The Earth Celebrates Her Name Day

An old Russian village celebration of Trinity Sunday, with birches in bloom, homemade pies, lively thunderstorms, and the timeless magic of rural folk traditions!

The Earth Celebrates Her Name Day¹

Vasily Nikiforov-Volgin

The birches outside our window rustled in anticipation of the coming holiday, in celebration of the Holy Trinity.² If you sat in their shade, merged with the shimmer of their gleaming leaves, and squeezed your eyes shut, a bright, rippling path would appear to you, like on a river at sunrise, and it seemed as if the Holy Trinity was walking down the path in the form of three angels in white robes.³

On the eve of the holiday, Mother said, “Tomorrow is the earth’s name day!”

“How is it her name day?”

“Because, son, Trinity Sunday falls on the feast of St. Simon the Zealot tomorrow, and on St. Simon’s day, the earth celebrates her name day. All across Rus’,⁴ the peasants won’t be plowing!”⁵

“The earth is celebrating her name day!”

These extraordinary words were so delightful that my whole soul lit up. I ran out into the street. I met Fedka⁶ and Grishka⁷ and asked them:

“Guys, guess whose name day is tomorrow? If you guess, I’ll buy you two kopecks’ worth⁸ of boyar’s kvass!”⁹

The boys puffed out their cheeks and began to think. I looked at them as if I were General Skobelev¹⁰ peering down from his white horse (we had a painting like that).

Father had said more than once that my friends Fedka and Grishka were not just children, but blessings from God, since they honored their parents, didn’t sneak sugar without asking, didn’t climb into other people’s gardens for apples, and could read printed text so deftly, it was like watching birds fly. I was glad that I had posed such a tricky riddle to such smart boys.

They thought and thought and finally admitted with a sigh:

“We can’t guess. Tell us.”

I maintained a dignified silence, blew my nose, and answered with relish:

“Tomorrow, the earth is celebrating her name day!”

They wanted to laugh at me, but then, realizing something, they fell silent and grew thoughtful.

“That’s true,” said Fedka, seriously. “On Trinity Sunday, the earth is always dressed up and happy, like a girl on her name day!”

Then Grishka slyly added:

“You’ve got a good head, Vaska, too bad it’s on a fool!”¹¹

I couldn’t take his namecalling and started crying. My father leaned out the window and shouted:

“What are you fussing about? You’d be better off going to the woods with the boys for some birch branches!”¹²

The fragrant, ringing word – “woods” – made my heart tremble. I stopped crying. Reconciled, I grabbed Fedka and Grishka by the hands and began begging them to go for birch branches. We each took a loaf of bread from home and walked along the town’s main street, singing, joyful and intoxicated with ancitipation of our impending adventure in the woods. And we sang the song of the shoemakers who lived in our community:

My sorrow is not a seedling,

You can’t plant it in rows,

And my grief is not a splinter,

You can’t burn it at night.

We were stopped by the pot-bellied constable Gavrilych¹³, who said, “Hey, you kids, keep it down!”

In the woods, it was so joyous and bright it was almost overwhelming — a feeling so intense it was dizzying, aching, with sensations flooding our vision — a veritable rainbow of colors. We met some woodcutters in the thicket. One of them — with a beard like a woodsprite — looked at us and said, “These kids live and bloom like scarlet flowers, but our heads wither like grass...”

We were pleased that they thought well of us, and that they had called us scarlet flowers.

But before making it home with all the thin, rustling birch branches, my joy was dampened.

Coming out to the forest edge, Grishka suggested we tell our fortunes by the cuckoo — how many more years would we live?¹⁴

The cuckoo cuckooed eighty years for Grishka, sixty-five for Fedka, and for me only two years.

From bitter hurt, I fell on the grass and cried, “I don’t want to die in two years!”

The guys felt sorry for me and tried to persuade me not to believe the cuckoo, since it’s a stupid bird that always lies. And only when Fedka suggested “interrogating” the cuckoo a second time did they manage to calm me down.

I turned my tear-stained face in its direction and through my sobs began to beg the prophetic bird, “Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo for me, how long shall I live in this world?”

This time it cuckooed fifty years for me. I felt easier at heart, though I secretly wished to live a hundred and twenty years for some reason...

We returned home under the light of the evening star¹⁵, under starry skies, through the quiet dew. The whole way we were silent, dipping our hot faces into the downy birch foliage and feeling with one heart: how good it is to be alive, when tomorrow the earth will celebrate her name day!

