On March 5, 2021 at the Russian Center in Bratislava we celebrated Maslenitsa online.
Maslenitsa is a national holiday, accompanied by fun and festivities before Lent. It is timed to mark the farewell of winter and the welcome of the long-awaited spring.
The name of the holiday comes from the word "maslo" (butter), because the main dish of the week is pancakes eaten with butter. All this period, pancakes are baked and have fun, so sayings appeared: not life, but Maslenitsa! Not everything for the cat is Maslenitsa, there will be Great Lent! Pancake is not Maslenitsa!
The online meeting began with these sayings. Then participants discussed the main "Maslenitsa" rules, learned how to make a stuffed animal, looked at reproductions of paintings by great Russian artists (V.I.Surikov, B. Kustodiev, S. Kozhin, etc.), who colorfully conveyed the atmosphere of these days in their works.
The participants of the meeting compared the rules and traditions of the Russian Maslenitsa and the Slovak holiday Fashank. Fashank is the Slovak analogue of our Maslenitsa. It was found out that they have a lot in common. This topic interested not only the listeners of the Russian language courses, but also their loved ones who joined the event.
The meeting ended with watching a colorful fragment about the festivities on Maslenitsa from Nikita Mikhalkov's film "The Barber of Siberia".
In the following days of the holiday week, this topic will continue its procession. Russian language students will sing songs, read poetry and solve quizzes.