Easter was several weeks ago in Australia, but wasn’t celebrated until May 1st here. I really liked the fact we got to celebrate it twice. It’s a day I like to celebrate all year long as we have communion, and to have an excuse to openly rejoice about our Risen Lord makes me happy.

Even though I desperately miss family members in Australia that I’d like to celebrate with, I have really enjoyed the reprieve from chocolate egg and bunny madness. Even though many see Easter as a spring festival here, it is still far more of a Christian festival than in Australia. It is even called Paskha – from it’s roots in the Jewish Passover festival.

Russians decorate boiled eggs and, reminiscent of our Christmas cracker fun, there are competitions to see who can smash other people’s eggs without cracking their own. They also eat an Easter cake/bread called Kulich, kind of like the Italian Panettone.

kulich and eggs

For those who are not Christian, this is the extent of the festival, but for those of faith, it is a week long celebration of midnight church, and joyful celebration. We were also blessed with some of the neighbouring children singing us beautiful traditional Easter songs. They had brought little baskets for putting sweets in. Much more enjoyable to experience than trick or treat I think.

This is just a tiny sample of our lovely neighbours Easter Carolling:

https://youtu.be/MAgm0huJRwk