* INSEPARABLE PAIR*

The labour cycle of peasant life is inseparable from the everyday life cycle. The year goes hand in hand with an inseparable pair: the way of life and nature. This inseparability is the main difference between rural life and city life. But nature, or rather the weather, endowed with the inconsistency of women, does not always behave by the folk calendar. With a girl's playfulness, she either jumps ahead or, with the slowness of pregnant, stays behind for a week and sometimes two. And the Russian peasant accepted such whims with a chivalrous geniality, patiently aligned to its whimsical rhythm. However, in Russia's North quirks, the weather does not often exceed acceptable, and N.A. Nekrasov had a right to say: "There is no ugliness in nature ..."
    Due to the Orthodox calendar, county holidays served not only fun and rest. They bore into the life of the organizing principle, organized labour element, and were milestones, benchmarks of spiritual and moral life. Time for feats to feast, up from a Lent to another Lent, from one type of work to another kind of work measured in weeks.
But what is the starting point for the annual holiday cycle? You can assume that it begins with the New Year.
For the natural character of peasant life to break this circle is more appropriate at the junction of Shrovetide and the Great Lenten weeks. Why is it so? Because this period was not burdened by compulsory works, the boundary between Shrovetide and the Lenten was quite sharp and definite.
After the unbridled frolicking of Shrovetide, as if ashamed of the offence, life rolls into a conventional, even somewhat austere rut. Most women in whose hands were the reins of the household began to prepare for Communion. This meant that, willy-nilly, everybody else will fast too, at least in food. Not for nothing is composed a proverb: "What wife does not like that her husband will not eat." But this opinion was not often taken into account, although the Lenten was for the benefit of everyone in terms of health. (A cleansing period, change of nutrition for a plant-based food richer in vitamins).
Hypocrisy was just a sham pretending to fast, feigned religiosity when going to church "just in case," or just to avoid looking like a black sheep. Undoubtedly, many men fasted quite sincerely.
    On the last day of Shrovetide, the lady of the house put away all animal-based food. Children were allowed to eat up the rest of the meat and dairy foods. The bath would be prepared. Having settled down physically and spiritually, people would greet the Pure Monday. The youth stopped for some time carolling and singing.
The beginning of the Great Lent is connected to one of the highest age-old traditions of spiritual beauty. It is performed mainly by women. Men were much rarely initiators and executors of the ritual. But the charm and power of a good cause are so enormous that everybody was affected by its magnetic field, even the evilest people.
 Anfisa Ivanovna tells how, before walking to confession, she tried to remember everyone whom she secretly or openly insulted in the past year, exchanging insults and quarrels ...
Leaving the house, in turn, people appealed to all at home with a sincere request for forgiveness for Christ's sake. To this end, whoever they contacted, almost always answered with the same sense of remorse.
Extinguishing family strife's, people were trying to remember and a village-level: "Oh, oh, I called a fool Kuzmich last fall," she recalled." So, she got to Kuzmich. In response to the traditional: "Forgive me, I am a sinner!" - Should have answered: "God will forgive." If sin were considered very big, the person would bow to the feet or get up on their knees. It turned out the more robust and greater reconciliation was then, the lighter felt "the heart" for both. The final release of soul heaviness occurred yet in the church and after the church service. Thus began the most prolonged, seven-week Lent - the time from Shrovetide to the Bright Sunday.
 The days are getting warmer and longer. Spring is coming. How can one explain that birds, animals, children and even many adults are so fond of this intermediate state of the water when it simultaneously melts and freezes? The first gold drops from the nook in the snow barely emerged, the first puddle at the eaves nearly rolled down, and a resilient sparrow is already right here. And it dives straight into the water. Bristling feathers shake off. Almost with the same enthusiasm, the kids clear the snow, break with boots heels of March crust, knock with sticks the icicles from the roofs and bite if it is candy. Such a peculiar "Communion" with nature, preceded for a young soul the Church Communion, when the child is given a spoon with the holy gifts, and when the sound of the solemn singing of the priest to publicly pronounce the full name of the child. Seriousness and thoroughness get into a child's soul by itself, naturally and unobtrusively.
 A child does not have to remember an omen like this: on which week of the Lent needles falls from the pines, the same week by the number after Easter, you start sowing. But at the pivot of the Lent, in other words, on the mid-Lenten week, on Thursday, women bake ordinary dough crosses, and one of them inside has a bronze cross. That one, who picks that cross in the spring, will throw the first handful of seeds during sowing. But, of course, if he got the cross, the child waits impatiently for sowing time, and adults will never forget about this promise.
A week before Easter, on Palm Sunday, the adults consecrated in the church bundles of twigs (plain willow or silver willow), covered with silver "lambs." Willow twigs adorned the shrine in each house; such a twig was used to drive the cattle for the first time out of the barn onto the street.
