Blini Day in Ropsha

Before I begin with the strange adventures of Friday, February 16^th, I want to pick up an ellipse I left in the last entry. Blini Day is, as I said, the culmination of Blini Week, the week proceeding the Eastern Orthodox season of Lent. I always try to explain the Russian historical and cultural aspects of my blog entries. So, I knew that Blini day somehow parallels Mardi Gras (a last chance for excess before Lent), but I had trouble explaining why. After much intense research (30 seconds on Wikipedia), I discovered a terrific explication: “The reason that pancakes are associated with the day preceding Lent is that the 40 days of Lent form a period of liturgical fasting, during which only the plainest foodstuffs may be eaten. Therefore, rich ingredients such as eggs, milk, and sugar are disposed of immediately prior to the commencement of the fast. Pancakes and doughnuts were therefore an efficient way of using up these perishable goods, besides providing a minor celebratory feast prior to the fast itself.”
Pancake Day is celebrated in the UK, Ireland, Poland, France, and many places. Samantha, our token Anglichanka (Англичанец/Англичанка/Англичанци – Englishperson), made pancakes to celebrate. They were delicious. One difference is that the English Pancake Day and Mardi Gras (French for Fat Tuesday) are both celebrated on the Tuesday preceding Ash Wednesday, while Blini Day is celebrated on a Friday. To Roman Catholics, and most of the western world, Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, then continues, for 40 days (not including Sundays) until Easter, however, on the Eastern Orthodox calendar, it begins on a Monday ('Clean Monday'). This brings up a subtlety of modern Russian culture: weeks begin on Monday. All calendars in Russia, (including the United Russia Poster that I found, and now adorns my room) start each week on Monday. Therefor, Monday is the logical choice for the beginning of the season of Lent.
Blini Day, arguably like our Christmas or Easter, is a Christian holiday with overtones reflecting the residual paganism of the geography. Christmas occurs annually during the Roman festival of Saturnalia. Easter, and many of the traditions surrounding it, occurs over pagan fertility celebrations, Carnival, and Shrove Day (now Pancake day). So, as far as holidays and their religious ties, it's not important to know where it came from or what came first-- just know that it's all mixed up. This is important to know, because, although Blini Day is part of Russian Orthodox Christianity, sometimes the festival seemed like a weird druid ritual.
Enough erudition! Onto the Adventure!
Friday was a weird day. We got the day off school (for the holiday), so, instead of sleeping in, a group of us (Keith, Dallas, Marty McFly, Yvette, Jesica, MaryMichelle, Katherine, and I) gathered at 7:30am to hop the Metro. Academicheskaya, the closest Metro station to where we live, is near the North end of the red line. We rode all the way to the southernmost station (a long way away), where we met Mikhail, the volunteer director at The Hermitage. Then we took a van an hour outside the city, to a small town called Ropsha. We were led out into the woods and into a set of ruins that was once a famous Romanov summer home. The crumbling, graffiti-covered walls were not at home in the snow-covered forest, in the middle of nowhere. Though, it apparently made for a sweet hang-out for local teenagers. After a quick breather, we continued to follow Mikhail deeper into the Russian wilderness. If you remember the part of The Hobbit where they have to go through Mirkwood Forest-- it was just like that, plus about 3 feet of snow. The ground wasn't flat, we constantly had to walk up and down small ridges, and we walked intermittently through pristine snow.
Finally, we came across a horse wearing a blanket, and a crowd of children and their chaparones. Many of the older youth were dressed in very old Russian garb that looked like how you might imagine a gypsy would dress, and several of them wore some type of floral pattern, or laurel-like wreaths. The adults organized the youth into a huge circle, then the eight of us, were stuck in wherever we fit. The costumed older youth put on a skit, and one girl, who was covered in leaves, stood on a stump and orchestrated the convocation.
After this, we broke up into smaller groups, a few Americans to each. At one station, the children took turns flipping a rubber pancake in a pan. At another, they rolled down a hill through the snow. Story goes that Keith got an award for his rolling ability. This isn't quiet fair because I heard that he does Varsity rolling at Mercyhurst, giving him the distinct advantage over elementary-school aged kids. After rolling, the kids ran out onto a frozen pond and wrestled and threw snow. Children took turns riding a horse-drawn sled. When I rode it, we got hit with branches all the way down the path, and at one point the horse broke out into a brisk trot, causing a sharp increase in ricketyness. My group went to one station where they sang a song about blini, accompanied by a guitar, a balalaika, and an assortment of home-made percussion instruments.

