Life is motion or Motion is life?

While Europe is celebrating the carnaval,Russia's celebrating smth else called "Maslenitsa" or "pancakes week". Actually, in a way I may call it "Pancakes' carnaval" too :D

The word "maslenitsa" comes from rus word "maslo",which means "butter".

This "fiesta" dates back to the pagan times when people said good buy to winter and greeted spring. The thing is that a pancakes symbolises the sun because it's as round, golden and warm as The Sun (and soooooooo yammmyyyy...mmm.... I've never tried The Sun though ;D). Another ritual was to burn The Scarecrow which symbolised the winter. After Maslenitsa The Great Fast is followed which prohibits to eat meat and dairy products. So this "butter week" is to some extent "The Tummy Carnaval" before "hard times" ))))))))

So, in Moscow during the week you can visit Vasil'evski Spusk (the place near the dear Kremlin) and which is the most famous spot for that, where you can have unforgetable russian blini (rus for"pancakes") and participate to various contests there.

As for pancakes themselves and the food we like to eat them....mmm....First and foremost, CAVIAR (we literally spoons!), then various kinds of jam or.... (I'm not sure that there's an excat equivalent to it) "varyen'e",the thing which is close to jam with its consistency, but jam is more like "jelly" and varyen'ye (I mean a good one!) is more liquid, BUT full of fruit (according to the fruits it's made from); then among various various various different "fillings",such as, ham.mushrooms or cheeze etc, goes another purely russian thing called "sguschyonka" (which drives me nuts combines with pancakes..oh Gosh.... :S )..this is extremely sweet milk with thick consistency (I strongly recommend this one ;-))

As for me personally, i think I should RUN to the gym !!!