I sensed the arrival of the Holy Trinity in the courtyard early in the morning, in the image of the dawn, which filled our small room with a delicate radiance. Mother was dutifully lighting the lampada¹⁶ before the icons and whispering, “Most Holy Trinity, save and protect us...”

Our home smelled of pies, and in that smell, one felt the significance of the coming day. I got out of bed and stepped with my warm feet onto the floor’s first chilly morning sunbeams.¹⁷

“Why are you up so early?” whispered Mother. “You should sleep more.”

I asked her, “What are the pies made of?”

“Rice.”

“And what else?”

“Lingonberry jam.”¹⁸

“And what else?”

“Nothing else.”

“Not enough,” I frowned, “but Grishka told me they have six pies and three large loaves of bread today!”

“Don’t try to keep up with him, son... They are wealthy.”

“Give me a piece of pie with jam. I really want some!”

“Son, are you a Freemason or a Turk?”¹⁹ Mother threw up her hands. “What sort of Orthodox Christian eats pies before liturgy?”²⁰

“Pyotr Leksandrych,“ I answered, “he even wolfs down pork during Lent!”

“He’s not Orthodox, son, he’s a medic!” said Mother, referring to our neighbor, the paramedic Filippov.²¹ “Don’t pay attention to him. It’s better to pray to God and go to liturgy.”

Warming the earth on her name day, the sunshine spread out in fragrant, thick waves. It had already become quite warm outside, and everyone said there would be a thunderstorm!

I waited for it with an anxious but pleasant alertness — the first spring thunder!

Before I left for liturgy, Lida came to us — the washerwoman’s daughter, the most beautiful girl in our community — and, lowering her eyelashes, shyly asked Mother for a silver spoon.²²

“What for?”

“They say there will be a thunderstorm today, so I want to sprinkle myself with rainwater from silver. It makes your complexion good!”²³

She said this and blushed like a crimson dawn.

I looked at her as at a golden chalice²⁴ during liturgy, and, flushing with a hot blush from admiration and joy, exclaimed:

“Your face is like an angel’s!”

Everyone laughed. Ashamed, I ran out into the street, hid in the garden shade, and for some reason covered my face with my hands.

The church crowned the earth’s name day with wonderful words, hymns, and long, mysterious prayers, during which we knelt²⁵ — and the floor was strewn with flowers and fresh grass.²⁶ I picked blades of grass from the floor, rubbed them between my palms, and, breathing in their bitter scent, remembered the green expanses of the field and the words of the wanderer Yashka²⁷, who had traversed all of Russia on foot:

“I’ll walk through the green meadow, gaze at the blue sky ‘till I’ve had my fill, and return by the crimson dawn.”

After dinner, we went to the cemetery to commemorate our departed kin. On Trinity Sunday, the priests and deacons from the town’s seven churches served memorial services at the graves.²⁸ Near the white cemetery gates, a fair swirled, screeched, whistled, shouted, and raised dust. The legless beggar Yevdokim²⁹, sitting in a cart, sang in a high, sobbing voice about the Mother of God walking through flower-strewn fields and gathering flowers, “to adorn the life-giving tomb of Her Beloved Son.”

Around Yevdokim, women stood and listened, grief-stricken. The legless man’s wooden bowl was full of copper coins. I looked at them and thought:

It’s good to be a beggar! How many sweets you can buy with that money!

Father gave me a five-kopeck piece (and this, too, was a holiday). I bought a kopeck’s worth of boyar’s kvass for myself, a kopeck’s worth of hard candies (four pieces), and three kopecks’ worth of orange flavored ice cream. It made my teeth ache, and I cried for the whole fair to hear.

Mother comforted me and said, “You shouldn’t touch city sweets, son! They always bring punishment and sin!”³⁰ She made the sign of the cross over me, and my teeth stopped hurting.³¹

At the cemetery, Mother scattered seeds on a little grave³² — for the birds, for the memorial — and then they served a panikhida.³³ The Trinity Sunday panikhida sounded bright, and “the life everlasting,” of which the priests sang, also seemed bright, all in flowers and birch branches.

We had hardly reached home when thunder began rumbling across the earth. The rain at first scattered in round little grains, then got going and came down in a rattling downpour. From the merry, heavy rain, the trees rustled with fresh, broad voices, and the air smelled strongly of birches.

