Folk Box: Easter in Russia

Each week Olga Shapovalova offers to folk music lovers a multicoloured display of customs and traditions, legends and tales, melodies and rythms of Russia.

Orthodox Christians in Russia are celebrating Easter! A remarkable holiday, filled to the brim with a radiant joy and dazzling beauty…

The entire week after Easter – is, first and foremost, a remarkable aura of sound – everything around, every ‘atom’ of air, all the surrounding space seems to resonate with bell chimes. Very special ones, of all the existing ones – the most exquisitely festive!

Imagine the following scene: a vast city, overwhelming traffic, crowds of people rushing about their business.. Their faces serious and intent… When suddenly… . Like a freeze-frame in a film… A bell peals out… Then another… And the people who just an instant ago were hurrying about their business stop in their tracks… halt their cars… They raise their heads up to focus on the sounds coming from up high where the ancient bells are working their divine magic. And this mesmerizing magic lasts not a minute, or five, but all of forty minutes, or an hour!

And such was the case here these past days: throughout the bell chimes week – an ancient Russian tradition that was brought back to us just several years ago.

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