Winter Bathing 2012

Yesterday, January 19th. was Водохрещеня (Vodochreschenia) or Jordan and the feast of the Epithany. On this day the waters are blessed and the people believe that the waters are suppose to have curitive powers. This belief is supported by many scholars who claim that the water somehow changes and takes on magical qualities. In the morning we went to church where water was blessed by the priests. This water was than taken home where it is drunk and the people bathed in it in the belief that their ills would be washed away.  



These magical properties in the waters are 

in the mt's

acquired in many different ways.


in a mountain stream 






getting ready for the dip



dunkin

  

thank God I did it!



Around the country many people went so far as to jumping into the cold water of the rivers and ponds and submersing themselves to get the full effects of the waters powers, but only for a few seconds as the air temp was only around +3. although that didn't seem to bother the bathers as much as it did the bystanders.



In the river Prut



refreshing







it isn't that cold, really!



This day marked the end of the winter holidays which began a month earlier with the coming of

St. Mikolai on Dec. 19th. bringing gifts to all the good kids.

Happy New Years

Taras, Yaroslava and our grandaughter Veronika

Well I guess it's about time I began writing again. I took too long to write but this summer was extremely busy doing next to nothing and I got lazy.  Also we spent a lot of time going to weddings this summer and fall and I wasn't positive that a lot of blogs about the same theme was appropriate. 

This winter as almost everywhere else has been quite pleasant  and we are finally  experiencing our first real frosts and it began to snow so it is starting to feels like winter.

Even though I have said that I wasn't busy this fall I did start building a gazebo and a pizza oven.

I am planning to build the roof in the spring and complete the chimney on the oven although my first experiments have shown that I can cook pizza's even now.  I also finally built and installed the windows on the upper floor of the garage so I guess I haven't been that lazy.

2012 is the year that Ukraine along with Poland are to host Euro2012.  These are the European football (soccer) competitions with the final to be held in Kyiv so I will be trying to give updates on the preparations and events in Ukraine.

Щасливого Нового Року

і Різдва Христового
 та

Веселих Свят