moment. The last kulich is taken out of the oven, Mama is glowing, Aunt Shura is happy and everything else – is nothing.
After surviving the baking of the kulichi, the tortes, biscuits and other foods are not a problem. The decoration of the cakes and the colouring of the eggs were all a very important part of the preparation and setting of the festive Easter table. Here, the artistry of each housekeeper came to the fore.
Later in Australia, during my long service leave following 25 years work in the hospital, I took a course with Vera Stepanovna Apanaskevich in the special art of cake and kulichi decoration. I learned how to make fruit jellies and zefir (marshmellow). Unfortunately, calories proved to be a problem. Roses, mushrooms with chocolate tops, flowers etc. made from butter-cream may have looked good but were unhealthy so this art was not used often. However, I did make my daughter’s wedding cake when she married Vasia and decorated Christening cakes for my grandchildren.
It is important to describe how Radonitsa (remembrance of those who died) was celebrated in Harbin. On the tenth day after Paskha, on Tuesday, all Orthodox churches would conduct a general Panikhida (Memorial Service). After the Panikhida the clergy and people made their way to the Uspensky cemetery where shorter, individual services were held at each grave.
According to old Russian custom, it was usual to bring kutia (a bowl of sweetened rice or other grain usually decorated with dried fruit), food and something to drink. People would in this way pray for and remember the departed at the grave site. Special buses were often used and the local authorities ensured that buses, trams and pedestrians all moved in an orderly fashion.
It is sad to note that the Uspensky (Dormition) Cathedral and the cemetery were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. The memorial stones were then used to pave the streets and the cemetery was razed to become a park. People said that when walking along the streets of Harbin it was sometimes possible to see the names of loved ones and acquaintances among the stones embedded in the paths and roads. These were the grimaces of fate that life presented during the days of ‘great changes’ which took away and destroyed millions of innocent people in jails, camps and exile.
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