For about four hours in the blistering cold, we visited each of the stations with a posse of several young students. The cold didn't seem to be bothering the schoolkids, but when everyone was called back to reform the huge circle, we were eager to finish outside and go anywhere indoors. The older youth continued their play, which ended with all the children chanting... something. So the kids are chanting and two boys run out of the woods carrying a woman made of straw, dressed in a dress, shawl, hat and scarf. Then things got really weird. The brought the woman over to the fire and lit her up. As I stood, watching a life-size figure being burned, I wondered “What kind of weird pagan ritual am I taking part in?” It took three and a half minutes for the woman to burn, then the students threw some black knots into the dying fire, and the play was concluded. We found out later that the woman represented Winter, and as Spring comes, she melts (or burns) away, to everyone's joy. But, from the numbing cold, we could tell that the end of winter was not yet in sight.
The youth leaders cleaned up the snowy campsite, and the children started marching back out of the woods. We crossed an empty byway, into a tiny collection of houses. All along the way the children impressed us with their knowledge of English words and simple sentences. They all found it hilarious when anyone shouted “Little Fish!”. The most proficient of the youth, a twelve year old girl, served as a translator for such important topics as “What do you eat with blini?” Past the houses was their school building. At this point, most of our group was suffering hypothermia, and I found myself wondering which of my toes was the most important. Once inside, we stashed our coats in the coat room and were dragged into the cafeteria. Yvette, Marty and I sat at a table with three little girls, all about 8 years old. While we waited on our blini, we discussed such topics as foods, colors, and 20^th century Russian Literature. The little girl with yellow pigtails (pictured below) asked me if I had a daughter. Yikes! Gunsts' don't have daughters anyways, though. Women came around with trays and we each got 2 blini with sweetened condensed milk and black tea. Them janks was good.
We finished our blini and took our dirty dishes into the kitchen to be washed. Then, one of the schoolchildren took Yvette and I on a tour of the school. The best part was that this little 8 year-old wore a blazer while he showed some of the best features of his school. Yvette compared him to a real estate agent. We saw the library, where they have several aisles of children's books and reference books. Students were running us around the school to show us their gymnasium, classrooms, play areas, and their auditorium stage. Eventually, word got around that Katherine needed all the Americans back downstairs, so we all filtered back to the coat room to get our coats. Before we could leave we had to hug each little kid about a thousand times and promise that we would be back to visit. Kids were clinging onto us as we said good-bye. Jesica said they almost cried when she finally left, but guess what, they did cry when I left. Booya.
After we said our last goodbyes at the school, Mikhail led us through a neighborhood and down a byway towards a big building in an open field. The complex, made up of the main building and several facility structures, is one of the oldest fish hatcheries in the world. Inside we learned a little about the history of the hatchery, including a famous visit by Peter the Great and Katherine the Great. The posted information was funny because they kept using the phrase “fish culture”. Technically that is a correct literal translation, but still, “fish culture” sounds funny. Just after we got warm, we left the building and walked to an area where they had dozens of tanks holding different kinds of fish, in many different colors. The fish we saw were very big, usually between 12 to 24 inches. We walked from pool to pool until one of the weirdest events of the day transpired.
Two women exit the building, with a net and a wooden basket stand. One of them scoops up about a dozen fish, one at a time, out of a pool. Then, while holding one the fish down in the crate, proceeds to SMASH IT OVER THE HEAD WITH A HAMMER. I kid you not. It was one of the weirdest things I've seen in Russia. After she killed the fish, the women put them in plastic bags, and brought them back into the building. Watching a woman crack fish skulls was weird enough, and the sound was absolutely nauseating. Needless to say, I got the entire thing on film. It won't be posted here, because it's gross, and not very inciteful.
We left the fish hatchery, and walked back up the road, where we caught the van back to St. Petersburg. On the way back towards the city, Mikhail pointed out the estate of Vladimir Putin. The window was foggy, and it was fairly fleeting, so I didn't get any good pictures. However, it was a cool side note to our trip back. We also saw the mansion, and other buildings, including the visitors' village (where important figures, Presidents, etc. stay when they visit Putin).

UPDATE: Since the children at Ropsha enjoyed our visit so much, Mikhail is working on arranging trips for us to go back to visit and help the students practice their English.

Ah, a 7am sunrise over the smokestacks.

So... turns out it's illegal to take photos on the metro. Before I knew that, I took this photo to show what the most ornate station in St. Petersburg looks like.

We followed this path deep into the rural woodlands.

These are the ruins of one of the Romanov summer homes in Rophsa.

Children line up and march off to their different stations.

This is the sled we got to ride on.

Dallas, on the bottom left, poses with all the performers.

This is the cafeteria table where we ate blini. The girl on the left is the one that wondered if I had a daughter.

I posed with the Ropsha kids in this play-area.

Hugging goodbye to the students in Ropsha. Yvette was almost the same size as them.

Katherine is just so motherly. The dashing young man on the right was our Real Estate Agent.

Jesica, Keith, Yvette, Dallas, Marty, MaryMichelle and Katherine stood out in the fish hatchery, looking at two women scooping out fish.

This was the strange fish collection right before they brought out the hammer.