Page:The way of Martha and the way of Mary (1915).djvu/228



Easter I was at my old home, Vladikavkaz, and on the second Tuesday after Easter Sunday went through one of the most characteristic of Russian holidays—Krasnagorka. It is half-Christian, half-pagan—a festival of spring and of new life, but celebrated almost entirely in graveyards and cemeteries. At Krasnagorka almost the whole population of the town goes on an outing or a picnic—to the cemetery.

Early in the morning I received a message from a Russian friend, "Come to our church; you'll see an interesting sight." The church was crowded, but I got in, for nobody objects to your pushing. It was an unusual service. The whole centre of the floor of the church, a space of some twenty feet by seven, was covered with napkins in which lay lumps of cake, brightly coloured eggs, basins of rice and strawberry jam, basins of rice and raisins. In each basin, and there were some hundreds of them, a lighted wax candle was stuck in the rice and gave a little flame, and beside each lay the little red