Yeah, you WISH you had holidays like the Russians...

Greetings all:-)

The snow is melting and the temperatures are warming up, but that is far from being the most surprising news of the week. The big shocker? IT IS A WEEK WITHOUT A HOLIDAY!! For the past month, we've had a solid one-to-two days of celebration each week, usually accompanied by a much-needed day off from work. Below are some highlights from the endless parade of festivities:

1. February 14th: Maslenitza (Also happened to be Chinese New Year, Valentine's Day, and the "Day of Forgiveness"...more on that in a moment!)

-Maslenitza is like Russian mardi gras. It is a day to celebrate and pig out before the excruciating two months of Russian lent. It is also when we say goodbye to winter (which as everyone seems to agree, is a bit premature in the middle of february), but instead of waiting for a cuddly groundhog to see his shadow, we put a lovely russian scarecrow up in the middle of the square...and watch it burn!



The scarecrow is an old rural Russian symbol of winter...and the one you burn on Maslenitza is always a woman!

Other Maslenitza necessities:
-Eating blini: blini symbolizes the sun (because it’s round and greasy?), and gorging yourself on several types of blini is an absolute necessity when welcoming spring. Below, with celebrate with salmon and caviar blini….yummm!

-Festivities in the square: the all-day, out-doors, free-of-charge entertainment included singing and dancing, elaborate costumes, and a whole slew of popular russian contests. The Russians really love their contests. Shirtless men of all ages and body types compete with each other to climb poles, lift heavy metal objects, and play tug of war. The women, meanwhile, gravitate towards singing contests....someone plays a few standard bars of accordion folk music and the contestent must make up a chipper poem-song to sing on top of it. As for me, I blurred the gender line a bit...no, i did not get semi-naked and engage in he-man heavy lifting...but I DID arm wrestle my (female) colleague...annnnd i won:-)






-February 23rd ("Day of the Defenders of the Motherland", aka "man's day") and March 8th (Woman's Day): A day off from work, presents, free stuff, and a barrage of congratulatory phone calls. All this just for having been born with an X or Y chromosome! I celebrated man's day by sledding in the forrest, watching Russian war films, and eating food prepared (ironically) by my colleague's husband. Two weeks later it was time to celebrate my womanhood, and I did so by going out to a club on a (shock!) Sunday night and then coming home at 5 am just in time to watch the live-but-Russified broadcast of the Oscars. Now, I'm a hardcore patriot and I love the US of A, but I think we've faltered in failing to include a man and woman's days in our national holiday calendar. Maybe this is something we can correct in the future:-)

Thanks for reading as always....I'll be in touch!