POKROV DAY

POKROV DAY (Holy virgin Theotokos Protection) is a fixed religious Slavic holiday. It appeared as a memory of what happened in the beginning of the 10th. c. in Constantinople. The surrounded people were praying very hard to be saved and Virgin Mary herself and other Saints and angels joined their praying. She took a shawl from her head, spread it over the praying people and defended the city. The day is annually celebrated on October 1st (14). The day is the calendar line between autumn and winter. P.d. was a great holiday, the day of the Great Blessing in Ufimskaya region. An all-night service started in the evening and the divine Liturgy as well as prayer service to the Holy Virgin Mary took place on P. d. Local newspapers dated back to the 19th c. reported that besides Russians there were a lot of Mordovians and Chuvashes from the neighborhood on P.d. in Ufa Cathedral. People believed that P.d. is the time protecting marriages; the metaphor “pokrytaya golova (covered head, pokrov – covering)” characterizes the status of a married woman. P.d. timed with the period of finishing agriculture labor and it was the time in Ufimskaya region to start weddings, bean-feasts and “hobnobs” as well as “cabbage evenings” – when girls and women were communicating while conserving cabbage for winter. Following the Russian example, Bashkirs started to arrange hobnob sittings and call P.d. “Bykrau”.

F.G. Galieva