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Check us out at www.crockingirls.com Holidays tend to come with a nearly impossible list of things to get ready. Let slow cooking give you a fresh start in the kitchen this spring! Get your crocks a "hoppin' this Easter with these three yummy side dishes!

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6 Quick & Easy Easter Treats Check out my blog post for a list of ingredients: http://bit.ly/1q6rHsp Previous Video: http://bit.ly/22AES6g Check Out My Vlogs: http://bit.ly/1K4Se0H I'm Wearing & In The Background: - Jumper - ASOS: http://bit.ly/1Rs4sSD - Earrings - ASOS: http://bit.ly/1RbfEUS - Cushions - Oliver Bonas: http://bit.ly/1QX6N4B - Curtain Lights

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The Orthodox Church bases its calculations on the Julian Calendar, the Catholic – on the Gregorian one. Depending on the lunar calendar, it varies between March 31 and May 8. In Belarus it is a national holiday.

Initially, the time of Christian Easter and the Jewish Feast of Passover coincided. In 325, at the First Council of Nicaea, they decided to celebrate Easter on the first Sunday following the first full moon after the spring equinox, and provided that this day the Jewish don’t celebrate their Passover. The ancient Slavs originally called Easter a spring festival in honor of the sun, the awakening of the nature and approaching of the “great days” of field work. With the adoption of Christianity, the Festival got its spiritual meaning and the cleansing power. Spiritual preparations for Easter last 7 weeks – the Great Fast – and end with the Holy Week, when you start to prepare for the feast itself. On Maundy Thursday you clean the house and the yard. The Saturday is great and valuable, as it is the last day before Easter. On Holy Saturday, a day before Easter, you prepare, cook, and fry a lot of different dishes, bake cakes, color and paint patterns on eggs. In the evening of the same day you smarten yourself up, take the “paskha” and eggs prepared for consecration, and go to church for the vespers service. Eggs were the main element of celebration. They were colored with the help of onion skin or bark of trees, which gave them a red color (also there were “pisanki” – Painted Easter eggs – eggs, painted with different patterns). Elderly people advised to peel the egg before consecration to make the holiness going inside the egg easier. The red Easter egg is a symbol of Christ’s suffering.

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Череповец. Новости. Фото.

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Масленица. Сжигание чучела зимы в Череповце

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The Shrovetide has begun. It means there is a whole week for us to eat pancakes and to get ready for the Lent starting next Monday.
Shrovetide ends on Sunday. On that day everyone will be able to ask other people to forgive them.
There is a great amount of rites connected with Shrovetide but the rite of burning the scarecrow is the most important and the most interesting one. People also throw all the unnecessary things into the bonfire.
The Slavonic Shrovetide is very often compared to the European Carnival. Actually, there is a connection between them – it can be traced in their names: the Italian “carnevale”, literally meaning “goodbye meat”, is similar to one of Shrovetide names (Shrovetide is a week before Lent when Orthodox Christians go without animal food).
Moreover, Shrovetide coincided with March New Year’s Day. Thus, people could also say goodbye to the old year by celebrating Shrovetide.
The holiday was shortened by our patriarchy. The carnival, a holiday running parallel to Shrovetide, was also shortened to one week in Germany. In the old days it took the whole month to celebrate Shrovetide.
Shrovetide is an old holiday. Unlike other holidays, this is a pagan one. The Church does not celebrate Shrovetide.
Unfortunately, meat dishes have already been forbidden, but it is still possible to enjoy milk, cheese, fish, caviar and other products not allowed to eat till Easter.

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In modern Belarus the Slavic holiday marking the end of the harvest turned into “Dozhinki” – the National Festival and Fair of Rural Workers, celebrated on a large scale since 1996. The President annually takes part in the celebrations. Each year, the holiday is hosted by a different city.

The Belarusian traditions of needlework deserve special attention. The weaving tradition is also a kind of the country’s brand. Belarus intends to include the unique tradition of fulling woolen hats and boots – “shapovalstvo” — in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list. The local masters of the Dribin District of the Mogilev Region pass their skills on from father to son. A workshop was established at the Dribin Historical and Ethnographic Museum where students can learn this craft. There is no doubt that “Katrushnitsky lemezen” in the eyes of the curious tourists fascinated with the history and folk traditions will become a symbol of the hardworking Belarus just like the Slutsk belts, Polesie towels and Bezdezh.

