Spirits emerge as summer approaches
Rusalnyi Week comes before the midsummer Kupala festival
and after Easter, in June, as spring turns to summer. Like
Kupala, it is a magical period with pre-Christian roots.
The Green Feast Day
In a church decorated with greenery, an Orthodox
priest blesses people who have brought flowers on
Trinity Sunday, also known as the Green Holidays (and
elsewhere as Pentecost or Whit Sunday). Birch branches
adorn icons on the feast day, and church floors are
strewn with grass. Rusalnyi Week begins the following
day.
video: Iryna Nevhad
Defensive decorations
Like the night of Kupala, the period around Trinity Sunday was believed to be a time in which the boundary between the natural and the supernatural worlds would soften, allowing spirits to roam across it. With summer approaching, it was the moment to ask the spirits for a good harvest. But some of those spirits, including souls of the dead, could be dangerous. To protect themselves, people would deck their houses with greenery, a custom known as klechannia. Maple, birch or linden branches were favoured for the outside; plantain, thyme and wormwood for the inside.
Ready for the rusalky
Rusalnyi Week marks the window in the year when rusalky, restless and
troubled water spirits, were said to emerge onto dry
land, venturing into fields and climbing trees. They
were to be both feared and welcomed: they might
tickle men to death, but they might also bring
fertility to crops. To prepare for their coming,
clothes and towels would be hung on the trees, so
that they had something to wear when they came out
of the water, and bread would be left in the fields
so that they didn't consume the wheat. At the end of
the week, a procession of villagers would
symbolically escort them back to the water.
In those traditions, rusalky have entirely human forms, not half human and half fish.
Sure, they have a lot in common with mermaids – female, beautiful, dwelling in water, luring men to their deaths. But they have richer and more complex natures. The spirits of women and girls who met untimely or unnatural deaths, they are conflicted and tragic. Having died too soon, they don't know how to behave with humans – when they tickle people to death, they might just be trying to play with them.
For a rich and subtle discussion of rusalka nature, see this paper by Jiří Dynda.