karelian for a day

You and I both know why you clicked on this post, so let's just get it out of the way first, shall we?

I know--you thought that was a real Karelian guy for a second, didn't you?

So here's the accompanying story: Sunday morning we met at Lenin Square and set off in our equivalent of the Partridge family bus for the tiny village of Konchezero.  How tiny?  Tiny enough that it took me about twenty minutes of searching through yandex (the Russian equivalent of Google) to find the name after I forgot it.  Along for the ride was the women's Russian folk choir that performs often in tandem with our Karelian group.  We were celebrating Maslenitsa, a religious folk holiday observed during the last week before Great Lent.  As I mentioned previously, it's essentially a Russian Mardi Gras, as they celebrate with all the food (dairy and meat) and activities (games, dancing, secular music) that will be prohibited during Lent.

The site of the festivities, and the largest building in the village.

Everything was outside, and we were very lucky to have a decently warm temperature (relatively speaking mind you, it was still below freezing).  The choir first sang a few songs.  Because we were outside, they used canned music, and sang along with the voices on the tape.  What was a little strange was that between the songs they had dialogues, and the women lip-synced the words.  After, it was our turn to lead the various spectators in a variety of dances and games.  As I was an active participant, I don't have any shots of the dancing (it was mostly just a lot of do-si-do'ing), but I do have some good ones of the various games.  First we had the tug-o-war:

The traditional Festivus Feats of Strength:

 

Then my favorite game, which featured an impromptu boxing ring supported by onlookers.  Andre (troupe leader and guy with the furry hat in the picture above) then selected two boys to be put in the ring, blindfolded, handed a pillow, spun three times, and told to sock the other boy.  The best were these last two, who were twin brothers:

Oh, and did I mention the bounce house?

Toward the end, they brought out an effigy of Lady Maslenitsa, also called Kostroma, and the choir danced and sang around it.  After they finished, Andre sprinkled it with vodka and set it on fire, symbolizing the end of Maslenitsa and the beginning of Great Lent.  But don't worry: I don't think it was very good vodka.

All in all it was a very fun day.  We got to eat some free blins afterwards, and I drank tea from an authentic Russian samovar, which was cool.

And the next day I went to cat show.  Only in Russia!

the inevitable has happened

I've joined a Karelian folk dancing troupe.  Now I bet you weren't expecting that when you read "the inevitable," but that just proves you don't know me.  Because everyone who knows me knows it's been my dream to be in a folk dancing troupe ever since I was an 18 year-old welder working in that steel mill in Pittsburgh.  Although now that I think about it, that may have been the premise of the movie Flashdance.  Either way, the important thing is I joined a folk group.

This is not a joke.

So how does one join such a group?  By saying "yes" to everything.  It started when folk-minded friends Olga (my original link to the folk community, you may remember), Lena, Dima, and Yuri invited me to join them at a Finno-Karelian folk concert last night.  At the concert, Dima insisted I come to their group rehearsal the following night for some dancing and an all-around good time.  So I did.  Turns out, I'm not totally terrible at the Karelian waltz.  In fact, I'm a bit of what you might call an idiot savant (though some would argue I'm just an idiot).  Either way, this resulted in Dima and a good portion of the ladies in the group insisting I join them for their performance on Sunday.  The troupe leader, Andre, seemed less than thrilled at the prospect, protesting that they only have twelve available seats on the bus (it's in a village).  After they made him count out about five times that only eleven people were set to go, he relented.

So on Sunday, I'll be climbing onto a bus in a garish red shirt and sash to go to a tiny village in the Karelian countryside to put on a performance celebrating Maslenitsa, an ancient religious/folk holiday that's a sort of Slavic Mardi Gras (with blins instead of beads).  Hard to imagine a more authentic Russo-Karelian experience than that.  Let no one say I've disregarded the Fulbright Program's imperative to immerse oneself in one's community!  Pictures of my embarrassing myself to come.  I mean come on, who needs more than one run-through of a dance repertoire before performing it, anyway?