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Join a Cossack Wedding in Kruzhilin Village!

The annual autumn literary ethnographical holiday “Kruzhilin Toloki” well-known now entertains the guests of the Museum-Reserve of M.A.Sholokhov. The guests are always active in taking part in usual autumn agricultural works – mowing, hay making, grain threshing, grinding flour on the mill-stones…And they do it with enthusiasm!

On September 3, the guests are offered different workshops useful for everyone. This year the guests are taught how to prepare watermelons for long-term storage using clay covering, to cook the tastiest noodle soup, to embroider handkerchiefs and wedding towels…

Wedding articles are prepared today because the main theatrical performance of the event is a Cossack wedding in all its details.

Meanwhile the public is entertained with the performance of the well-known song and dance groups from Volgograd, Cheboksary, Adygea and the Rostov Region.

Back to wedding matters… Real newlyweds – Alexey and Alyona Sivtsov, Dmitry and Alina Anistratenko, are invited to the stage. They are congratulated and wished a happy life together and are given symbolic presents – new birdhouses…

Children and adults play games, ride on horses and pony, or take part in workshops on making souvenirs. An old photo studio is a real hit – if you like to have your photo taken wearing a traditional Cossack dress of the beginning of the previous century, you can change and pose for a photo in the old Cossack interior.

At the Cossack farmstead the guests are taught to make blackberry jam on “Sholokhov’s recipe”.

The holiday area is decorated with coloured balloons, ribbons, posters bearing wedding proverbs. Here are big figures of a Cossack man, woman and “their son” made of… a few rolls of hay.

A usual prewedding fluster goes in Kruzhilin in the form of competitions showing the skills of washing, rubel pressing, sawing wood with a two-hand saw, carrying buckets of water on the rocker arms, and so on.

At this time, the most important competition called “Wedding Loaf” attracts lovers and masters of cooking and baking. They taste the wedding bread and vote for the best baker. The winners are awarded money prizes. We do have masters of baking!

The holiday guests of honour addressed their best wishes to the hosts and guests of the holiday.

A.M.Sholokhov, Deputy Head of the Cultural Committee of the RF Duma, noted that the fine weather favours the holiday and all the holiday makers can help the hosts in their autumn works. “And we are always ready to do it!” – he said.

The public was also greeted by A.A.Rezvanov, the Rostov Region Minister of Culture, and O.A.Anistratenko, director of the Museum-Reserve of M.A.Sholokhov.

The best performers of the Museum-Reserve showed their work “Wedding in Kruzhilin Village”.

A Cossack wedding is a serious matter, it is very spectacular with the scenes succeeding one another: ”matchmaking”, “buyout”, “wedding train”, “blessings”, “wedding”, “breaking pots” and “presents”…– a sheep, a goose, ducks, hens! Nothing to say about money! And all these are accompanied by the best Cossack songs of the “Pravoslavny Don” group.

The folk festival has swung in full variety, and this clearly shows the way our weddings are held. And “Kruzhilin Toloki” is always a great fun! Come and see for yourself.

Alexey Kochetov