Don’t Count the Calories: Cheesefare Week

Two recent holidays have finally signaled the beginning of the end of the long, cold winter. The first of the two holidays is a week-long celebration called Maslenitsa, which derives its traditions from both old pagan and Orthodox Christian practices. The second holiday that symbolically tells winter “see ya later” is the uber-popular International Women’s Day, more often referred to by the date it lands on, the 8th of March. Although I grew up with some elements of Maslenitsa as it relates to the church traditions, celebrating both of these holidays here was a completely new experience for me. In the spirit of welcoming the spring and much appreciated change in weather, thought I would devote this blog post to writing about the first of the two holidays, Maslenitsa.

During the week of Maslenitsa, aka Cheesefare Week, different events take place each day. In every major park in every town and city, you will see people taking part in traditional folk games and competitions – often ones involving men, prizes tree logs, and impressive displays of strength – folk songs and dances. The other ubiquitous feature of Maslenitsa is the bliny, the crepe-like Russian pancake. Maslenitsa is an old pagan sun festival, marking the end of the winter solstice and the most evident remnant of this origin is the burning of the scarecrow-resembling “Lady Maslenitsa”that takes place on the final Sunday of Maslenitsa, and whose ashes are used to “fertilize the crops”. On the other hand, Maslenitsa also celebrates the last week before Orthodox Great Lent begins, when Orthodox Christians are to refrain from the eating of meat and dairy. The Orthodox have already given up meat for the fast the previous week, but Maslenitsa is the last week in which fasting Orthodox are allowed to eat dairy and eggs. Bliny, a rich, buttery, eggy pancake, often rolled and stuffed with tvorog, something in between cottage and ricotta cheese, embodies the sort of richness the Orthodox Christians remove from their diet for the 40 days leading up to Easter Sunday. So, Maslenitsa is another one of those interesting overlapping areas of pre-Christian and Christian practices.

I had a fantastic time celebrating Maslenitsa with friends and Rotarians. On Saturday, I headed to Tolstoy’s winter home and the site of a museum in his name (on the way, I passed by Troubetzkoy Street, named after my ancestors!), where I met with Rotarians for a Maslenitsa celebration on the museum grounds. We danced, we sang, we ate bliny. What more could you ask for?! The organizer of the event was a German expat-Rotarian and member of the German-speaking club Moscow Humboldt, who is a professional event-planner here in Moscow. For the day, however, he was just a happy guy in a wolf-bear costume.

The following day, I went to church in the morning for the last non-Lenten Sunday service, called Forgiveness Sunday. Afterwards, I headed over to Kolomensky Park, where I met up with Russian friends Yulya from the Tambov in the south of Russia, Renat, a Russian Tatar from Uzbekistan, and Marina and Alyosha, both from the Russian Far East. Practically no one in Moscow is a local! I was warned this in the beginning, and it has proven to be true among the people I’ve gotten to know. We had a wonderful picnic of homemade bliny of various sorts, meat sandwiches, a jumbo thermos of hot, lemon-y, sweet tea, and a communal bottle of the fermented honey drink, mead. I couldn’t ask for a better introduction to the spring, shared with Russian friends and Rotarians. Pictures to come!

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