I stood on the porch and sang at the top of my lungs:

Rain, rain, go away,

I will go to the Jordan —

to pray to God, to bow to Christ.³⁴

Lida ran out into the middle of the community courtyard, held out a silver spoon to the rain, and sprinkled her dear face with the first storm raindrops.

With joyful, tear-filled eyes, I looked at her and thought with a sinking heart:

“When I grow up, I will definitely marry her!”

And to grow up faster, I stood a long time in the rain and soaked my new holiday suit right through.³⁵

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¹ A “name day” is not a birthday, marking the day of one’s physical birth. Rather, it’s like a spiritual birthday. A Russian person is traditionally named after an Orthodox saint, and the person’s “name day” marks the feast day of that particular saint. In traditional Russian Orthodox culture, one’s name day was often considered a more important personal holiday than one’s birthday. In the context of this story, the term is applied to the Earth, suggesting that the Earth has her own patron saint and thus has her own name day.

² In the Orthodox Church, the celebration of Trinity Sunday is on the same day as Pentecost, fifty days after Pascha (Orthodox Easter).

³ The depiction of the Trinity as three angels is a direct allusion to the Hospitality of Abraham, a biblical story found in the 18^th chapter of Genesis, a foundational image in Eastern Orthodox theology representing how God is revealed to man. This is immortalized in Russia by Andrei Rublev’s famous 15th-century icon, The Trinity, and is further reflected in the visions of Russian saints, most notably St. Alexander of Svir, to whom the Trinity appeared in a similar form. The author uses this familiar iconographic imagery to show the Russian boy’s tangible, faith-filled perception of God’s presence.

⁴ The author uses the term “Rus’”, an archaic and poetic term, instead of “Russia.” The term “Rus’” refers to the historical and spiritual ideal of “Holy Rus’” — the timeless, sacred homeland of the Orthodox Christian faith and traditional folk culture. It evokes a legendary, national soul, distinct from the modern political state.

⁵ According to Russian folk tradition, on the feast of St. Simon the Zealot, the Earth itself is honored as if she were a Russian Orthodox girl celebrating her name day. This is why no one can plow — it is a day of rest and reverence for the Earth.

⁶ “Fedka” is an affectionate nickname for “Fyodor”. The English equivalent would be “Theodore” or “Teddy”.

⁷ “Grishka” is an affectionate nickname for “Grigory”. The English equivalent would be “Gregory” or “Greg”.

⁸ Kopecks are Russian coins of little value, similar to pennies in America. One hundred kopecks makes one ruble.

⁹ Kvass is a lightly fermented beverage made from rye bread, common in Russia. A boyar was a high-ranking nobleman in old Russia. So “boyar’s kvass” would be a premium type of this beverage.

¹⁰ General Skobelev was a famous and highly respected Russian general in the 19th century, known as the “White General” for wearing a white uniform.

¹¹ “Vasenka” is an affectionate nickname for “Vasily”. The nickname “Vaska”, used in the present story, is a rougher, street-boy form of the same name. The English equivalent of “Vasily” is “Basil”. The first name of the author is Vasily, and the story is autobiographical. He is sharing real-life memories of when he was a boy.

¹² The practice of gathering birch branches is a popular Russian Orthodox tradition in preparation for celebrating Trinity Sunday. Churches and homes are decorated with greenery to symbolize the renewal of life by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. The birch, Russia’s national tree, represents both purity and the joy of spring’s transition into summer.

¹³ Gavrilych is a colloquial form of the patronymic Gavrilovich, meaning “son of Gavril” (Gabriel). In Russian, using a patronymic alone (especially in this familiar “-ych” form) is a common way to refer to an older man, often of a working-class or rural background. It conveys a mix of familiarity and respect, similar to calling someone “Old Man Gabriel’s son” in a community setting.

¹⁴ This refers to a common Russian folk superstition. By counting the number of times a cuckoo bird calls, a person could supposedly predict how many years he had left to live. The bird’s call was considered an omen, making this a potent, if frightening, game for the children.

¹⁵ The “evening star” is a poetic name for the planet Venus.

¹⁶ A lampada is an oil lamp lit before icons in Orthodox Christian homes and churches.

¹⁷ These “chilly morning sunbeams” are a reference to sunlight that is visually warm, but that seems to carry the cold sensation of the previous night’s frost. The boy steps from his warm bed onto these cool patches of light on the cold floor. – The story takes place in a northern part of Russia, where it is not unusual to have chilly mornings in May. (The author grew up in Narva, which was part of the St. Petersburg Governorate until 1917, and only later became part of modern day Estonia.)

