Foreign students of the International Education Institute attend concert "Maslenka, give a pancake"

As part of the celebration of Maslenitsa, foreign students of the International Education Institute MIREA, accompanied by teachers of the Russian language Department (as a foreign language) visited the concert "Maslenka, give a pancake" at the invitation of the artists of the famous ensemble of Dmitry Pokrovsky. The event took place in the Concert Hall of the Mosconcert. Students from Sudan, South Africa, Equatorial Guinea, Egypt, Iran, China, Uzbekistan plunged into the atmosphere of the primordial Russian holiday, organically combining pagan and Christian traditions.

The artists of the ensemble in national Russian costumes actively involved spectators in the festive performance, told about the history of festivities, rituals, sang, danced, played in the old Russian games. The musicians played folk instruments: balalaikas, spears, accordions. The spectators saw the Beauty of Winter - a scarecrow with a clay head and a straw body, around which first they play round dances, and then burn it or break it, symbolizing farewell to the old life and the rebirth of the new one.

The students were impressed by the hall where the concert was held. Moldings and bas-reliefs on antique themes, the interior of the ballroom are kept almost unchanged since the beginning of the twentieth century. After the performance, the foreigners enjoyed interacting with artists, were photographed in the halls and on the ancient staircases of Mosconcert, and then all together continued participating in Sunday festivities in Moscow.