Масленица: древний славянский праздник проводов зимы.

Slavic folk and Christian holiday

Maslenitsa (; Мaсленица; ; Масляна or Масниця), also known as Butter Lady, Butter Week, Crepe week, or Cheesefare Week, is an Eastern Slavic religious and folk holiday which has retained a number of elements of Slavic mythology in its ritual. It is celebrated during the last week before Great Lent; that is, the eighth week before Eastern Orthodox Pascha. The date of Maslenitsa changes every year, depending on the date of the celebration of Easter. It corresponds to the Western Christian Carnival, except that Orthodox Lent begins on a Monday instead of a Wednesday, and the Orthodox date of Easter can differ greatly from the Western Christian date. The traditional attributes of the Maslenitsa celebration are the Maslenitsa effigy, sleigh rides, and festivities. Russians bake bliny and flatbread, while Belarusians and Ukrainians cook pierogi and syrniki.

According to archeological evidence from the 2nd century A. D., Maslenitsa may be the oldest surviving Slavic holiday. In the Christian tradition, Maslenitsa is the last week before the onset of Great Lent. During the week of Maslenitsa, meat is already forbidden to Orthodox Christians, and it is the last week during which eggs, milk, cheese and other dairy products are permitted, leading to its name of "Cheese fare week" or "Crepe week". The most characteristic food of Maslenitsa is bliny – thin pancakes or crêpes, made from the rich foods still allowed by the Orthodox tradition that week: butter, eggs and milk. At Vespers on Sunday evening, people may make a poklon (bow) before one another and ask forgiveness. Another name for Forgiveness Sunday is "Cheesefare Sunday", because for devout Orthodox Christians it is the last day on which dairy products may be consumed until Easter. Fish, wine and olive oil will also be forbidden on most days of Great Lent. The day following Cheesefare Sunday is called Clean Monday, because people have confessed their sins, asked forgiveness, and begun Great Lent with a clean slate.

Due to cultural factors in the Russian Empire, large public celebrations of Maslenitsa were no longer as common by the turn of the 20th century. After the Russian Revolution in 1917 and the following state atheism in the Soviet Union, public Maslenitsa celebrations became even less common, although Maslenitsa continued to observed particularly in smaller private celebrations in homes and villages. In the 1960s and 1970s, as the USSR brought back some traditional folk holidays, Maslenitsa was again observed in large public celebrations that retained some of the holiday's secular elements, but with additional "contemporary socialist elements grafted onto it". After the start of perestroika and fall of the Soviet Union in the 1980s and 1990s, large outdoor celebrations began to be start up again, and much of the older Maslenitsa traditions began to be revived in a modern context. Since 2002, Moscow has staged a yearly Maslenitsa festival next to the Red Square, with that and other celebrations attracting around 300,000 visitors a year as of 2011.