Сравнение необычных праздников в России и Великобритании

МОУ «Гимназия №4»

Секция «Английский язык»

Сравнение необычных праздников в России и Великобритании

  Выполнила:

                                                                                           ученица 10 В класса

Лужецкая Юлия

                                                                                  Pуководитель:

                                                                                    Астафьева Е. В.

Смоленск

2012

Contents

Introduction…………………………………………………………………….......2

1.  Unusual holidays in Great Britain..………………………………………..........3

     1.1. The festival of Celtic music and culture.……………………………….......3

     1.2. Floral Marathon………………………………………………………..........4

     1.3. The Day of left-handers………………………………………………..........4

     1.4. Apple Day……………………………………………………………...........5

     1.5. The festival in honor of Lady Godiva………………………………….........5

     1.6. Marsh diving and cheese races………………………………………............6

     1.7. Trooping of the Colour……………………………………………...............6

     1.8. Changing of the Guard……………………………………………................7

     1.9. Swan Upping…………………………………………………………...........7

     1.10. Highland Games…………………………………………………................7

2.  Unusual holidays in Russia…………………………………………………........8

     2.1. Ivan Kupala…………………………………………………………….........8

     2.2. Professional Holidays…………………………………………………..........8

     2.3. Cosmonaut's Day………………….……………………………………........9

     2.4. Radio Day………………………………………………………………........9

     2.5. The Day of Cucumber in Suzdal……………………………………….........9

     2.6. Krasnaya Gorka………………………………………………………….....10

3. Research………………………………………………………………….............12

Conclusion…………………………………………………………………….........14

Bibliography

Introduction

A holiday is the day of celebration, established in honor or in memory of someone or something. In particular, it is a day or several days celebrated by the church in memory of a religious event or a saint. It is a weekend, a festival. It is a day of joy and celebration. It is a day of fun and games.

A holiday is a special element in the structure of social time. The main function of a holiday is the socio-cultural integration of community of people. Different holidays carry out different types of integration.

In addition, a holiday has an important function of relaxation. A holiday makes a break from routine life.

Holidays are a part of the culture of any country. Russia and Great Britain are not exceptions. They have a lot of interesting holidays but they are certainly different, so in my report I tried to compare them.

The hypothesis of my work is the following:

• the attitude of Russians to celebrating holidays is more serious, we have fewer bright and memorable festivals than the British do.

The object of my work is the comparison of holidays in Russia and abroad.

The methods of the research are the following:

• conducting an opinion poll;
• analysis of literary sources.

I set the following aims:

• to learn more about interesting and unusual holidays in Russia and the UK;
• to learn where life is funnier;
• to learn what people think and know about holidays.

I think it is a very actual topic nowadays because holidays are the integral part of our lives. Life would be boring and monotonous without them.

Unusual holidays in Great Britain

The festival of Celtic music and culture

The festival of Celtic culture takes place in many countries including Russia: in Vyborg, Nizhny Novgorod - on March 17, in Krasnodar  - in November.
From 13 to 30 January Celtic Connections Festival is held in the Scottish city -  Glasgow. For 19 days and nights viewers can visit more than 200 events on Celtic culture and music. Artists from the UK, Canada, USA, France and Spain take part in the festival.
Besides the amazing concerts Celtic Connections perform the "talk show and debates," in which Ian Anderson, the famous radio host BBC Scotland, talks with outstanding musicians.
In France, Lorient (Brittany) there is the biggest festival of Celtic culture, the grand get-together, which is called the British «emvod ar geited» (Celtic Assembly). It has been celebrated for more than 30 years. It takes place in August. The city turns into a huge stage area, where descendants of the Gauls, Britons, Scots, Gallates, Picts, Gael and Erin act.
Concerts, master classes of playing traditional musical instruments, displays of national costumes, competitions in traditional sports are accompanied by exhibitions, scientific and pseudo-scientific conferences.
The festival is opened by a grand parade of Celtic Nations - the streets of Lorient become a podium for demonstrations of folk costumes penetrating into the depths of the soul, sounds of bagpipes emphasize the historical flavor of the action.
To get properly acquainted with Celtic music it is necessary to visit the concert "Magical Night." It takes place four times during the festival in the main arena of the city. The best musicians of the Asturias, Brittany, Galicia, Ireland, Wales and Scotland represent their regions to the audience. All this is accompanied by a breathtaking laser show.

Floral Marathon

The annual London Marathon (Virgin London Marathon), an event usually held in April is more than a sporting event. It is one of the longest street gatherings in the world. The thunder of drums, street performances, gatherings in pubs and merry shouts of the crowd are  accompanied by a running a 26.2-mile marathon.
Many famous athletes are involved in the marathon. For eminent athletes participation in the marathon means not only sport, but also the opportunity to contribute to the development of social programmes.
For example, participants pay a fee, and the total amount of proceeds from the event organization is 15.7 million pounds. Every year the number of participants in the marathon is about 15 thousand.
A kind of charity - a tribute to social programs - is not just sports celebrities. All London's organizations, including small bars and even schools, cook their tasty things for the holiday.

