So it’s Pancake Week – Maslinitsa – in Russia, which commemorates either the end of winter or the beginning of Lent or some odd conflation of the two, with the mass eating of bliny (pancakes, yeah), mass drinking of medovukha (a honey wine of a sort), and, for reasons not immediately at my fingertips, mass fistfights. Today, the last day of Maslinitsa, is also Group Apology Day (my name for it – not the official one), where you apologize to your friends and loved ones for all the horrible things you’ve done to them throughout the year. Sort of like Yom Kippur, but with bliny and fistfights.
On today’s calendar of events was a parade from Triumfalnaya Ploschad (Victory Square, roughly) to Red Square, where every last damn pancake in Moscow was set to be consumed. I was psyched, because the parade route started about two stones’ throw from my apartment. I thought I’d catch the parade, join the procession down to Red Square, and see how many bliny I could eat and fistfights I could avoid.
The parade? Ah, not such a much. When I say that this is a representative photographic sample…
… I mean you’ve really pretty much seen it all.
And if you’re expecting an onslaught of bliny and fistfight photos, let me tell you now that you can forget it. It’s not that I didn’t try. I followed the procession all the way down to Red Square – but I couldn’t get in! As threadbare as the parade was, that’s how insanely crowded the bliny-fest was. I tried to work and worm my way through the crowd, got claustrophobic and… sad to say… kind of just gave up. Retraced my steps up Tverskaya to my flat. Fortunately, along the way I found a little side-festival featuring this hand-powered Ferris wheel…
… and one tiny, forlorn bliny stand.
So here’s my bliny…
and here’s me about to enjoy it.
Mm-mm, that’s some good eatin’!
Now, according to folklore, the bliny, round and yellow, symbolizes the sun and therefore the end of winter. Declaring winter over on March 1 in Moscow is certainly the very definition of wishful thinking, but by this time of year everyone is pretty much engaged in such as a fulltime activity. You’re just damn tired of gray. You want another color, and golden yellow sounds pretty appealing. So… bring on the pancakes and show winter the door! A useful fiction is a fiction, but useful just the same.
I haven’t been crippled by winter. It’s been such a mild one here, mostly with temps in the 20s and low 30s, only a few days of really “this is cold!” cold, and no days at all of “what the frick am I doing here?!” cold. That said, winter has really worn me down. Every trip down the sidewalk is a flirtation with falling, sunshine is just a dream people have, and exercise is something I vaguely remember. I’m tired of the food I’m eating, tired of my routine, tired of walking around not understanding a word (okay maybe a word) anyone says. Still loving my job – at least part of it, the cool sitcom development project part – but I’m ready to set it aside.
And so it is with some anticipation that I look forward to March 14, now less than two weeks away, when I’ll board that big-bird-in-sky and head west to the land of eternal sunshine (Los Angeles) and total economic collapse (pretty much all of America). I’ve loved my Moscow experience, and really gotten a lot out of it. I’m culturally smarter than I was. I’ve faced interesting challenges, and met most of them. I’ve played enough poker in Russian card rooms to know that I could kill the game here were it not that the smoke would kill me first. But my batteries badly need a recharge. Winter is over. Pancake Week says so. It’s time to go home.
Will I come back? Who knows? I serve at the pleasure of Uncle Sony. Would I come back? You betcha. The sitcom industry here has hit a serious bump in the road, no doubt about it, but it’s still a growth industry, and a great opportunity for someone with my skill set. I doubt I’ve seen the last of Mother Russia.
I just hope next time I can give winter a miss.
I’ll close this post with a photo of the only Lenin impersonator I’ve personally ever seen…
plus a basis for comparison.
Happy Pancake Week, everyone. Tell your loved ones you’re sorry.
More later, -jv
Please stay!
Posted by: Lenin Impersonator | March 01, 2009 at 09:13 AM