Women’s Day is past and now we march on to the next upcoming major day in Russian culture, the observation of Easter. I’ll describe more about Easter and it’s importance to Russian people in another post as we get closer to the day. I just mention it here because it’s good to stay up with these holidays if you have or want to have a Russian woman in your life. Look at it this way men. If you marry a Russian woman, because some of their holidays are identical to ours, you get to double-dip.
Russian people love to celebrate. They love parties and to check in with and congratulate each other on the occasion of each holiday. This is more than just a mechanism to have a good time. It’s a way for them to maintain close connections with family and friends. They do this, in my opinion, much more so than do we in the west. I don’t fully understand this, but it’s my observation that in the west the act of maintaining connection is performed somewhat as an “obligation”. In Russian culture, it’s performed as an “opportunity”.
It’s also my observation that the process of connection in Russian culture is primarily accomplished by women and in that capacity they act as the glue that keeps family and community bound closely together.
So at our home on Women’s Day, the telephone was extremely busy. There were many calls to and from people located literally across the globe - - here in America and as well in Ukraine and far into Siberia. Time zone differences (15 hours to Siberia, 10 hours to Ukraine) emphasized the duration of this connection celebration.
Between telephone sessions, Read the rest of this entry »
