(Sorry this Easter entry is so late... internet troubles)
Apparently Easter in this part of the world starts the night before. Since Cat and I are fortunate enough to live just across the street from the Russian Orthodox church, most of the ESI teachers came over before the buses stopped running to hang out with us until the midnight service.
It started, as all evenings should, with us watching an Audrey Hepburn movie (Sabrina) badly dubbed in Russian. Then, around 11:30 the girls all doffed our head coverings and we walked down to the church. We could hear the music from our apartment. It was beautiful, alternating between the choir and the priests chanting. There were so many people there that not even half could fit inside the church. So they had set up cameras and microphones and projected everything on the outside wall. At midnight the bells rang and most of the crowd lit small candles they had brought with them. Then the priests came out carrying several things (I believe they were the icons of Jesus and the cross) and the crowd followed them as they circled the church once, chanting all the way. As limited as my Russian is, I only caught a few key words, but I trust I got the general idea. We left soon after, but apparently their Easter service began after that and continued until six in the morning. I must say, I’m glad I’m a Protestant and our service wasn’t until 10 am!
The next morning we had our Easter service, which was interesting, involving a pretty elaborate skit in Russian that I only partially understood. But I definitely enjoyed watching Kostya play the devil. After church there was a tea and everyone was milling around talking and wishing each other happy Easter in Russian. I actually really like the way they do it. They say , which means Christ is risen!, and the response is , which means He is risen in you. I really like that, though I could never quite remember the response on the spot. The solution to this, of course is to always be the one who says it first! It almost felt like a race sometimes.
The next day all our Russian students were wishing us a happy Easter and bringing us Easter bread and cards. The thing is, neither Cat or I really liked the bread, and so now we have three just sitting on our counter until we finally decide to just throw them away. Oh well. All in all, it was a fun and different way to celebrate the holiday. Good times.
