Ah, late winter/early spring in Moscow, a lovely time of the year! If you aren’t busy freezing your balls off as Father Frost unleashes his final fit of rage or joining the army of sleepy zombies who haven’t seen the sun in five months, then you can enjoy the wonderful sights revealed by the melting snow—a black slurry of cigarette butts, syringes, dog poo and corpses in advanced stages of decomposition.

Russian carnival carnage!

“The spring will show who shat where” – Russian proverb

In many senses, early spring is even shittier than mid-winter. Everybody is depressed and vitamin-deficient, and every day seems longer and longer. Which is why our ancestors from pre-Christian, pagan Russia used to engage in what is now called ’sympathetic magic’ by eggheads in fancy lab coats: they would bake sun-shaped pancakes (blini) and burn straw effigies of an old ugly hag which is, obviously, Winter. And of course— they would also get piss-drunk on mead and fuck like animals.

This wonderful way of celebrating spring with drunken, fiery mayhem is one of the few pagan traditions that survived not only Christianisation, but all the other -sations that blighted all kinds of older traditions. It is now known as Maslenitsa, which can be roughly translated as “The Butterweek” (nobody quite knows why exactly) and is somewhat equal to Shrove/Fat Tuesday, although with more booze and hilarity. Oh, and it’s longer—it lasts the whole week before Lent.

Blini cakes galore

Like all carnivals, Maslenitsa is centered around food and is famous for its numerous cases of lethal overnutrition. Ivan Andreevich Krylov, one of Russia’s greatest poets whose fables we all learn before even starting to walk, died of a stroke on Maslenitsa after downing over eighty pancakes. Before dinner, that is. And we are not talking those ridiculous little crepes – a proper Russian blin is at least half a foot in diameter and stuffed.

The essentials for Russian blini (and life). Photo Credit: Dmitry Chernishev

Blini stuffing is a science in itself, but the five most popular (as illustrated in the blini pyramid) are zgushchonka (sweet condensed milk), smetana (thick soured cream), selyodka, smoked salmon (or brined herring), honey, and caviar. Since real sturgeon caviar is virtually non-existent these days and thus costs almost its weight in gold, the red variety is its most common substitute.

The most traditional occasion of eating blinis is at your mother-in-law’s dinner, where you compete with your other in-laws to eat as many as possible—all the while washing them down with cold vodka. This combination is not as gross as it sounds – chemistry-savvy readers know that ethylene alcohol breaks down fats. For a classic description of a Maslenitsa dinner, please refer to Chekhov’s short story “On temporality” (a synopsis can be found here).

Maslenitsa offers much more entertainment besides overeating. Russians also split in two teams that defend or besiege a gigantic castle made of snow, engage in mass fights, go to banya to wash away all the excesses and generally use every opportunity to have fun and meet friends.

A London Maslenitsa? Bah!

Since there are more Russian-speaking people around the world than in Russia itself (that includes Ukrainians and Belorussians who are effectively Russians in most aspects except for comically distorted versions of our language), Maslenitsa is widely celebrated in every major city. Naturally, there will be a Maslenitsa in London—albeit only a pale semblance of its glorious self, I imagine. There’s not enough snow in London to make a snowball to hurl at your mates — let alone a castle to besiege— and the effigy burning will most probably be banned due to some ridiculous ‘fire safety regulations’.

What’s left is, of course, blinis, vodka and music. The official London Maslenitsa programme is usually beyond kitsch—all these excruciatingly awful faux-folklore acts like Nadezhda Babkina or other shit you can’t pronounce anyway. The only reason for including these is ‘popular demand’, although yours truly would like to stress that he tries to stay as far as possible from people who demand such things.

To this year’s organisers’ credit, there are some genuinely interesting bands on the line-up. Don’t forget to check out Pelageya, a rock chick slash folk diva with an incredibly rich voice and Terem Quartet, a sort of ethno-jazz project with traditional instruments like the balalaika. Which is, by the way, incredibly hard to play despite having only three strings. Another act worth listening to is Billy’s Band, the closest a Russian singer has ever come to emulating Tom Waits (who is, curiously enough, a well-known Russophobe).

It all may look and sound wacky, but that’s the way we are—and proud of it! Happy Maslenitsa and see you there.

More from our Angry Russian:
Angry Russian on the ‘Big Freeze’
Angry Russian on vodka literacy
Rants by an Angry Russian

Related Posts:

• July 23, 2010 -- The Angry Russian on chavs and the Chap Olympiad
• July 19, 2010 -- The Angry Russian on his artistic Angry compatriots
• May 21, 2010 -- Spring picnics in London’s parks!
• May 3, 2010 -- The Angry Russian versus May Day in London