News

News

Welcome to the New Year Outing in the Country of Sholokhov

If you wish to celebrate the New Year out of home and you have a good company to enjoy yourselves and get indelible impressions, you are offered a lot of various tours to Africa or the North Pole. But have you ever marked the New Year in an old Cossack Stanitsa? This opportunity is proposed by the State M.A. Sholokhov Museum-Reserve.

What is the difference between the New Year holiday in Vyoshenskaya and numerous tours about Russia and abroad?

In Vyoshenskaya there won’t be Santa Claus and his deer. You won’t have to sing “Happy New Year” and give resounding slaps with Christmas cracker petards. There will be no newly-made  “Russian folk dwellings” and a musical with Vasilisa the Beautiful and Kashchey the Immortal.

And what are you going to have?

There will be Father Frost and Snow Maiden, who will come in a sleigh from the old pine forest of Vyoshenskaya, a bread-and-salt welcoming and real Cossack songs of the famous folk group “Zarnitsa” (all the members are native residents of Vyoshenskaya).

You will be accommodated in a real Cossack kuren with a lower ground floor, narrow balcony around the house and a summer kitchen (with all modern conveniencies). After dinner and a short rest you are welcome to the New Year party of 2011!

Don’t fail now: you are served with a goose baked with apples, liver pie, stuffed fish, pickles, jellied meat with horseradish, beefsteak with mushrooms… Toasts, contests, fireworks and, certainly, the New Year tree shining. Following it you will speed in a sleigh with Father Frost and Snow Maiden into the New Year night!... The horses are thorough bred Don trotters!...

Next day you will be woken up for late “Cossack” breakfast. For breakfast Cossacks prefer homemade noodles with chicken, pancakes with fried eggs, sour cream and curds, they are fond of baked pork or mutton… And you will be treated with all these.

At noon you can have a ride in a sleigh or on horseback, or on a snow-tractor, or sledge down the hill – anything you like!

Don’t forget about a holiday dinner… You will be treated with homemade dishes cooked after the recipes of the Sholokhovs family, Cossack drinks and many other things… And, of course, there will be Cossack songs and “ball” dances: karapet, quadrille, twostep, gallop, krakovyak, boston, polka and “barynya”, of course. The repertoire of the group “Zarnitsa” has over 200 Cossack songs, it will take long to listen to. As well, you will hear the favourite songs of M.A. Sholokhov’s family.

On January, 2, you will have a trip to the village of Kruzhilin, the native place of the author of the novel “And Quiet Flows the Don”. You will see the house, where Misha Sholokhov was born, his father’s shop. In the neighbouring Cossack estate you will be hospitably welcomed and treated with pies and cakes, and honey.

On the same day you will visit Lebyazhiy Ravine, the writer’s favourite nook of nature and will see a boundless panorama of the Don country and the Father Quiet Don. You will enjoy making a Cossack snowman, playing snowballs and having a picnic by the fire.

In the evening you will come back and have supper near a Russian stove…

On January, 3, you will visit the estate of M.A. Sholokhov in Vyoshenskaya and see the house where he lived, the garage with the writer’s favourite cars, which are in perfect order.

You will remember the Literary Museum, Excursion and Exhibition Centre “The People’s House” and the “Souvenir Shop”. In the arts and crafts shop you will be taught to work at the potter’s wheel, paint the crockery, wicker baskets and make wood carving. These classes are especially enjoyed by children. You will take a souvenir made by yourself as a keepsake about the New Year holiday in Vyoshenskaya.

It is impossible to get everywhere within three days. In the stanitsa’s square there will be a beautiful New Year tree to attract for a round dance, the stanitsa’s Church of Mikhail the Archistratig will open its doors, you can also have a walk along the embankment… But… Then come here again! You are always welcome! You can have a Cossack holiday on Christmas and on the Old New Year. We are always glad to see you in the country of Sholokhov!

For further information, please, do not hesitate to contact Excursion Department of the State M.A. Sholokhov  Museum-Reserve:
tel./fax: (86353) 21-062,
e-mail: tourism@veshki.donpac.ru