Russian Calendar

If May is cold, the harvest will be rich.

Russian proverb 

The old Russian name for the last month of spring is travny or traven (from the word trava – grass) or yaryets (in honor of the Slavic pagan Sun god Yarilo). Today's name for May (Mai) came to Russia from Byzantium, from the Goddess Maya. However, experts still don't know for sure whether the Greek goddess (of mountains) or the Roman (of fertility) is referred to. Note other Slavic names for May – tsveten (from the verb tsvesti to blossom) and rozotsvet (rose color). In any event, May is rich in holidays and festivals to suit all tastes.

May 1, Labor Day to Russians, is still a public holiday, though grandiose parades are a thing of the past. You'll see plenty of red flags on the streets, though, wielded by the ideological enemies of the current regime.

While celebrating the Day of Solidarity of the International Working Class, communists may neglect to recall what their predecessors did to the great Russian philosopher Vasily Rozanov, who was born May 5, 1856. Rozanov believed that the October Revolution was the anti-Christ. This is probably why the Bolsheviks never let him publish his work. He died of hunger as a result in Sergiyev-Posad in 1919.

May was marked by the birth of another famous Russian at odds with the communist regime, at a much later stage of its existence. On May 21, liberal Russians will celebrate the 75th anniversary of the birth of Nobel Prize-winning physicist and human rights activist Andrei Sakharov. Because of his courage and self-denial, honest Russian intellectuals still regard him as a saintly figure and Russia's conscience.

Russia's last emperor, Nicholas II, is also considered a saint in some circles, although for now his canonization has been postponed. Those with a keen interest in Russian history will recall that on May 14, 1896, he was crowned in the Assumption Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin.

May already has one (Orthodox) saint's day – May 6, celebrated as the feast of St. George. In Russia he is the patron saint of battle, and figures on the heraldry of both the country and its capital, Moscow.

Many Russians will be thinking of St. George three days later, on May 9 -- Victory Day (a day after VE Day in the West because of the time difference – the German capitulation came after midnight in Moscow). On this day Russia pays tribute to those who perished in the most devastating war the world has ever seen.

Connoisseurs of Russian literature will want to note May 15, the birthday of Mikhail Bulgakov (1891-1940), author of such world-famous novels as The Master and Margarita and The White Guard. Surprisingly, he never had to pay for his Ôsubversive' works with death or imprisonment in the camps. Instead, his health was broken after Stalin literally starved him of a means of existence.

Another Soviet dissident writer to be hounded by the authorities without them physically laying a finger on him was the poet Boris Pasternak. He won (and declined) the 1958 Nobel Prize for Literature for his world famous Doctor Zhivago, and passed away on May 30, 1960 after a campaign of persecution in the press. His loyal admirers will gather at his dacha-museum at Peredelkino, near Moscow.

Last but not least – in May 1906 the first Russian State Duma opened its inaugural session in St. Petersburg. It's a matter of opinion whether those first lawmakers would be proud of their equivalents today, but the fact that Russian legislative traditions are being revived at all is an achievement in itself.

The Ascension of the Savior

According to Russian traditions, the holiday of Voznesenye, the Ascension of the Savior, is celebrated on the 40th day from the Orthodox Easter. Like Easter, it depends on the dates of the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, and falls between the outside limits of May 13 and June 16. Orthodox believers work out the date of Easter (and therefore Ascension too) from a special Easter calendar, the paskhalii, compiled by the Church many years in advance.

This year Easter fell on April 14, therefore Ascension Day will be celebrated on May 23. The meaning of this holiday is described in the Acts of the Apostles. Forty days after his Resurrection, Christ appeared before his disciples and told them about the Kingdom of God on Earth, adding that He would leave them soon to join his Heavenly Father. However, he ordered his disciples to stay in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit descended on them. Thus the disciples witnessed the Ascension of Christ.

Believers consider Christ's Ascension to be the completion of his work on Earth. According to the Orthodox interpretation, God, in the form of Christ, having triumphed over death, showed every human being on earth that they can reach unseen spiritual heights if they really desire it.

"God became a man so that the man could become a God," wrote the Russian Saint Afanasy the Great.

"God came down to Earth so that we could rise up to the sky. This is what the Ascension holiday is all about," wrote archpriest Father Alexander Shmeman.

In the Russian folk calendar, this day is known as the Day of Remembrance of Parents and Ancestors. In order to appease them and the spirits of the fields, believers baked bliny, boiled eggs, and ate them at home or in the field during short breaks during work.

There is a popular saying: "As Ascension Day comes, Spring-the Beautiful will get rid of laziness and turn into summer, and work in the fields will begin." In order to commemorate Ascension, peasants baked huge elongated pies whose crust was topped with special strips of dough (no more than seven – it was believed that there were seven heavens). These pies were brought over to the church and blessed. Part of the pie was given to the clergy and the rest to the poor.

These pies were called lesenki or lestovki (from the Russian lestnitsa, meaning staircase). According to ritual, after prayer, worshippers would climb up the church bell tower and throw down their lesenki. Judging by the way the pie fell (horizontally, vertically etc.) they could predict which of the seven heavens the thrower of the pie would go to after his death.