Russia's grandest traditional festival

Thanksgiving is the biggest of the traditional festivals. It falls in the eighth week before Easter and lasts for seven days. Each day is different according to folk custom. The first day is the Day of Welcoming Spring; the second day is the Day of Entertainment; the third day is the Day of Food; the fourth day is the Day of Drunkenness; the fifth day is the Day of the Mother-in-Law's Party ( the mother-in law feasts her newly married son-in-law on this day); the sixth day is the Day of the Little Nuns' Meeting of New Sisters-in-Law ( the day when an unmarried woman visits her fiancé's sisters); and the seventh day is the Day of the Sending of the Winter and of Forgiveness ( when people visit each other's doors to ask for forgiveness for what they have said or done).

Today, the festival has become a historical term. The festival has evolved into the "Russian Winter Carnival", also known as the "Winter Sending Festival". The old and outdated rituals have disappeared, and people celebrate the festival in their own way, celebrating the coming of spring and spring planting. The timing of the festival varies across the country, and is generally held on the last Sunday in February or the first or second Sunday in March.

During the festival, there are colorful cultural and sports performances, distinctive amusement activities, and a huge parade in costume. This is a mass carnival, from children to the elderly can participate. They wear a variety of masks, wearing strange costumes, some dressed as a king, some dressed as a noblewoman, some dressed as priests and samurai ...... parade is also selected after the end of the best costume awards.

In addition, people also like to ride with garlands, ribbons, bells decorated with three-horse horse-drawn sleighs, Mercedes-Benz in the white fields, to enjoy the beauty of nature.

2. Spring Farming Festival

The Spring Farming Festival is usually held every year when the snow has melted and spring production is about to begin.

On the spring plowing festival, the ancient Russians used to eat plow-shaped and harrow-shaped bread baked from rye; on the first day of spring plowing, they went down to the ground in clean clothes, carrying bread, salt, and eggs. When three furrows had been plowed, they took out the bread and salt, ate some for themselves, and fed the rest to the oxen, after which they buried the eggs in the earth as a sacrifice to the earth, and prayed for good weather and good harvests for the year.

Today, Russian farmers have not only preserved this ritual, but also added new elements. On the day of the spring plowing festival, villagers hold a grand ceremony to send off the tractor drivers to start plowing. The village girls are disguised as spring girls and fairies, and they ride in a colorful car driving in the forefront of the spring plowing procession, followed by the villagers in costume, and then behind them are tractors, seeders, and the last is the car loaded with huge rye bread, in which two girls in full dress stand as escorts. In the field, a woman with a golden crown on her head and a brown robe dressed as Mother Earth, accompanied by four teenagers, came to the front of the spring planting procession. After the spring maiden presents her with white snowball flowers, the maidens hold up a large loaf of festive rye bread. Mother Earth breaks the bread and throws it to the crowd. Then the band played a majestic music, the best tractor driver plowed the first furrow, spring plowing officially began.

3, Poetry Festival

June 6 is the Russian Poetry Festival. This festival is set up to commemorate the great Russian poet Pushkin, because he was born on June 6, 1799, he is famous not only in Russia, but also known all over the world. His famous works, such as the long narrative poem "Yevgeny Onegin" and the novel "The Captain's Daughter", are very popular among readers, and Russians consider Pushkin to be the founder of the national standardized language. Since June 6, 1880, Poetry Day has also been called Pushkin Day, on which day a monument to Pushkin was erected on Pushkin Square, the first monument to the poet built by Russians.

Russians generally celebrate Pushkin Day in Moscow and St. Petersburg, where Pushkin lived. People watch actors, scholars, and poets perform Pushkin's works, and everything people say on this day relates to the poet and his works.

4, Birch Festival

June 24 is the Birch Festival of the Russians, which was originally known as Summer Festival. The main character of this festival is the birch tree. Birch is a symbol of Russia, Russia's "national tree".

On the day of the festival, people use birch trees to decorate all corners of their homes, buy "birch twigs bath broom" as a souvenir of the festival, and decorate the windows of stores with patterns and symbols made from the bark of the birch tree. People come to parks, squares, riversides, and forest clearings, sit on the grass and under the shade of trees, drink beer and other beverages, sing, dance, and play games until the next morning. For farmers who work hard all year round, have fun on Birch Day, can eliminate fatigue, so that they can be energized into the intense wheat harvest.