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Tagged: traditions

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  Bear Witness 12:46 pm on August 2, 2026 Permalink | 🔗Copy | Reply
  Tags: military ( 4 ), traditions   

  Russian Paratrooper Jumps From Apartment Building to Celebrate Airborne Forces Day

  A man in St. Petersburg celebrated Russia’s Airborne Forces Day (VDV Day) by jumping from a high-rise apartment building with a parachute.

  He landed safely near a fountain in the courtyard and reportedly walked away without injuries.

  August 2 is also Ilya’s (Elijah’s) Day in the Orthodox calendar. The Prophet Elijah is considered the heavenly patron of Russia’s Airborne Forces, which is why both holidays are celebrated on the same date.

  VDV Day is famous across Russia for paratroopers celebrating with reunions, heavy drinking, and the long-standing tradition of swimming in public fountains.
   

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  Bear Witness 4:04 pm on August 14, 2025 Permalink | 🔗Copy | Reply
  Tags: customs ( 4 ), traditions   

  Honey Savior Day: Sweet Russian Traditions for Love and Wealth 

  

  August 14 marks Honey Savior Day (Medovy Spas) in Russia and in many Orthodox Christian communities—the first of the three “Savior” feasts and the start of the Dormition Fast. Honey and a Wish for Love According to old folklore, women smear a little honey on their shoe soles to attract marriage within a year. A loved one applies the honey, and then the woman takes seven steps around the house while saying, “So that men will stick to me.” Honey Water for Prosperity Men have their own money-drawing ritual: stir a spoonful of honey into water, take seven sips, and say, “Just as bees fly to honey, so wealth will come rushing to me.” Part of the Dormition Fast Honey Savior Day falls at the beginning of the two-week Dormition Fast, which leads up to the Feast of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary on August 28. In many places,…

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  Bear Witness 3:32 pm on August 14, 2025 Permalink | 🔗Copy | Reply
  Tags: chukchi ( 3 ), customs ( 4 ), koryaks ( 2 ), traditions, Veps, wedding   

  Blood Weddings, Walrus Heads, and Sky Burials: Five Unsettling Indigenous Traditions in Russia 

  

  In Russia, 195 ethnic groups live side by side. Each has its own traditions, passed down since ancient times. Some customs, however, are enough to make your blood run cold. Hard as it is to believe, some of them aren’t legends from the distant past but are very much part of 21st-century Russian reality. Here’s a closer look at some of the most vivid (and unsettling) traditions of the indigenous peoples from different corners of this vast land. Chukchi blood wedding straight out of Game of Thrones Life in Chukotka is harsh — it’s a cold, inhospitable land — yet people have lived there since time immemorial. Not only do they survive, herding reindeer and fishing, but they also marry — in a way that would impress George R. R. Martin himself. The beautiful bride, adorned with beads and furs, rides her own reindeer in the company of her entire…

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  Bear Witness 9:40 am on August 9, 2025 Permalink | 🔗Copy | Reply
  Tags: Aleuts, chukchi ( 3 ), customs ( 4 ), Enets, Eskimos, Evens, koryaks ( 2 ), Nganasans, Nivkhs, traditions, Votes   

  Bald Brides, Wives for Rent, and Dates with the Dead: The Strangest Traditions of Russia’s Peoples 

  

  Today, Russia is home to 47 indigenous peoples, classified as “autochthonous” or small-numbered. These groups live on the ancestral lands of their forebears, preserving traditional lifestyles, crafts, and customs.

  Below are some of the most fascinating and unusual traditions from these communities. Learn why Ingrian brides shaved their heads, why the Nganasans left their deceased tribespeople in the tundra, how Enets shamans “brought a drum to life,” and why some northern peoples practiced sexual hospitality. Chukchi and Koryaks – Ancient Customs Around Death Among the Chukchi, according to travelers’ accounts, dying a natural death was long considered “dishonorable” and “befitting only women.” It was believed that those who ended their own lives would enjoy a more blissful afterlife. Elderly people who no longer wished to live and young people with incurable illnesses could even ask relatives to help them pass away. If refused, they might pay someone else to do…

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  Bear Witness 9:10 pm on August 6, 2025 Permalink | 🔗Copy | Reply
  Tags: believes, customs ( 4 ), rituals, traditions, villagers   

  6 Strangest Rituals of the Russian People 

  

  Long before modern medicine and science reached rural corners of Russia, people relied on deeply rooted folk customs to explain the unexplainable. Some of these age-old rituals may seem shocking, surreal, or even macabre today—but they were once taken seriously as essential parts of village life. Here are six of the strangest ancient rituals that were once practiced in Old Russia. 1. Salting and “Re-Baking” Infants In old Russian villages, infant mortality was tragically high. Without antibiotics or modern healthcare, desperate parents resorted to folk rituals to protect their babies.

  If a child was born prematurely or seemed sickly, they would cover the baby in dough, place them on a bread peel, and slide them into a preheated oven—briefly. This bizarre ritual, called “perepekanie” (literally “re-baking”), was believed to help the child “finish cooking,” just like in the womb. The practice lasted in some regions well into the 20th century…

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  Bear Witness 1:24 pm on August 6, 2025 Permalink | 🔗Copy | Reply
  Tags: chukchi ( 3 ), indigenous peoples, karelians, khanty, love ( 2 ), traditions   

  Unusual Love and Sex Traditions Among the Indigenous Peoples of Northern Russia 

  

  Many of these customs can only be found in ethnographers’ academic research — and some may come as a shock. Much of this stems from the remnants of ancient magical cults that survived among some of Russia’s small ethnic groups well into the 20th century. Wife Swapping Among the Chukchi The Chukchi had a tradition called “nevtumgyt”, which ethnologists translated as “wife partnership.” Men formed a friendship pact where each had the right to sleep with the other’s wife. These unions could include more than ten couples. A man could take his friend’s wife for a few months, then return her. Sometimes, however, the guest wife stayed permanently. Children from such unions were considered shared, and the men were viewed as brothers.

  This practice was strictly forbidden between actual relatives, even third cousins. According to a 1924 report in the newspaper Polar Star, women reportedly welcomed the practice. One local…

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