Shrovetide carnivals

Categories / Population/Urban Living
SHROVETIDE CARNIVALS, mass popular carnivals that took place in the 18th - early 20th centuries during Shrovetide. Along with the Easter carnivals, Shrovetide was the most pompous and crowded of all. It took place on the ice that covered the Neva and the Fontanka rivers, on Alexandrovsky Meadow, Tsaritsyn Meadow, Dvortsovaya Square and other places a week before the Lent, during the last days of winter, which symbolized the welcoming of spring. The Shrovetide carnival had pagan routes and was traditionally divided into three parts: Shrovetide welcome day (Monday), Great Shrovetide (Thursday), and Shrovetide farewell (Shrove Sunday). Shrovetide's indispensable dishes were pancakes, special dishes made of milk and eggs which were baked on improvised braziers, saloop, and sweetmeats. The main entertainments were slides, funfair booths shows, sleighing, street carnivals (when people guised themselves with masks and hobs - scary costumes), and bare-knuckle fighting. All constructions and sledges were decorated with ribbons, little flags; they were brightly coloured and painted with patterns. Fun and dancing often led to debauchery which frequently resulted in carousing and scuffles. On Shrove Sunday celebrants kissed one another in a Christian way and asked forgiveness for their sins. The great officers of state and members of the royal family took part in Shrovetide carnivals. People's attention was especially attracted by the rides of the tsar on horse- or deer-drawn sledges (so-called quadrilles). In the reign of Empress Catherine II for people's pleasure carrousels with quadrilles were arranged (horseracing competitions which the high nobility participated in); they attracted gaping crowds of several thousands of people. Sometimes comic rides on 12 horses with a wooden statue of Shrovetide were arranged. Festivals lasted from morning till dark. Chutes and funfair booths left after Shrovetide carnivals were not usually dismantled until Easter, which came in seven weeks later. On the Saturday of the first Lenten week lean pancakes were eaten (so-called lament after Shrovetide). After October 1917 Shrovetide carnivals were put an end to.

References: Некрылова А. Ф. Русские народные городские праздники, увеселения и зрелища, конец XVIII - нач. XX в. 2-е изд., доп. Л., 1988; Конечный А. М. Петербургские народные гуляния на масленой и пасхальной неделях // Петербург и губерния: Ист.-этногр. исслед. Л., 1989. p. 21-52; Русский народ: Его обычаи, обряды, предания, суеверия и поэзия. М., 1992. p. 34-48.

Y. N. Kruzhnov. Catherine II, Empress
Dvortsovaya Square/Saint Petersburg, city
The Field of Mars/Saint Petersburg, city
Некрылова А. Ф. Русские народные городские праздники, увеселения и зрелища, конец XVIII - нач. XX в. 2-е изд., доп. Л., 1988
Русский народ: Его обычаи, обряды, предания, суеверия и поэзия. М., 1992
Конечный А. М. Петербургские народные гуляния на масленой и пасхальной неделях // Петербург и губерния: Ист.-этногр. исслед. Л., 1989 Slides
Funfair Booths
Bare-knuckle Boxing