter is preceded by a period of fasting called the Great Lent. The last week of the Lenten period is called Holy Week (“Passion week”). The beginning of Holy Week is marked by Palm Sunday, celebrating the entrance of Lord into Jerusalem. In Orthodox churches during a Liturgy, parishioners stand with bouquets of willow twigs (“verbi” in Russian) just breaking into blossom – reminiscent of the palm leaves which covered the path of Savior to the capital of Judea. (Russia is obviously a northern climate where palms are scarce, yet where willow trees are in plentiful supply). It is customary to bring some of these bouquets home to place by icons until the next Palm, or in Russia’s case, “Willow Sunday.”

On eve of Easter, people cook special dishes, bake richly decorated Easter cakes (“kulichi”), make Easter cottage cheese cakes and color hard boiled eggs. To color boiled eggs people use food dye or onion skins (boiled onion skins give a natural brown dye). Usually, eggs are colored on Saturday, and then are brought to the church to be blessed. One of the celebrations of Easter is the meal after the all-night church services when all these treats are enjoyed – particularly delicious after a long period of abstinence from meat and dairy during the Great Lent.

There is another old Russian Easter tradition — on this day people greet each other with three kisses and with words “Christ has Arisen!” – to which they receive an answer “Truly He has risen!” and give each other colored eggs.

2007–03-08

Women’s Day

International Women’s Day(March 8)is one of Russia’s biggest holidays, and you will make a good impression if you wish all women you meet-also women you actually don’t know-a happy holiday(say”s prazdnikom”)! It’s impossible to ignore the infectious spirit of this holiday. Beaming men wait with red roses at metro exits and happy couples linger about in the streets. You can see them drinking champagne while the first sunshine after many dark winter months warms their hearts and their relationship. Employers would be fools to forget to give gifts to their female staff. The 8th itself is, for some, a day spent in bed with a nasty hangover (but men should treat their sweat-hearts to breakfast).

Although women's day is about men giving gifts to women, the agency for Social Information poll showed that what men want to give and what women want to get did not match up. Flowers traditionally came first with 32.6 percent of women wanted them as a gift and almost 44 percent of men planning to give them. Domestic appliances, surprisingly for men, only 5.1 percent of whom thought such items made up a good present, turned out to be the second most desired object.

Almost every eight women chose appliances over jewelry and perfume.

The dream of 3.7percent of women to be given a fur-coat was unlikely to be fulfilled as only o.5 percent of men were prepared to give it to them in spring.

2007–03-07

Maslenitsa

It is still winter in Russia, but snow or no snow Russians celebrate the coming of spring with pancakes and butter. Every day brings more daylight for St Petersburg, after the dark months of winter. Maslenitsa is a traditional holiday that dates back to pagan times. Maslenitsa, or Pancake Week, comes from the Russian word for butter, maslo. This is a way of saying goodbye to winter and welcoming the spring. It goes without saying that the pancakes (bliny) are the symbol of the sun: round, gold and warm. Russians devour them with honey, butter, caviar, sour cream or mushrooms-and they go down properly with a shot of vodka. Each day of the “Pancake” week has its own name and rituals. On Monday, Madam Maslenitsa, traditionally dressed up as a scarecrow, is invited, and afterwards children will roam the streets shouting: “Maslenitsa is here”. There is a day of games, one of sweet-eating, and somehow all of these are akin to forthcoming families. New mothers-in-law invite their sons-in-law to anoint their foreheads with butter in the hopes that this would make them tender to their wives. The games played long ago were designed for the young to get acquainted so that they could marry on the first Sunday after Easter. Among the more bizarre rituals included hanging logs from the necks of young unmarried people who were then paraded around the village. The logs were supposed to be symbolic of the missing halves.

Children had their own tradition. They built two walls of snow opposite each other, amassed a large quantity of snowballs and then began throwing them at each other. The tradition of snowball fights has not died, and can still be seen on parks around the city.