Ukrainian Easter

April 26, 2011 at 6:01 pm (The Category-less Category)

Svyatogorsk Monastery

Considering the way Easter went down last year (read the Easter post from last year), I was determined to do something culturally appreciative this time around. No getting stuck without a bus ticket this year…a mantra that came back to bite me in the butt in the last hours of the weekend, but I’ll explain later.

I left my apartment at 6:30 in the a.m. on Saturday, beginning what would end up to be a 10 hour trek via 5 separate buses to the monastery town of Svyatogorsk.

(A name which I could not say correctly the entire weekend–intermingling our destination with previous ones such as Slavske and Slavyansk. It was almost painful, the amount of thought my brain required as I tried to spit the right name out of my mouth. Some days you just feel stupid. Other days, you travel for 10 hours and become incapable of remembering where you are going. That day was a mixture of the two.)

I didn’t see much of the town, but my Ukrainian bus neighbor informed me on our way up that it is much prettier in the winter. I could not quite convey my disagreement, as I am very aware of the “beauty” of Ukrainian winters. It’s the kind of beauty with which you fall in love for the first 2 weeks or so, so thankful are you to have all the formerly Soviet dirtiness covered in fresh white snow. But then, almost abruptly and very painfully, the honeymoon ends, and the cold, at least for me, makes it impossible to find anything beautiful left in such snowy, windy misery. But this kid said it was pretty. He’s entitled to his opinion, I guess. And I’m entitled to not really believe him.

The monastery is very beautiful. It’s a complex of huge white churches and buildings, each topped with either blue or green, gold-star studded domes. The churches are nestled along the white cliffs of a large hill that overlooks a river, and I can only imagine that before the jewelry store, fancy restaurants and bazaar booths were built just on the other side of the river, the pristine simplicity of this monastery was a true haven for relaxation and reflection.

Like most old buildings in Ukraine, it has a history studded with Soviet complications. Less than 20 years ago, this monastery wasn’t even allowed to be a monastery. It was used as a sanitarium, a kind of vacation resort, instead. There is a huge statue of the Soviet hero Artyom (don’t know his last name…), which sits on the larger hill to the monastery’s left, essentially looking down on it. Apparently the monks of the monastery have tried to get rid of him, reasons having something to do with the fact that he is taller than the cross on the church, but they weren’t so successful.

Easter Baskets Waiting for a Blessing

We set up tents along the river about a 10 minute walk from the base of the monastery’s hill. The weather has FINALLY moved on to that stage of, rather than being less cold, actually having warmth. Great camping weather, up until it got cold that night. But that fact was far overshadowed by the bells of the monastery.

In Orthodoxy, Easter service starts at midnight. There’s a big procession in which everyone walks around the church grounds, and there’s a lot of the priest saying “Christ is risen,” and the congregation replying, “Truly he is” (or something to that effect). After the march, everyone goes back into the church, and the service continues until the crescendo around 3 or 4 a.m. (depending on the church). At this time, all the priests leave the church, and all the people form a line around it. Everyone brings an Easter basket full of food: painted eggs, special Easter bread with a candle stuck in the middle, maybe some cognac or vodka, sausage. (The guys standing next to me clearly put their basket together without the help of a baba: they had 2 candy bars, a few apples and some vodka sitting in a plastic container. But they got the point.) As the priests parade around the church, they literally soak each basket with holy water. And this continues for hours. Seriously, they do laps around the church until sometime long after the sun has risen.

Monastery Grounds on Easter Day

Because our group didn’t want to leave our campsite unattended, we went to the service in shifts. I got the 4 a.m. portion. Honestly, the bells started ringing regularly at 10:45, and I was almost relieved to have an excuse to just give up trying to fight them. To enter the monastery grounds, women must have their heads and knees covered. But pants don’t count. Unless you wear pants and then wrap a scarf around your pants. It doesn’t even matter if the scarf is see-through and doesn’t quite cover all of your legs. You just have to put in the effort. So, Katelyn and I donned our scarves, and along with Ben and Chris we made our way up to the church. We got there just as everyone began lining up their baskets, and we thought we had snagged ourselves a pretty prime spot. But after 30 minutes of waiting for the procession to make its way to us, the priests made an unexpected left turn, and the 100s of people standing around us began a mad dash up the church stairs to catch the priests on their loop back. I was carried up the stairs with this wave, and somehow ended up in the front row right behind someone’s basket. Whoever owned it must have been stuck in the mass of people crowded behind me, and I could only focus on not tripping over the baskets at my feet. As the procession got closer to us, the crowd behind began to push forward. I was forced to step over the baskets, and just as I turned to catch my balance, one of the priests splashed about 2 cups of water, meant for the baskets, right into my face. I turned to see the babas yelling “Indeed, Christ is risen” with blissful smiles on their faces, and I was immediately struck by the enjoyment and happiness of the whole moment.

Ukrainian Easter Basket

In all my Easter Sunday masses, I don’t think I’ve ever seen people so, um, I don’t really know what the word is; maybe religiously happy. I’m referring to these women in particular, their source of happiness. I mean, of course at past Easter services I’ve attended people are happy, but I think they are happy for the holiday mostly. Happy to be with friends and family. Happy to eat what the Easter bunny brought. And maybe some of them are happy for the religious meaning of the holiday, but not in an overly-zealous way. I can’t say I’ve ever seen one particular moment of the Catholic mass make a Catholic grin out of pure joy. Usually, when the priest splashes water on you, the only reason to smile is if you’re under the age of 10 and you simply find the act funny, not religious.

It was the same with the majority of the people I saw all day leading up to that splash in the face. The entire atmosphere of the weekend  was like that of a tailgate preceding a football game. All day at our campsite we witnessed drunk, drunk, drunk men struggling to walk straight, listened to techno music compete with the church bells at midnight, watched drunk men in speedos run around in lines screaming “left, left, left right left.” All of that was happy. But these 3 women who were standing behind me when I stole all their holy water, I got the feeling that they were happy in a much more religious way. The way they looked adoringly at the procession as it went by. The way they didn’t turn to the person next to them and hug like the countdown had just ended on New Year’s Eve. I thought it was interesting. There are devout people all over the world, and there are devout people in Ukraine, but I haven’t actually met any of those here. Most of my Ukrainian friends are very nonchalant about religion and traditions (has something to do with living in the East, probably). This entire weekend, witnessing all the happiness that went along with the Easter service, I kind of felt like the majority of the people were in it for the experience, like I was. At first, I felt embarrassed to be taking pictures of someone’s religious service. Just out of respect for what they believed, I thought it was wrong of me. But I got over that, and it wasn’t until I saw those 3 old women smiling that I felt like I had finally seen evidence that this whole spectacle had religious meaning to the people there.

Just a thought I had. No need to comment or analyze, take offense or assume I’m saying anything at all. Just a thought.

Anyways, we got back to our tents after 5, slept for a few more hours, then spent the day cooking and enjoying the general awesomeness that is warm weather with friends outdoors.

I had hoped my trip home would be smooth, considering that I had bought my ticket for the last leg of the trip a week in advance. But that’s not how things work here. The buses were 40 minutes late leaving K-ovka, then we got pulled over 3 times by cops because people were standing in the middle of the aisle, then when I finally got to one bus station, I didn’t have time to take a bus to the south station, and I had to pay 50 UAH to get a taxi to catch my last bus home. Because I had bought my ticket in advance a week early and couldn’t change the time and would probably not have been able to get one of the 2 later buses anyways, because it was Easter weekend. What I’m saying is that it was an expensive weekend of travel, but was all worth it. And much better than last year’s Easter.