Beijing waves goodbye to winter Russian-style
Several thousand people in the Chinese capital, Beijing, have taken part in the celebration of Maslenitsa, the traditional Russian folk festival dedicated to winter’s end and the arrival of spring, Moscow’s Channel 1 has reported.
The crowds who attended Beijing Exhibition Center on Friday witnessed performances by a Russian folk-music group and by male and female Cossack choirs. Among other arrangements, the artists sang the iconic ‘Katyusha’ ballad in Chinese.
Guests were served Russian pancakes, blini, with condensed milk and other toppings, a treat in the Maslenitsa tradition. The round, golden-hued pancake symbolizes the Sun awakening after its winter slumber. “Delicious! It’s very delicious,” one of the Chinese visitors said in Russian.
Maslenitsa celebrations usually conclude with the burning of a massive scarecrow, which represents winter. Although it was on display at Beijing Exhibition Center, the organizers refrained from setting the winter effigy on fire because the festivities are indoors.
Maslenitsa is being widely marked in China for the first time as part of the Russian-Chinese Cross Years of Culture 2024-2025 joint initiative by the countries’ governments.
In February, celebrations of Chinese New Year took place in the center of the Russian capital. “The residents of Moscow were very impressed. It was beautiful, colorful, and delicious, so we decided to make a reciprocal gesture,” Yulia Kapranova, the executive director of the Russian-Chinese Committee for Friendship, Peace, and Development, said.
On Sunday, Maslenitsa events were also held in Xi’an, a city of 12 million and the capital of China’s Shaanxi Province.