The Day of left-handers

On August 13 left-handed non-governmental organizations organize a variety of activities and events "by contradiction" by not allowing participants to use the right hand while eating, work, various subtle manipulations.

The famous left-handers of the UK are Prime Minister Winston Churchill and James Callaghan, the legendary Admiral Horatio Nelson, Queen Victoria, Queen Mother Elizabeth, Prince William.

Apple Day

October 21 or the next weekend people in England celebrate the Apple day- an annual event devoted to apples, orchards and local attractions, which is arranged thanks to the initiative of the Common Ground charity in 1990.
The organizers believe that the day of the apple is a celebration and demonstration of diversity and richness of nature, as well as the fact that we are able to influence the changes occurring around us. The idea of ​​the Day is an apple - a symbol of physical, cultural and genetic diversity, which one should not forget.
On the Day of the Apple one can see and taste hundreds of different varieties of apples, and many of the existing varieties are not sold in retail stores. Employees and greenhouses offer to buy rare varieties of apple trees. The office identification of apples is often involved in the festival. You can discuss all the problems of apple trees in your garden with an "apple-doctor".
During the festival many apple dishes and drinks are offered - from an apple pie and  fruit and vegetable chutney to apple juice and cider. Sometimes experts give lessons how to trim and crown the formation as well as graft apple trees. Various games, archery for apples and "apple" stories are very popular at the festival.
On the day of the holiday there is a contest for the longest strip of peel (The Longest Peel Competition), which means peeling apples. The competition is held in manual cleaning of the apple and cleaning with machines or other devices.
The longest apple peel is listed in the Guinness Book of Records. The list of world record runs: the record for the longest apple peel belonged to the  American, Kathy Walfer, who was cleaning an apple for 11 hours and 30 minutes and got the peel 52 metres 51 centimeters long. The record was set on October 16, 1976 in New York.

The festival in honor of Lady Godiva

The story of Lady Godiva, naked on a horse galloping through the streets of Coventry, is one of the most popular British legends. The old English town is flooded by postcards, souvenirs and statues of this story. According to the legend, Lady Godiva, the beautiful wife of Lord Leofric, Count Mercy, was struck by the surrounding poverty and begged her husband to cancel the ruthless tax that he had introduced in his county.
However, Leofric declared that he would fulfil her wish, but only under one condition: she must gallop on a horse naked through the city. The tricky lord was sure that she would never rank it. However, Godiva did not give in. On the appointed day she told city residents to lock up the house by closing all the shutters. Only one guy named Tom dared not obey. The sky punished the impudent and he became blind before he saw Lady Godiva in the attire of Eve. After this test the woman returned to her husband, who kept his word, and lowered taxes.
The story first appeared in 1188, while its characters lived half a century earlier. Leofric was the Anglo-Saxon Earl, who built a Benedictine monastery in 1043, which soon became a small village of Coventry in the fourth-largest city of medieval England. His wife, Godiva, outlived him by 10 years. She was very devout and donated land and money to the church.
It is believed that the legend of Lady Godiva was inspired by the pagan rituals of fertility that long remained in Europe and are sometimes confused with the Christian tradition. It was popularized in the writings of the Norman chronicler of the 13th century Roger Vindovera.
However, the grateful descendants established the statue of Lady Godiva in Coventry and celebrate this day as a holiday.

Marsh diving and cheese races

Marsh diving means competitions in swimming into a bog which are held in Wales. At the end of August ten brave swimmers, armed with masks and foot fins, try to win a 55-meter race. It is that case when participation is more important than a victory as prizes are received by all the swimmers who have reached the finish.

For Englishmen who don’t like to flounder in dirt there is a possibility to run about competing in speed with cheese. Participants of competitions get on top of a hill and try to catch up with a cheese head sliding downwards on an abrupt slope.

The Trooping of the Colour

The Queen is the only person in Britain with two birthdays. Her real birthday is on April, 21st, but she has an “official” birthday, too. That’s on the second Saturday in June. And on the Queen’s official birthday, there is a traditional ceremony called the Trooping of the Colour. It’s a big parade with brass bands and hundreds of soldiers at Horse Guards’ Parade in London. A “regiment” of the Queen’s soldiers, the Guards, march in front of her. At the front of the parade is the regiment’s flag or “colour”. The Guards are trooping the colour. Thousands of Londoners and visitors watch in Horse Guards’ Parade. And millions of people at home watch it on television.

The Changing of the Guard

This happens every day at Buckingham Palace, the Queen’s home in London. Soldiers stand in front of the palace. Each morning these soldiers (the “guard”) change. One group leaves and another arrives. In summer and winter tourists stand outside the palace at 11.30 every morning and watch the Changing of the Guard.

