Maslenitsa: Pt. 1

EDIT: I fixed the video (for anyone who already read the post). I guess I linked the same video for both Maslenitsa posts. Now you can actually see my incredible battle.



This past week was an important holiday week in Russia, Масленица (Maslenitsa), which began on Monday.

Maslenitsa literally means "butter week," and that's what you eat a lot of during the course of the week. Well, you eat a lot of stuff made with butter, anyway - namely, блини (blini) or pancakes. Maslenitsa is the week during which Russians say goodbye to winter and welcome spring. Blini are the perfect food for such an occasion due to the pancake's sun-like appearance.

Anyway, to commemorate this holiday week, we had two excursions - one on Wednesday, which took us to the Ismailova Kremlin for a first-hand explanation of Maslenitsa, and one today, where we went to the Red Square for the larger conclusion ceremony to the week. The first one would turn out to be much better, but I'll get to that soon.

On Wednesday, we met at the GRINT building and set off for the metro. We made our way to the Partizanskaya station (formerly Izmailovsky Park), got out, and walked to the Izmailovo market (a place with which I am very familiar at this point). Instead of going in, we turned left and headed for the Izmailovo Kremlin.

A building in the Kremlin courtyard.

Me inside the Kremlin.

Lena told us that they had arranged for us to have our own private session with...a clown?

That's our Maslenitsa guide.

She explained (through Lena) that there is a different activity/game for each day of Maslenitsa. The first one, for Monday, is kind of like...ring around the rosie I think? Our clown empress stood in the middle of a circle formed by our group of foreign students, yelling kiddie gibberish and pointing to a body part. Now, whatever body part she pointed to, we had to grab on the person to our right and continue to walk in a circle. That wasn't so bad when she pointed to the hand or the elbow, but then she moved to the nose...the butt...the shoe...the horror...

Other games were far less unique - like a tug of war between team Winter and team Spring (team Winter won! WOO!) and a race between two teams on one pair of skis each. Those were far less fun and interesting.

This is right before I fell on my face. Pro tip: Long jumps in the snow is not a sound strategy

However, one game that came up (which was my favorite) was a game where two males have to stand on one leg with both arms at their sides in a kind of Superman pose. Once in this position they have to duel and try and knock the other person to the ground without deviating from this stance (at least not too much). If I remember correctly, the winner gets to choose a woman to be his wife (or like, that's what you used to do, something like that).

Anyway, I took part in two battles - both with Sam(wise). The first duel was unexceptional. I misjudged how much grip my shoes could get on the snow, charged him when the match started and quickly lost my footing and fell. However, the Maslenitsa spirits heard my plea for a rematch, and I got my wish. The following footage depicts that second match.

I won.



After that the clown took us to a metal tree that looked a lot like the metal trees on a bridge in Moscow, on which newlyweds attach a lock to symbolize their love. This was a tree for making wishes, the clown explained. She said that we could all put our hands on the tree and make a wish. I wished for a good hat. (I'll explain why when I talk about Izmailovo).

The wish tree thing.

After that we went into the blini building, had some delicious blini and tea, and chatted with our clown.

And so our first Maslenitsa excursion was over, but...like, like I said, there was another one.