That Easter Blog

I’m not really feeling the blog today but am heading to Novosibirsk for a few days and also took part in a Magic the Gathering Tournament on Sunday so the amount I have to blog about is significant. Therefore I’ll get this Easter one out of the way as I said I would do it and then it won’t be hanging over me.

As said in the last post the Orthodox Church follows a different calendar so my Easter was a week later than Easter in England. However Easter really begins with Lent and Pancake day, the latter of which was the day after I arrived in Tomsk. I think it was a little disorientating to be honest, to be plunged straight into an aspect of Russian culture especially when I wasn’t fully aware of the calendar differences at the time. We did eat pancakes though and the following day Lent began.

The Orthodox Lent is a lot stricter than anywhere I’ve come across before. All meat and dairy products are forbidden, as well as eggs and mayonnaise and because of its strictness children don’t have to properly follow it. Fish is also allowed to be eaten on some days during Lent that are holidays but generally people eat a lot of different soups and potatoes. Church services are also apparently different, with the songs being more subdued, I haven’t been to an ‘average’ service yet but comparing Easter day to Palm Sunday, I guess there was a difference in tone. However Easter Sunday was always going to be one of the more exuberant services anyway.

Easter Week started with Palm Sunday, which I’ve already covered, but there are other special days during the week as well. Maundy Thursday for example in Russia is ‘Clean Thursday’, the most significant thing here being that after the evening service a candle bearing holy fire was brought home in a special lantern. This was then used to burn a cross on the ceiling in almost every room in the flat, I’d already noticed these crosses before (there’s one on the ceiling next to my window for example) but they are ‘re-done’ I suppose on the Thursday before Easter. I’ve also noticed them in the stairway over the stairs and the window too. This seems to be the usual place for them, that and over the icons as well, like in the kitchen.

Good Friday doesn’t seem to have as much going on, although I was told that there is a complete fast (as in not eating anything at all) until lunchtime. Similarly not much happened on the Saturday other than preparing for celebrations on Sunday, this is because we went to the night service on Saturday leaving no real time to prepare anything on the Sunday. I ended up feeling a bit confused as I went to bed at about 9pm and got up again at 11pm for the service. Apparently it was two services back to back (one for the Saturday and then one for Easter Sunday) and it went on until about 3/3:30am. The most notable features were: the procession around the church with candles while the church bell was rung and people producing large amounts of food at the end of the service for the priest to bless (like with the willow branches from the week before). Mostly people brought decorated eggs, large bready/cakey things and tvorog (sweetened curds pressed into a pyramid shape). I was also told that the egg shells would not be disposed of normally; they would probably be burnt because they had now been blessed and were holy. There were also many calls of “Христос воскресе!” (Christ is risen) with the response “Воистену воскресе!” (He is risen indeed) during the service, which is certainly a thing in common with English churches. After the service we came home and ate all the things that had been forbidden during lent and then went to bed at about 6am.

On Easter day my host family’s family turned up to celebrate at about 1pm and there was a lot of food and a lot of vodka (and of course toasts) and dancing and singing until about 6pm. Russian’s certainly know how to party.

So that was Easter really, apologies that it’s not written more enthusiastically but it truly was a great time and I enjoyed myself immensely. I should hopefully have more adventures to write about after Novosibirsk and I certainly want to mention the Magic Tournament at some point even though the majority of people reading this won’t know what it’s about.