Swan Upping

It is a very different royal tradition. On the River Thames there are hundreds of swans. A lot of these beautiful white birds belong, traditionally, to the king or queen. In July the young swans on the Thames are about two months old. Then the Queen's swan keeper goes, in a boat, from London Bridge to Henley. He looks at all the young swans and marks the royal ones. The name of this strange but interesting custom is Swan Upping. 

The Highland Games

This sporting tradition is Scottish. In the Highlands (the mountains of Scotland) families, or “clans”, started the Games hundreds of years ago.

Some of the sports are the Games are international: the high jump and the long jump, for example. But other sports happen only at the Highland Games. One is tossing the caber. “Tossing” means throwing, and a “caber” is a long, heavy piece of wood. In tossing the caber you lift the caber (it can be five or six metres tall). Then you throw it in front of you.

At the Highland Games a lot of men wear kilts. These are traditional Scottish skirts for men. But they are not all the same. Each clan has a different “tartan”. That is the name for the pattern on the kilt. So at the Highland Games there are traditional sports and traditional clothes. And there’s traditional music, too, from Scotland’s national instrument - the bagpipes. The bagpipes are very loud. They say Scots soldier played them before a battle. The noise frightened the soldiers on the other side. 

Unusual holidays in Russia

Ivan Kupala

This holiday is equivalent to the Holiday of St. John the Baptist and relates to water. To celebrate this day young people gathered near rivers and ponds, sang songs and danced. Mass baths were also taken. In the evenings fires were burnt and young people tried to jump over the fires holding hands. If after the jump hands were still together, it meant a sign of a close wedding. People went deep into the forests in pairs and alone to find a fern flower, said to blossom on Ivan Kupala night only and fulfil wishes. 

It is not a public holiday, yet is still remembered and loved by some people. The same concerns Troitsa, another holiday manifesting the mixture of pagan and Christian traditions.

Professional Holidays

Along with national holidays Russia has many other holidays, professional holidays (the Day of the miner, the Day of the fisherman, etc) making the major part of them. Some professional holidays have a fixed date, whereas most of them fall on the 1st, 2nd, etc. Sunday or Saturday of this or that month. The Teacher’s Day, which was established in the USSR in 1965 is widely celebrated in Russia; initially it was marked annually on the second Sunday of October. In 1994 the holiday was shifted to the 5th of October and since then Russia has celebrated the International Teacher’s Day together with other countries.

April 12: Cosmonaut's Day

Cosmonaut's Day celebrates Russia's achievement of sending human beings into space. While another version of this day is celebrated internationally, the grave site of Yuri Gargarin (the first man in space) is visited in Russia, as well as monuments and landmarks related to space travel and achievement.

Radio Day

Radio Day or Communication Workers' Day (as it is officially known in Russia), or Radio and Television Day, is a commemoration of the development of radio in Russia. It takes place on May 7, the day when Alexander Popov successfully demonstrated his invention in 1895.

The Day of Cucumber in Suzdal

Everyyear (now once in several years) the city of Suzdal celebrates the outstanding, original and unique holiday - The Day of Cucumber. From 15 to July 17 the town-museum in the open air is the main centre of meeting of amateur gardeners, famous for the skill a talent. Agronomists, vacationers and professionals in their field show the best specimens of personally grown cucumbers. A large and small, green and yellow, salted and pickled - cucumber is honoured in Suzdal as the most important guest.

How do people celebrate the funny holiday? Of course, with fairs and bazaars, where craftsmen from the farthest corners of our country offer guests a taste of sweet, salty, fresh, pickled, fried and steamed cucumbers. Those who do not respect this vegetable but like a good walk will also have fun these days. In the town of Suzdal concerts are organized in the central squares, there come the vocal and instrumental ensembles, dance groups, pop stars - they make speeches, organize contests, competitions and games.
         During the holiday of cucumber (which can be rightly called a festival) the town of Suzdal is radically transformed. Photos and pictures of cucumbers can be seen everywhere.  Nevertheless even without these slogans, anthems and songs to the cucumber, the town remains bright and has a charming atmosphere. Songs and babies’ playful laughter can be heard all the days. There reigns a truly solemn atmosphere!
The guests who attended the festival take away colourful souvenirs: wood, clay and paper cucumbers. They will decorate the home interior and will always remind about the great holiday held in Suzdal. Tourists and local people are also offered to be photographed in the costume of the cucumber or in a wooden tub during the celebration.
Not only our fellow citizens but guests from faraway countries come to Suzdal too. They marvel at the beauty of this glorious city and the original scripts of the unusual celebration.

