Cultural tourism in Russia > Kirov region > Pancake Week in a Fairy-Tale Park

Pancake Week in a Fairy-Tale Park

Pancake Week is one of the oldest and most favoured Russian national festivals. It marks the end of winter and the onset of spring.

The festival lasts for a week called a pancake week. Each day of the Pancake week has a particular name characterized by particular rites.

We invite you to celebrate Pancake Week in the Fairy-Tale Park!

A Russian epic hero Alesha Popovich welcomes guests and awakes Ilya Muromets who has been sleeping on the oven for 33 years! Pink-cheeked and broad-shouldered, dressed in embroidered Russian shirts, they seem to have come off the paintings by V.Vasnetsov. The epic heroes invite everybody to the Snow Town decorated with bright flags where the children are divided into two teams. Alesha Popovich and Ilya Muromets begin games marking the struggle between Winter and Spring and a seizure of a two-meter Snow Fortress.

After a long walk and run, the guests accept Spring’s invitation to a warm cottage with the greatest pleasure. Here the guests are invited to tea and pancakes, brown and round like the spring sun. Funny Petrushka will show his puppet performance prepared together with the children!

Of course, Pancake Week cannot do without cheery wandering minstrels. The guests are invited to a fairy field. Russian folk songs are heard everywhere. The festival begins. It’s an open-air Russian festival, with contests, games, singing and dancing in a ring, and tobogganing. The festival is crowned with burning the scarecrow of Winter.