What is Shrovetide
Maslenitsa is one of the most popular holidays in the people, the most noisy and cheerful holiday in the national calendar. Moreover, every year the Shrovetide’s time changes, because it is a “passing” holiday, the time of which depends on when this year Easter will be celebrated (to be celebrated on the first Sunday after the vernal equinox and full moon). On the turn from winter to spring in Russia, for the first time on Pancake week, winter maidens were chanting. However, Maslenitsa originates in the pagan traditions of our distant ancestors – the ancient Slavs, who at the end of February – early March arranged for the departure of Winter – a holiday dedicated to the emerging Sun. Therefore, the emblem of this ancient holiday was a pancake, as a sign of the Sun.
In general, a real national holiday in different countries is a winter holiday, or early spring, or late autumn, because in the middle of the year it is not up to dances: we must
In the Christian religion, an oily or meaty week – on which believers are already forbidden to eat meat, but fish, eggs and dairy products are still allowed on all days. This is the last week before the strict time of Lent, therefore the people aspire during it to regulate, walk up and have fun for future use.
Our ancestors Pancake week was celebrated everywhere with masquerade processions, skiing with ice hills, sleigh rides and carousels, visits to guests, booths, ritual bonfires, the glorification of newlyweds, games and fights. In beauty, poetry, traditions and mischief it is one of the longest and funniest pre-spring holidays on the eve of Lent.
Finally, Shrovetide is called triznoy for the dead winter-cold. Russia is a winter and a cold country. That’s why seeing off the winter is always a holiday. People, forgetting about the cold, endless winter nights, about melancholy and sadness, drank glasses with wine, baked ruddy and hot, like the sun itself, pancakes and rejoiced heartily.
In 1722, on the occasion of the conclusion of peace with Sweden, Peter I, in the presence of foreign ambassadors, opened the festival with a beautiful spectacle. Himself in a dress uniform went on snowdrifts on a “ship”, harnessed by sixteen horses. Further on, the sledges were moved by other ships. The cannons were filling. That’s how they celebrated the Carnival with Peter I.
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