A Present for M.A. Sholokhov for His 70th Anniversary
A set made up of a jug, two cups and a ...
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To Kruzhilin Village, Back in Days of Old!
17.09.2013Have you ever seen Ded Shchukar and Panteley Prokofiyevich Melekhov talking with each other? You may say it is impossible. But it can be! For instance, at the literary and ethnographic holiday “Kruzhilin Toloki”, these and other Sholokhov’s personages discarding the timeframe took part in the theatrical show “At Haymaking with the Melekhovs”. The holiday was held for the fourth time.
In the Museum Sholokhov’s farmstead, folk craftsmen laid out their “master-classes”. One could practise in making fishing net, pottery, wood carving, working on an antique spinning wheel and many others.
In the neighbouring Cossack farmstead of the early XX century masters of Cossack cuisine entertained the guests with tasty dishes. The children amused themselves making clay souvenirs, pillow fighting and doing other sports.
Nearby, on the green field, the public of residents and guests from other regions took their seats to watch the main spectacle. There stood bulls ready to pull an old plough. Nearby there was a rammed flat area for threshing grain, and a large hanging sieve and a hand-mill installed.
Some Cossacks gathered in a circle, ready for distributing plots for mowing. But before the action began there was held an official opening ceremony of the festival.
The opening ceremony was joined by A.M.Sholokhov, Director of the National M.A.Sholokhov Museum-Reserve, and A.A.Rezvanov, Minister of Culture of the Rostov Region, who welcomed the public. They noted that in Kruzhilin Village, the writer’s homeland, the festival gains its popularity and broadens the geography of its participants.
The Cossacks answered the greetings with the cries “Lyubo!” Before distributing the plots for mowing, the chieftain proposed to hold an old rite of initiation of a Cossack fatherless boy into the head of the family and allocation for him a due share of land.
Ploughing on the tractor “Fordson-Putilovets” in the nearby field drew a particular attention of the men to see two kinds of ploughing like “two epochs in the development of agriculture”.
Some of the guests tried themselves in mowing, raking and loading the hay onto the cart. A certain attraction was a process of threshing grain with flails and by horse-drawn threshing stone. It was not easy, but we got so many impressions!
The festival was ended in a fine concert of Cossack songs and dances of the folk groups from different regions.
A joyful atmosphere of the peasant labour day will be remembered for a long time. Next year you are welcome again to Kruzhilin Village, the homeland of M.A.Sholokhov.
Alexey Kochetov