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Информационное агентство БелТА

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"Купалье" в Александрии

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Гостями и участниками праздника "Купалье" ("Александрия собирает друзей") в Шкловском районе 6 июля стали около 50 тыс. человек со всех регионов Беларуси.

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In July Belarus invites to celebrate the Kupala Night – a unique ritual feast, based on close contact with nature. Colorful rituals taking place on the Kupala night include collecting herbs and flowers, making wreaths and floating them on water, jumping over the fire, night bathing and searching for the fern blossom. Most importantly, the guests do not act as ordinary extras, passively watching the show from the stands. They become full-fledged participants of the extraordinary event: in search of the fern flower they roam the actually existing castles and park and garden ensembles, hunt for the treasures of the Belarusian magnates, fight evil spirits of the water and forest and at the same time get acquainted with the geography, history and culture of Belarus.

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All New Year celebrations in Belarus are entirely tied to Kalyady — the ancient pagan ritual with maskers and songs.

The only pagan holiday legalized by the Orthodox Church — Maslenitsa, or Cheese Week — is widely celebrated across the country. Each of the seven days of fun, entertainment and pancakes has its own name (“Meeting”, “Zaigryshi”, “Gourmand”) and traditions.

The traditional “Karagod” rite is conducted in Pogost village on St. George's Day in spring. The rite was the first in Belarus to be awarded the status of intangible historical and cultural value in 2004 and put under state protection. The performer and curator of the rite is the folklore-ethnographic ensemble “Mezhdurechie”. On the initiative of the ensemble, other holidays are organized in the region.

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The Belarusian people remember not only the great battles and fights: the traditions and customs of ancestors are also kept in people’s memory. Some of them are even included in the UNESCO World Heritage list.
You can attend the coronation of the first Grand Duke of Lithuania Mindaugas or the wedding feast of the Grand Duke Jogaila and Sophia Golshanskaya whose blood runs in the veins of many members of the royal families of Europe. You can follow the CNN call and celebrate Christmas and New Year in the Belarusian village Pogost in the Zhitkovichi District of the Gomel Region. In the 2010 seasonal guide, made in the form of a rating list, Pogost village ranked 3rd, leaving behind London, New York, Boston and Salzburg.

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Traditions and customs of a nation tell us about its history and culture. When something happens in the life of a nation people start celebrating it and a new holiday emerges. Victory day and Independence day are two examples of this kind. The end of the great patriotic war and gaining independence are the main dates for us. They are our modern traditions. Many people take part in celebrating them. New Year’s day and Woman’s day are popular too, but they are international ones so I am not going to talk about them. They are celebrated worldwide and don’t help us stand out as a nation. Of course there are loads old time traditions and customs. The most famous traditions of them are Kalyady, Maslenitsa, Kupala Night. They are based on ancient slavonic rituals. They are colourful and attract tourists’ attention, but I have to say that they are our distant past and are not longer followed by the locals.

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Belarusian customs and traditions characterise Belarusians and their attitude to ancestors. It’s natural when a nation respects the traditions of the past and the people are proud of their cultural heritage. So, yes, I’m proud of our national holidays and traditions.

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Belarusian people celebrate a lot of holidays but only 8 of them are official days when people don’t work. They are New Year’s Day, Christmas (both Orthodox and Catholic), the 8th of March, Radunitsa, Labour Day, Victory Day, Independence Day and the 7th of November (October Revolution Day).Speaking about Belarusian customs and traditions, I’d like to mention that though most Belarusians follow the traditions of Christianity, a lot in the culture of my country is from pagan beliefs. So, alongside with Easter or Christmas we celebrate Maslenitsa, Kupalle, Kolyady and Dozhynki.The list of Belarusian holidays is rather long. There are national and religious, family and professional holidays. There are also memorable dates, such as April,26 and June,22.My favourite holiday is New Year’s Day. I can’t say that my family celebrates it in an unusual way, but the beginning of a new year is always associated with new hopes and new plans and it makes this day special.