This is a week of holidays. By accident of the calendar, five holidays are being celebrated in our household in a nine day period.
Easter is celebrated by the Orthodox church this year on May 1. This is the most important holiday in the church year, and for many Moldovans as well. The spirit in Tvarditsa the previous week has felt to me kind of like that week before Christmas in the U.S. – lots of special preparations being made and traditional foods being prepared. Easter is later than usual this year (I never understood how those dates get set on the Catholic calendar, either, but I suspect it’s a similar system in the Orthodox church), so the Ministry of Education decided to give a spring vacation later than usual as well. With a little over a month left in the school year, kids are on holiday May 2-6. Only they had to “make up” those missed days by attending school for the past month on Saturdays. Not a very fair deal, if you ask me.
Anyway, we start with Easter on Sunday, May 1. Saturday was a day full of preparations, including slaughtering and preparing some geese, baking breads, coloring eggs and preparing the many traditional dishes for the Easter meal. For people like Babushka, who have been “fasting” for the past 49 days (which means they haven’t been eating any meat, fish, eggs or dairy products) Easter means they can eat meat again. It is a day of visiting, eating, and relaxing.
Anna asked me if I’d be interested in attending the church services. Sure, I said. Then she told me that they start at 3:00 a.m. and I quickly changed my mind. Babushka is the church-goer in the family, and Anna occasionally jokes that they will get into heaven by standing close to Babushka. She was there, praying for all of us, in the middle of the night, returning home about 8 a.m.
May 1 also is Vova’s birthday (Anna and Georghi’s oldest son; Vova and Volodya, by the way, are nicknames for “Vladimir”). Throughout the day, friends will stop by for a glass of wine, some food, and a little visit. There is a big difference between the way Americans and Moldovans celebrate birthdays. In the U.S., it is traditional for friends and/or colleagues to initiate the celebration of someone’s birthday, to bring a cake to work maybe, or invite the birthday person out. We rarely throw a birthday party for ourselves, especially after childhood. In Moldova, the tradition is completely opposite. At work, the birthday person will bring food and wine and invite colleagues “to the table” to celebrate. Family and friends may stop by at home, announced or unannounced, but the birthday person should be prepared either way, with food and drink aplenty. This is an especially challenging cultural phenomenon for many PCVs, as it just feels so plain wrong to an American to bring your own birthday cake and invite people to celebrate your birthday. It seems somehow so immodest. But it’s not an act of immodesty here, and in fact people can become quite upset and even offended if you do not allow them the opportunity to celebrate your birthday.
But back to our week of holidays… May 6 is St. George’s Day. In the Orthodox Church, I think pretty much every day is designated as a particular saint’s day; sometimes even several saints will be commemorated in a single day. Some saint’s days are more “important” in the church, and these days are also designated as “postnii” or “fasting” days. Other saints’ days may be important to a particular community, or to a family or person. St. George’s Day is a very important day in the community of Tvarditsa. In fact, it was one of the first holidays I heard about even back in October on my initial site visit. I still don’t have the hang of all the history of it, but I am looking forward to experiencing it firsthand soon. Out past the far end of the village is a natural spring, said to have healing and spiritual qualities, and on St. George’s Day the priest will conduct a blessing ceremony there. Thousands of villagers will attend the early morning service, which is followed by a day of…, you guessed it, eating and drinking. This year, I heard that the Prime Minister will even be attending. It is a huge event for the village, but has an even more special meaning for our household. “George” in Russian is “Georghi”, and thus this day is a special day for my host father, who is named Georghi. This day will be an even bigger celebration in our household than Easter. It was nice that Sasha, their younger son, could come home for Easter, but it is more important that he comes back between hisuniversity graduation exams to celebrate St. George’s Day with his father.
Nine days after Easter, which would be Monday, May 9, this year, is a special day of remembrance of deceased relatives. PCVs have roughly translated it as “Easter for the Dead”, although that’s not exactly accurate. Families will go to the cemetery, leaving offerings of food and wine on graves, praying for and remembering their loved ones who have passed away.
May 9 is also Victory Day, a day to commemorate the Allied victory in World War II, or as it is known in the former Soviet Union, the Great Patriotic War. This is a tremendously important day for Russians as well as for the many nations devastated by that war. For half a century, in every city, town, and village of the Soviet Union, you could count of finding 2 things: a statue of V.I. Lenin and a World War II memorial. (By the way, Lenin’s birthday was a couple weeks ago.) You may not necessarily find the Lenin statue these days, but I’m sure the WWII memorial is still there. 20 million Soviet citizens died in the war, and nearly every person you meet in Eastern Europe had family member who died in the war. The mother of a friend of mine in St. Petersburg was the only one of seven children to survive the 900-day siege of Leningrad; all of her siblings died of illness, disease, malnutrition or starvation. So May 9 will have an added meaning this year, as we remember the victims and survivors of the Great Patriotic War as well as all the loved ones who have passed on.
I will squeeze in one more celebration this week, as May 6 is also Igor Wight’s birthday, a PCV in Cahul. His parents are visiting this week, and I am looking forward to meeting them Saturday night in Chisinau for Igor’s birthday dinner. Happy Birthday Igor!
Anka in Kyiv 