 For the Russian peasant, Easter Sunday was the most significant holiday, the most solemn and joyful day in the year. The night of Easter Eve was also grand and sleepless for most parishioners. It was dedicated to the all-night church service. If, during the procession, the water freezes under the feet, then to the full triumph of spring is to happen no less than forty's mornings, in other words, the late spring. On Easter morning, people break the fast, kiss each other, many exchanges painted eggs. Throughout the following week, the priests go from house to house. On this occasion, new towels were hung on the walls, on the table spread a special tablecloth and garnered a special wooden bowl with rye grains. In those bowls right in the grain were stuck icons. On the tablecloth was put one pie and one round bread.
On the day of Saint George, the cattle were blessed, and all this was accompanied by thousands of specific details, sayings, omens. For example, it was not allowed to break off the birch twigs for brooms before the Trinity holiday. Before the Trinity day, the streets in the villages were decorated with whole rows of felled birch, which stood at the house for several days.
Trinity was the most cheerful, a half spring, a half summer beer festival. Everything is fresh, green, days are long, nights are light, the grass is the youngest, not hard and not dusty, the air is dry but not hot, mosquitoes and gnats are very few.
The week before, the Apostle Peter's Lent adults and young men had the custom to roll chicken eggs from the inclined trays. Some lucky players used to win a few dozen eggs. During Apostles Peter and Paul Lent, all such fun was again stopped. As a warning or a punishment for the people and animals, nature keeps in-store at this time the clouds of every bloodsucker possible: a microscopic, at night barely visible midge, horseflies in the afternoon, mosquitoes in the evening.
The proximity of nature to daily life was so mundane, so close, that in some cases, led us to believe that a driving force is not a man but nature itself. For example, it is tough to dissuade a reaper that "cutting" grass in the rye does not grow accidentally. Nevertheless, the woman is convinced of the justice of nature. She thinks that "cutting" grass grows just if somebody cuts himself. The same applies to many natural phenomena: a custom is so native, ancient, and looks like a work of nature itself.
The summer harvest weeks did not look too hard if the weather was dry. There was time to reap and mow, plow, sow, thresh, and brew beer. Young people have figured out ways to enjoy the white nights of Virgin of Tikhvin, St. Peter's day, Virgin of Kazan, Midsummer Night holidays.
    During the summer, a lot of water flows away under the bridge. One love is forgotten, another will grow stronger. Grooms and brides will emerge only in autumn and finalize at the Baptism day (January 19) to celebrate a wedding in time, before the Great Lent (Baptism Day - the girls' decision deadline).
On Eliya's day - the last summer holiday - the day shadow "is due to get out of the bushes," nights grow darker and more prolonged. ("The horse ate till full, Cossack slept till dull.”)
If there are no relatives, no friends in the holiday village, you can refresh yourself on the way back with wild berries. However, wild strawberries, for example, at this time are not eaten. It is said that it was licked by the frog. Apples cannot be eaten before the Savior Macovei, before the blessing them in the church, where other fruits were also brought in to be blessed. Before the Assumption day again, people were fasting for two weeks. The night of that feast was already quite dark, walking in the street without seeing and recognizing each other by voice and tone of harmonicas.
The annual system of holidays and almost every day of the week were firmly linked, "normalized" with nature and the labour cycle. (This connection goes to the pre-Christian pagan times.) Therefore, the celebration was as much a natural necessity as work. This need did not depend on material wealth. Even in the most impoverished house, the village holiday is marked with the same diligence as in other places. The poorest also invited guests to the house. A rich guest at a poor family house had to behave just like at a wealthy home. Their behaviour in such conditions showed their mind and soul.
The end of fieldwork was considered a holiday, as the beginning of sowing. The lady of the house harvests on the strip the last sheaf and brings it home. All those who participated in the harvest thrust their sickles into the bunch and put it in the front corner. It was prepared and eaten a special end-of-harvest dish (Salamat).
 The sheaf stood under the icon till the Intercession of Blessed Virgin Mary day. In the morning of the holiday, the host or hostess carried a sheaf to the barn; there, it was untied and gave a morsel to every beast, saying: "Father Intercession, overfeed cattle with health." There are composed of many proverbs about Intersession Day. ("Father Intersession, cover the house with warmth, the master with the goods, the land with snow, the lady of the house with pie, a young girl with the groom…)."
 A few weeks of late autumn and winter also were dedicated to Lent. It is called the Filippov's Lent and lasts until Christmas. On Christmas Eve, religious people should not eat from dawn to dusk. Boys and girls ran in the morning on the street with a juicy cheese pie, making a wish and observing who they first met. Laughter was the case when a vigorous bridegroom came across to meet a toothless old woman, and a young girl met a neighbour's gelding, peacefully wandering to drink water. Laughter with laughter, but people began in haste to engage with proposals from that day. Those who did not have time to get married before Shrovetide remained single.