Krasnaya Gorka

Red Hill is a favorite among the people, spring and especially the youth festival. With the spread of Christianity it was confined to the first Sunday after Easter called Fomin day. As soon as the land is free from snow (it is primarily small hills, popularly called hillocks), there immediately are held celebrations of the youth, children's games, dances and songs. The name of the hills, "Red," originated from it and means beautiful.

According to the popular calendar all the girls and young women, taking food with them, went to some favourite place of the village street and sang spring songs, danced and organized different games on this holiday.

Red Hill was considered a girls` holiday.  Weddings occurred on the holiday and matchmaking was also widespread. So all girls participated in games. It was considered a bad omen if some boy or girl will stay at home on the holiday.

Girls and women tried to attract the attention of guys by different ways, so they intertwined colored bright ribbons in their hair and put on painted shawls. Everyone wanted to stand out from the large number of girls. Lada (godmother or a girl) tucked fun. She was the best expert in lyrics, supervised dances and remembered the rules of games.

The research

I conducted a survey among people of different ages. The theme was “The Holidays”. 30 people passed my test. It consisted of 10 questions. The answers will help us to find out people’s attitude to holidays and how they celebrate them.

My first question was: “Do you love holidays?” 73% of the respondents say that they love them and 27% like just a few. Nobody says that he doesn’t like holidays. It is not surprising. Holidays bring diversity in our lives. I think we love them for it.

The second question was: “What is your favourite holiday?” 56% of the respondents say that their favourite holiday is New Year`s Day, 34% like their birthday and 10% like March 8. I think New Year`s Day got most votes because of its atmosphere. It is the holiday that unites our great country, makes us kinder.

The third question was: “With whom do you usually celebrate holidays?” 73% of the respondents say that they usually celebrate with their family and friends, 23% celebrate only with their family and 4% celebrate alone. It turns out that the majority celebrates only with their relatives. It is really good.

The fourth question was: “What do you love most in holidays?” The respondents could choose multiple answers out of 5. The atmosphere of the holiday was chosen 17 times, the answer “weekends” was chosen 12 times, the closeness of dear people – 11 times, the gifts – 10 times and good food – 9 times. So the most important thing for people is the atmosphere of the holiday and gluttony isn’t important for them. It is very pleasant.

The fifth question was: “Would you like to increase the number of official holidays in Russia?” 73% of the respondents said that they would and 27% wouldn’t. I would answer “yes” to this question because I think that 1 or 2 holidays could be added. Nevertheless it is just my opinion.

The sixth question was: “What unofficial holidays do you know in Russia?” There were so many different answers, for example, Mother’s Day, April Fools’ Day, St. Valentine's Day etc. Easter got most votes. This is not surprising for me. I think the church has a great influence on people in our country.

The seventh question was: “Do you celebrate unofficial holidays?” 78% of the respondents say that they celebrate some unofficial holidays, 22% don’t celebrate them at all. It turns out that unofficial holidays are not so important for people as official ones. It is sad.

The eighth question was: “What British holidays do you know?” All respondents called Halloween. It pleases! Some added Military tattoo, Guy Fawkes Day and Boxing Day. It means that English lessons at school are not useless.  

The ninth question was: “Do you celebrate British holidays?” It turns out that 50% of the respondents celebrate some holidays and 50% don’t celebrate at all. I am disappointed. I would like people to be more attached to the culture of Great Britain, to discover something new in it. It is a country of great traditions. Any well-educated person should be aware of it.

The last tenth question was: “What holiday would you like to offer to celebrate?” There were so many variuos answers, for example, the day of flowers, the day of squirrels, the day of the word “please”, when all people are polite, the day of walking, when people all day move on just their feet, the sale day, the day of free make-up etc. They are not all the proposed holidays but even they help us to see the creativity of our people.

Conclusion

To sum up, we got acquainted with some interesting and unusual holidays in Russia and the UK. Of course it is only a small part of them. Nevertheless it helps us to understand that people in Britain are more creative and have a rich imagination. How else would they come up with such funny holidays? We also found that Russian people love holidays because of their atmosphere and weekends. It is very nice, but at the same time Russians don’t know almost anything about holidays in the UK, so it is sad.

On the whole my hypothesis was proved, Russians really have fewer memorable holidays and they are mostly devoted to the professions. On the one hand, it can be explained by the fact that there many different nations in Russia, on the other hand – by the difficult economic situation, complicated history, wars, repressions.  I hope that in future people will change their mind and the situation for the better.

Bibliography

1. http://www.calend.ru/holidays/greatbritan/
2. http://festival.1september.ru/articles/411372/
3. http://na5.ru/503105-5
4. http://goeasteurope.about.com/od/russia/tp/russianholidays.htm
5. http://www.russia-ic.com/culture_art/traditions/338/
6. http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/
7. http://suzdaltravel.ru/mmenu.php?id=166
8. http://www.inmoment.ru/holidays/red-hill.html