In Russia St.Valentine’s day is not the only holiday devoted to love. We have another one, more customized. But I love it even more.
It is called THE DAY OF LOVE, FAMILY AND FIDELITY and is also known as the day of Sts. Peter and Fevronia who are supposed to be the patrons of marriage and family.
The story of Peter & Fevoria goes back to the old tale of the 13th century. Sometimes they are connected with a real prince of one of Russian lands Murom, but that is not proved. But still the story remains. As per the legend, Peter was a prince and he defeated a dragon. But in a course of the battle, he was bedraggled by the blood of the beast, and so infected leprosy. And he had a vision that we will be cured by a daughter of a beekeeper. Thus he sent messengers to look around for such a girl. And one of them found a girl in a nearby village who seemed extremely mighty to him. The girl agreed to cure Peter in return for a promise to marry her. But when treatment was almost over he he started to find ways to refuse his promise as she was a pleb. But she was intentionally delaying the treatment until marriage. And finally it happened. But when the prince became the king, the noblemen started to demand that he should leave his wife. But he preferred to leave the throne and their land. In the end they were called back as the land was sinking in anarchy. At the end of their life they turned to monks and were praying the God to die in one day and to be married together for such a purpose they in advance prepared a special coffin. And everything happened as they wanted.
Though, the beginning of a story looks a bit controversial: the way how she forced the prince to marry her has a touch of a blackmail, in the end through all of their life they gave an example of family values.
The holiday is a new one, the story stated to be promoted only at the beginning of current century, and the history of the holiday is often connected with the name of the wife of Dmitry Medvedev who at that time substituted Putin as president.
But the holiday in itself looks pretty lovely and attractive. May be also due to the fact that officials so far failed to put hand on and spoil it.
Still even now on the streets of Moscow we can see posters devoted to the holiday with camomail , a symbol of the holiday.
