12 February - Monday
Shrovetide - the beginning of the cheese week
Maslenitsa is an ancient Slav festival with numerous customs, which have survived through the centuries. It is celebrated within a week. Maslenitsa in 2018 is celebrated from 12 to 18 February.
Maslenitsa is cheerful seeing off of winter, illuminated by a joyful expectation of close warmth, spring renewal of nature. The main attributes of the holiday were traditionally the stuffed Carnival, fun, sleigh rides, festivities and, of course, pancakes - round, ruddy, hot, they used to have a ritual meaning, because they were a symbol of the sun, which grew brighter and lengthened the days.
Perhaps pancakes were also part of the funeral ritual, as Saturday before Shrovetide was revered as a "parental day" - the Slavs worshiped the souls of deceased ancestors.
Centuries passed, life changed, with the adoption of Christianity in Russia, new church feasts appeared, but the wide Shrovetide continued to live. She was met and escorted with the same uncontrollable distance.
By the way, at one time Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich tried to calm his stubborn subjects with the most stringent measures. Voevody sent out tsarist decrees in the cities and towns, then forbidding private distilling, then demanding that the Russians did not play gambling games, they did not conduct fisticuffs. But neither the terrible tsarist decrees nor the instructions of the patriarch were able to cope with the overflowing gaiety.
For each day of the oil week there were certain rituals. On Monday - the Maslenitsa meeting, on Tuesday - wins. For gourmands, that is, on Wednesday of the oil week, my mother-in-law was invited to the pancakes of my sons-in-law with my wives. Especially this custom was observed for young, recently married. Probably from here the expression "to the mother-in-law for pancakes" has gone.
On wide Thursday, the most crowded tobogganing took place. On Friday - the mother-in-law of the evening - son-in-law was called mother-in-law for a treat. Saturday was assigned to a zolovkin sitting. Sunday was called "forgiven Sunday" or "forgiven by day." On this day, everyone visited relatives, friends and acquaintances, exchanged kisses and bows and asked for forgiveness from each other if they offended by words or deeds. And also on the last day of the Shrovetide week, the ritual of Maslenitsa's wake with the obligatory burning of the stuffed Pancake week was necessarily held.
International Day of Marriage Agencies
Day of Darwin (International Day of Science and Humanism)
1864 The Moscow Zoo is opened
1908 The first motor racing around the globe started in New York
1961 The first in the world automatic interplanetary station "Venera-1" was launched