CULTURAL BACKGROUND
Religion
Religion plays a prominent role in the public and spiritual life of today's Russia . The majority of believers belong to the Orthodox Christian denomination. Russia adopted Christianity under Prince Vladimir of Kiev in 988, in a ceremony patterned on Byzantine rites.
After the 1917 upheavals, the Russian Orthodox Church has traversed a hard and tragic road. The early years of the Soviet regime were particularly trying for it. The Land Decree of October 26, 1917 , deprived the Church of the bulk of its lands. The worst hit was the monasteries. In its another decree, made public on January 26, 1918 , the Council of People's Commissars (the government) separated the church from the state and school. As a result, all church organisations lost the powers of legal entity and the right to own property. To have the decree put into effect, a special liquidation committee was set up to evict the monks from their monasteries, many of which were destroyed, not without acts of vandalism, in which church utensils and bells were melted down and shrines containing relics were broken open.
In the late 1980s, with attempts launched to restructure the country's economic and political system, major changes were made in the relationship between the state and the Church in the hope of revival. The millennium of Christianity in Russia in 1988 was celebrated on a grand scale. That year, 1,610 new religious communities, most of them of the Orthodox belief, were registered in the country.
In 1990, a series of laws were passed on the freedom of religion, under which many of the existing restrictions were removed from religious communities, allowing them to step up their activities.
Nowadays statistics
With nearly 5,000 religious associations the Russian Orthodox Church accounts for over a half of the total number registered in Russia . Next in numbers come Moslem associations, about 3,000, Baptists, 450, Seventh Day Adventists, 120, Evangelicals, 120, Old Believers, over 200, Roman Catholics, 200, Krishnaites, 68, Buddhists, 80, Judaists, 50, and Unified Evangelical Lutherans, 39.
Some statisticians estimate the percentage of believers at 40 per cent of the entire Russian Federation . Close to 9,000 communities belonging to over forty confessions had been officially registered in the country.
The majority of religious Russians are Christians. The country has over 5,000 Russian Orthodox churches. Many are built anew or under repair on parish and local budget money.
National Holidays and Festivals
Russian holidays present a motley picture new and old, official and unofficial, professional and private, religious and secular. All occasions warrant a celebration. We describe here only a few principal holidays, in chronological order.
The New Year is first on the calendar and in popularity. Many celebrate it twice, on January 1 and 14 (which corresponds to January 1 in the Julian calendar, used in Russia before 1918.
Next is February 23, Soldier's Day, known until recently as Soviet Army Day, popularly viewed as holiday for all men and closely followed by its female counter-part, Women's Day, March 8, when women receive flowers, presents and are toasted by men.
Mayday, until recently officially termed International Workers' Solidarity Day, is now known as Spring and Labour Day. On some years, it occurs on or close to with Russian Orthodox Easter, so some people celebrate in church while some attend customary demonstrations.
Russia celebrates Victory Day on May 9 to commemorate the millions fallen in World War II. Flowers and wreaths are laid on wartime graves on this day, and veterans come out into the streets wearing their military orders and medals. Alas, there are fewer of them with every passing year.
June 12 is Russia 's newest holiday, Independence Day, which commemorates the adoption in 1991 of the Declaration of Sovereignty of the Russian Federation .
November 7 - the anniversary of the socialist revolution of October 1917, which established communist power still survives. The system is gone, but many still cling to the custom.
Church feasts have been reborn. Easter is celebrated nation-wide, as of old, and Christmas became a day off. Muslims Jews and Buddhists also celebrate their feasts without fear secular authorities.
Russian Cuisine
Original and varied, Russian cuisine is famous for exotic soups as ukha (fish soup), shchi (cabbage soup which is made of assorted meats), pokhlebka (thick broth), okroshka (cold vegetable soup). Russians are great lovers of pelmeni, small Siberian meat pies boiled in broth, bliny (pancakes) with sour cream or caviar, cabbage pie, beef a la Strogonoff.
Every housewife of any experience has her own recipes for pies, pickles, and sauerkraut. Even more varied is the choice of recipes for mushrooms, one of the most abundant and nourishing gifts of our woods. They are fried, pickled, salted, boiled and what not. "No dinner without bread," goes the Russian saying. Wheat loaves have dozens of varieties. As to rye bread, Russians eat more of it than any other nation of the world--another peculiarity of the Russian diet.
As the Russian custom has it, a festive table isn't worth this name without a bottle of vodka. Russians are traditionally hearty drinkers: as good whiskey shall come from Scotland , and port from Portugal , so Russian wheat vodka is the world's best. We have an amazing variety to offer, from the clear, colourless Moskovskaya and Stolichnaya to all kinds of bitters with herbs and spices.
Of our folk soft drinks, kvass is the best known. Made of brown bread or malted rye flour, it goes down best on a sultry summer day. If you add it to chopped-up meat and vegetables, you get okroshka, exquisite cold soup. Tea with lemon is the traditional Russian beverage.