Saturday-Monday

I don't know if I had mentioned that this entire past week (Sunday-Sunday) was the Russian festival of Maslenitsa. This is their version of Carnival, when they pig out of bliny (russian pancakes) until the beginning of Lent when they have to give them up. This is also the last remaining pagan holiday, so their are old pagan elements left over. The holiday also represents the end of winter, so at the end of the holiday, they burn a big straw doll to end winter and welcome the spring.

We had been told that there would be bliny everywhere, but truthfully, we didn't see them. Saturday afternoon, I set out with my friend Margo, wanting to find wooden bliny carts in parks and street corners everywhere. Sadly, we found none, and had to go to a restaurant and order bliny. Nice walk though...

Saturday night, I was supposed to go to a Mussorsky concert with my friend Katie who loves "Pictures at an Exhibition." It was performed at the Mariinski concert hall, which is very modern and actually not so nice inside. Also, the magazine we had read advertising the concert failed to mention that it wasn't the full orchestral version of the piece, so we listened to scenes of an opera, and a brass ensemble version of "Pictures" in a mostly empty auditorium.

Oh, Saturday was also International Women's Day, which means all the women get flowers and technically men are supposed to do all the work. As there are no men in my household, this didn't affect me.

Sunday was a bit more exciting. We had heard that there was actually an end of Maslenitsa festival on this island that is mostly a park. It's kind of far outside of town, but as we traveled further out on the metro and saw hundreds of kids also headed that way, we knew we were correct. The festival was crazy -- basically a carnival, but held in snow and freezing temperatures. There were stages with dancing, contests (like which woman can dance best with a broom, perfect to recreate gender roles the day after Women's Day), bliny eating contests, blacksmiths, etc. There were also rides, stands selling straw dolls to be burned, and kids on sleds everywhere. It was really fun to get to see, although we were so cold we couldn't stay until the doll burning. I have pictures of things, but my camera sadly isn't cooperating with my computer right now, but hopefully I'll fix it soon. It felt like a true Russian experience.

Today was fantastic! 40 degree weather and blue skies! I hung out with Katie on the icy, snowy waterfront near our house, basking in the sun in our down coats. Still fun. There were people walking all over the frozen water. It was so nice to have pretty weather, it made us very excited for the spring.

Also, forget to tell you the story my friend had about seeing a man hail an ambulance on the street. Turns out you can do that in Russia.

Ok, well I should go. I'm not sure if I'm addressing all the things that people are interested in, so if you have any topics you'd like me to cover, please, comment on my blog and let me know!