Easter Bunny, bawk, bawk

Sunday 27 April is Orthodox Easter. On Saturday, Helena got up at 6am to begin cooking. She is an excellent cook and in particular, an amazing baker. She made 6 or so loaves of bread, 3 of which were intricately decorated w/ small pieces of dough. I photographed them, so they will eventually be up on my website.

When I got back from Russian class on Sat., I watched how they decorated egg. Helena brought from outside some small leaves, I think just weeds, but ones w/ pretty leaves. She wet the leaves and placed them on the egg surface, then wrapped a piece of cut up panty hose around, tying this with string to secure it. She’d had about 8 onions worth of onion skin boiling for some time, and this had created a natural yellow-orange dye. She boiled the eggs in this mixture for 7 minutes and then unwrapped them. I also photographed these, and they were so pretty and natural looking. They sort of reminded me of a Martha Stewart project, but really I think that woman has tainted the notion all crafts and rustic arts for my generation. Uck. It’s like she has taken the notion of making something pretty by hand at home and patented it and co-opted the idea for her own profit. Don’t even get me started.

Sunday morning at 4am, we got up, and at 4:45am, walked down to the church. It was cold. It was dark. I am quite the morning person, so my language skills were really at their best at that early hour. Not. As we walked, we were soon in a large crowd of people, all carrying baskets w/ embroidered fabric covering them. The baskets were filled with kolbasa, meat, the decorated bread (either homemade or store bought, as some people are moving away from traditional arts), decorated eggs and candles.

I could hear the bells ringing as we approached and soon we were walking among a huge throng in the rising light. We met a friend of Ira’s along the way and all walked together.

At the church, which is partly under construction as so many are here (churches were prohibited during Soviet times, so they’re still being built and enlarged some 10 years after independence), we stood in a curving line of people, all with baskets in front of them on the ground, waiting for the priest to come and bless us and our baskets of food. We unfortunately stood under the bell tower and those bells that sounded so pretty half a km. away were less melodic just above head.

After some time, a beared and bespectacled priest came around. He carried a small, handmade broom that is ubiquitous here. His helper carried a bucket of water and the priest liberally splashed water on people and baskets alike, saying all the while, “Kristos Vas Kres - Jesus has risen.” I only got a little water sprayed on me, as I was cowering behind Ira like the unbaptized person I am, but many people were quite drenched. Hey, it was cold and I’m not an Orthodox Catholic, so little holy water was wasted on me.

We got home around 7am and Helena, who apparently enjoys cooking for this holiday, but not getting up early to get wet for it, was waiting. She spread out all the food she’d spent the day before preparing and that we’d had blessed: pork roast, roasted chicken, the fancy breads (some rolled w/ raisins, some rolled w/ poppy seed and raisin), a very typical Ukrainian salad (krab, canned corn, rice, onion and mayo) and also the ubiquitious kolbasa and cheese. We opened a bottle of the sweet dessert wine that Ira so loves and toasted: “Kristos Vas Kres - Jesus has risen” and then the reply, “Vaistas Vas Kras - it is true he has risen.” It is tradition to say this 3 times.

We then played a game I don’t understand entirely, but which involves trying to break another person’s egg shell. I think I won, but maybe they were being polite.

Then we slept til about 1pm and then got up and ate again. I like this holiday, except for those damn bells.