A Successful Slavic Shrovetide by Sadovaya

It is now three days since the Maslenitsa celebrations and, coincidentally, St. Patrick’s Day. All of us have recovered from pancake-induced comas and the ‘irish’ among us from hangovers.

Now I shall tell you the tale of Maslenitsa in Saint Petersburg.

It was Iuspovoskii park (m. Sennaya Ploshad’/Spasskaya/Sadovaya) whither ‘Team-Let’s-Get-Cultured’ ventured to uphold their erudite name. A rather spectacular slip on the ice upon first arriving in the park might have given the Russians the impression the Team was combining two celebrations. However, upon seeing that we were merely too foreign to remain vertical in such frozen, icy conditions, our reputation remained intact.  

Onwards we moved, past brave Russian children sledging at break-neck speed down a treacherous-looking hill. The lake which formerly dominated the park was, naturally, a frozen white death-trap. In order to prove our foreign-ness does not extend to lack of courage, we took on such a mammoth task and succeeded. [Cue: ‘Why did the students cross the pond?’ jokes]

Smugly enjoying our success we were met by a Tsar and Tsarina singing traditional Russian songs, men taking turns in climbing up a tall pole and shirtless-in-the-snow young lads ‘wrestling’. Fascinated by the pluck of the latter, we resolved that we will never be quite as daring as the Russians.

After standing for fifteen more minutes transfixed by an improvised Ice-Skating Show, we left to warm ourselves in the stolovaya. Unfortunately our ability to stand the cold was not as finely-tuned as that of many Russians, and so we missed the burning of ‘Lady Maslenitsa’, who symbolizes winter. 

Nevertheless, culture was experienced and our mission was accomplished.  Excellent. 

Literally 'we congratulate'. A better translation would be 'Happy Shrovetide!'

A typical example of Maslenitsa dolls and ginger biscuits

Another take on the Maslenitsa doll, with breadstick-like 'sushki' rings

The Maslenitsa doll ready for burning Guy-Fawkes-style

A modern take on Russian fist-fighting

A Very International Shrovetide

Shrovetide officially began on Monday. However, things don’t really kick off until Saturday, since most people have school/University/jobs which means the inevitable pancake-induced food-coma has to wait until then.

Nevertheless, I have my own pancake party to share with you. This was a perfect example of Russian hospitality and tradition. The samovar was cleaned to shiny centre-piece perfection. There were mushroom pancakes, pancakes with caviar, garlic-mayonnaise pancakes and, just for the desperately English among us, pancakes with Golden Syrup. (Yes. I did.)

The Pancake Party also coincided with International Women’s Day (not so international since England doesn’t celebrate it?) This is a day when women are given flowers, chocolates and other presents and their existence is generally celebrated by all, themselves included. This is also a day when the men are supposed to do ‘women’s work’. I have learnt that it is unwise to bring up the word ‘feminism’ with my Russian friends, and so did not ask for them to expand on the definition of ‘women’s work’. (That is another story altogether.)

The students among us knew our place and so set up camp on cushions on the floor (after all, we all know you will become infertile if you sit on the cold floor). Since we (the students) hailed from all over Europe, English was the easier common-language than Russian. However, Russia was still in presence en masse, and so English was only used to summarize our long, convoluted Russian conversations. But, I do think we succeeded in not giving the impression we were rude or cunningly plotting Maslenitsa fist-fights all over the city. Excellent.

So, perhaps the only Russian part of our Shrovetide celebrations to date has been the presence of a samovar and some Russian friends? However, this weekend will surely correct our experience of Russian Orthodox Shrovetide and, hopefully, not involve too many hospitalizations from fist-fight injuries or pancakes. 

The Pancake Table

A few of us still-standing after the celebrations!

Winter Wanderlust

Piter is grey and unforgiving this time of year. Every pavement is awash with slush and black ice and neither is preferable to the other. It is certainly a time when moody self-reflection triumphs and recurring dreams of sprawling across a green lawn under the hot summer sun in Sussex torment.

The other day I went to the far-western side of Vasilevskii Island to the Gulf of Finland. The view was one of hostile wintry whiteness, a harsh and frosty landscape looking out into the frozen nothingness between Russia and Finland. This certainly offered some respite from worries and heartache for your mind becomes as blank as the scenery.

It is hard to remain positive and cheerful when the weather is so brutally set against you. Crippling Wanderlust turns the inner monologue of even the most determined Year Abroad student into a tornado of negative emotions and guilt. “You should be enjoying yourself”, “How many other people get such a wonderful opportunity?”

However, thinking this way will get me nowhere. June will come quickly and then I’ll want to stay in Piter, such is the schizophrenic nature of my Wanderlust.

So, I suppose I must take comfort in the fact that the sun will again rise over Piter and this ‘skyka’, ‘toska’ or whatever the appropriate Russian word for this type of unhappiness is (for there are many..) will be short-lived.

Either that, or I’ll just obsess about this coming Summer when the only ice around me will be that floating in my glass of Pimms.