Hi All,
Orthodox Easter has arrived, and you know what that means. Another chance for my dear host mother (bless her soul) to stuff more food down my already overflowing esophagus. ("We've had one, yes." What about second breakfast? Elevensies? Dinner? Supper? Afternoon tea?") All is in good fun, though. Her cooking is impeccable. This morning we ate dyed eggs and a special Easter torte.Last night we headed off to church just before midnight for the beginning of Easter services, which basically involved a procession around the church, singing songs I didn't understand (disclaimer: They were in Church Slavonic, not modern Russian) and prayers featuring "Khristos Voskres!" (Christ is risen!). What my host mother had mysteriously omitted telling me was that the church she attends is IN THE MIDDLE OF A CEMETARY. Now, in principle I wouldn't have an issue with this. However, when you have to WALK there at MIDNIGHT on a night when people celebrate RESURRECTION ... not the most, shall we say, tranquilizing feeling. Added to that, the graveyard itself is pre-Soviet (meaning it wasn't kept up for 75 years) and much of the unlit road is overgrown with trees. This means that all you see are silouettes of crosses. Comforting. Yeah.
Speaking of deities, on Thursday our group returned from its last excursion, a three-day jaunt to Pskov, home of late poet Aleksander Sergeevich Pushkin (all bow.) The cult of Pushkin is far more serious and carried away than, say, the British love of Shakespeare, Austrians and their Mozart, or New Jerseyans and Springsteen. Pushkin could do no wrong. He was Russia. This was exemplified in our first few tours, which took us to estates of the poet's grandparents. Picture this: upper-middle-aged tour guide relating to bunch of students tales of pictures and landscapes that Pushkin's grandparents MAY HAVE SEEN AT SOME POINT IN THEIR LIVES. We saw three PINE TREES that REPLACED the ones Pushkin wrote a poem about. (The originals were leveled during Nazi occupation. Think the Siege of Leningrad was bad? What about the 28 million Russians that died in the war? No ... they KNOCKED DOWN PUSHKIN'S TREES!) We walked along paths that Pushkin once tread ("Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.") Well, fine, the Guide didn't go that far. But as for Pushkin's divine status in many Russian eyes, I'm not exaggerating. Pushkin builds stadiums. He lowers taxes. He challenges large oil companies. He is against weapons of mass destrucion. He loves you. You love him. He is Russia. Russia is he.
After Pushkin's lands, we headed off to Pskov and to a monestary whose name currently evades me. It was the only monestary in the former USSR which was not at some point shut down. (Stalin had a few debts to pay with the Orthodox Church for its efforts to revive patriotism during the war, so he never closed it. Personally, I don't see how someone who murders 100 million people can have debts with anyone, so I have a theory as to why he kept it open: PUSHKIN VISITED IT.) Although we couldn't enter any of the Churches (it was Holy Thursday and a lot of pilgrims were there. They get first dibs.), it was very interesting to see nonetheless. All the ladies in our group had to cover their heads and wear ankle-length skirts. It's an old Orthodoz tradition to do so, and plus, Pushkin probably would have wanted it that way.
Hope all is well in the land where the Red Sox hold a 3.5 game lead over the hated Pinstripers.
And should you, for some reason, need additonal reasons to root against them, remember this: The Yankees don't read Pushkin.
Matt
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