¹⁸ Lingonberries are tart red berries similar to a cranberries, common in Northern European and Russian cuisine.

¹⁹ A Freemason or a Turk – In this context, Mother uses these terms to mean a non-Orthodox outsider or heretic who doesn’t follow the religious rules (like fasting).

²⁰ The liturgy is the Eucharistic service in the Eastern Orthodox Church. Those who partake of the Eucharist are forbidden from eating or drinking anything prior to the service.

²¹ This line reflects a traditionalist worldview where modern, secular professions like a paramedic were associated with a rejection of Orthodox customs. The mother isn’t making a doctrinal statement but a social one, classifying the neighbor as an outsider to the community of faith whose actions are therefore not a good example.

²² “Lida” is a nickname for “Lydia”. In Russia, the name carries a soft, melodic quality that fits the character’s gentle and beautiful portrayal. Its biblical association (Lydia was an early convert to Christianity) also aligns with the story’s religious context.

²³ This reflects an old Russian folk belief. Silver was attributed with purifying properties, and water collected from the first rain of a thunderstorm was considered especially potent and life-giving. Combining them was believed to create an elixir that could bestow purity, health, and beauty upon the user.

²⁴ In the Eastern Orthodox liturgy, the golden chalice holds wine that has been consecrated and transformed into the very blood of Christ. It is the most sacred and revered object on the altar. To look upon it is an act of profound awe, reverence, and holy fear. By making this comparison, the boy portrays Lida as someone of ultimate beauty, purity, and sanctity in his eyes.

²⁵ In Orthodox Christian practice, all kneeling for prayer is prohibited during the 50 days from Pascha (Easter) to Pentecost. That’s because this period of time is a continuous celebration of Christ’s joyous Resurrection and Ascension. The act of kneeling on Pentecost is therefore highly significant — it’s the first time this solemn, penitential posture has been allowed since Easter. These “kneeling prayers” are part of a specific, lengthy service that concludes the feast of Pentecost, expressing humility and marking a transition back to ordinary time on the Church’s calendar.

²⁶ This describes a unique custom for the Orthodox feast of Pentecost. The floor of the church is strewn with grass and flowers, and worshippers kneel directly on this greenery. This practice symbolizes the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit, and transforms the entire church into a symbol of the renewed creation. The grass and flowers represent the earth itself, blessed and made new by the Holy Spirit on the earth’s “name day.” Kneeling on it is a powerful physical act of connecting with this sanctified, renewed, living world.

²⁷ Yashka is a nickname for Yakov (Jacob). This nickname characterizes the wanderer as a simple, folksy figure from a humble background, which aligns with the earthy, poetic wisdom of the saying he recites.

²⁸ In Orthodox Christian tradition, certain major feast days like Trinity Sunday are common times to hold panikhidas (memorial services) at cemeteries. Praying for the dead at the graves on a day celebrating the life-giving Holy Spirit expresses hope for eternal rest and resurrection, uniting the joy of the feast with loving remembrance.

²⁹ The name Yevdokim is a Russian form of the Greek name Eudokimos, which means “well-received” or “in good favor.” Its use for the legless beggar creates a poignant contrast between his humble, suffering state and the dignified meaning of his name, a common literary device in Russian literature to highlight themes of humility and the hidden sanctity of the afflicted.

³⁰ The mother views mass-produced “city sweets” as worldly, corrupting, modern indulgences. Her belief that they bring about sin and physical punishment reflects a worldview where moral and physical health are closely intertwined.

³¹ Her making the sign of the cross is a traditional ritual for healing and invoking God’s protection, demonstrating the power of faith in her life.

³² This is a traditional folk practice among some Russian Orthodox Christians. Scattering seeds or grain is an act of almsgiving performed in the name of the deceased. While feeding God’s creatures (the birds), the living pray for God’s mercy on the departed soul. It also symbolizes the hope of resurrection, as a seed is buried to bring forth new life.

³³ A panikhida is a memorial service for the dead in the Eastern Orthodox Church.

³⁴ This was a common folk song popular with children in Old Russia.

³⁵ This act reflects the child’s tenderly literal and poetic logic: he believes standing in the life-giving rain will make him grow like the natural world around him. Soaking his holiday suit — which is a symbol of family effort and the solemn occasion — underscores the clash between his innocent yearning for the future and the humble, fleeting world of his childhood.