Event: Russia - Moscow

Maslenitsa Festival (or Blini Week)

When:	3 - 9 Mar 2008 (various dates)
Where:	Moscow

Founded on one of Russia's oldest folk traditions - celebrating the on-coming spring at the end of winter - but also incorporating the Christian tradition of pancakes in advance of Lent, the Maslenitsa (blini or pancake) Festival returns to Moscow's calendar. In 2002 the tradition was refounded, having last been held in Tsarist Russia in 1917.

The festival, which dates back to pagan times, is a week-long carnival which includes riding traditional troikas through the snow-filled streets, parades of Russian fairytale characters, open-air theatre, dancing, fireworks and folk songs. Festivities culminate in the torching of the scarecrow of winter, marking the end of the harsh season and welcoming the long-awaited spring.

The centrepiece to the festival is the Blini pancake - symbolising the sun (round, golden and warm) - eaten with sour cream and caviar or honey and jam and washed down with plenty of vodka. As part of the week's events, there is a contest to create the world's largest Blini, aiming to put the festival into the Guinness Book of Records.

A festival that evokes the world of both Stravinsky's Rite of Spring and Petrushka (happening, as that ballet does, at the Shrovetide Fair), each day - from "The Greeting" of the first day to the "Forgiveness Sunday" of the last - has a specific theme: Tuesday - Popular Games; Wednesday - The Sweet Tooth's Day; Thursday - The Lavish Day; Friday - Good Mothers' Evenings and Saturday - Good Daughters' Parties.

Orthodox Lent, otherwise known as "The Great Fast", starts on the following day,