Russian Wedding!

21:35 16 November 2009

Yesterday I returned again from Chuy oblast for the second time in the month- that’s about 13 hours of sitting on a marshrutka, usually crammed next to a huge older woman that is taking up half your seat, which was really not designed for anyone over the height of 4’10” anyhow- yeah, not so comfortable, but pretty darn cheap (it’s about seven dollars to get a similar distance as Washington to New York, even on a Chinatown bus you can’t do that good)

I digress, the reason that I went to Bishkek for the second time this month is because I was invited to my training host-sister’s wedding. I mentioned in an earlier entry how I had come to visit my PST host family and found out the dual news of my host-grandmother/mother dying but then the happier news of Alyona, my host sister’s upcoming marriage. So despite not having enough funds, I wanted to be there for the family during this happy time and I made the long and expensive trek to Chuy Oblast once again.

While I had been to many Kyrgyz weddings, as you may have remember- I wrote about them, I had never attended an ethnically Russian couple’s wedding. They are different in a whole lot of ways. First of all, the wedding is not just a ceremony and a party- it is an entire process that takes pretty much all day. After staying up late the night before getting ready, we woke up early to go prepare the house that the initial reception of the groom was going to come to. At this house they prepared decorations, food, and a type of event that they call “concourses”. Concourses are very common here and are used for everything from parties to celebrations to English-language demonstrations. They are part games, part presentations, part music… basically they are a variety show on a particular theme- in the case of the wedding they were all love themes. I suppose to describe the actual events of the concourse on this day. As the groom and his party drove up to the house, he exited the car and the bride’s party (including me) stopped him at the entrance way- his first task was to demonstrate his strength by chopping some wood. So, tuxedo-clad, and in mid-teens cold, he did as instructed and proceeded to the gate of the house. The gate was locked and the groom was presented with a three liter jar of tomato juice and his party asked to down it to find the key. Well after the groom and a couple other fellows from his party took turns sipping at the cold liquid, a babushka (grandmother) said something to the tune of “Oh screw this!” and rolled up her sleeve and retrieved the key. As you can see, the concourse was primarily to be a test of Igor’s (the husband) love and dedication to Alyona despite each obstacle placed in his way.

In addition to the test of love, there was another component to the whole action- money, money, money!!! After these first two steps each further one had a financial component. As Igor and his party entered through the gate he was confronted with a poster paper which all the girls (including Alyona) had kissed after applying lipstick- he was required to find her lips and each time he guessed wrong had to pay a fine. Further, he was required to spell her name out in money (something he tried to do initially by taking 5 one som coins and saying “Ah” “Leh” “Yu” “Heh” “Ah”- this was judged unsatisfactory by the bride’s party and they did a more satisfactory job with 10 and 20 som bills…). At this point, there were about 100 people in the courtyard of the house all shouting and yelling and trying to get inside with the bride’s party demanding more money and the grooms complaining about the cold (something we had little sympathy for as we had been outside waiting for them for a good 90 minutes before they came) and trying (with large degrees of success) to get everyone to take shots of vodka. But eventually (after having to spontaneously compose poetry about Alyona and show off his dance skills and shouting his love for her) Igor got inside and this is where the real bidding arose. There sat Alyona (looking absolutely beautiful in her white wedding dress) next to her brother Maksim and it was the groom’s party’s responsibility to “buy” that seat from Maksim so that they could proceed with the wedding. A fierce round of negotiating began with them offering Maksim increasingly large sums of money and asking him to name a price, to which he replied quite wittily, “you keep throwing down money and I’ll tell you when…” after numerous pauses in the negotiation, he continued with “Well, if you don’t want to shell out for her, it doesn’t matter to me, I am sure someone else would be willing to pay for such a beautiful bride.” But eventually a price was settled on- 2,000 soms (about $50) and Igor was able to sit next to his bride as everyone breathed a sigh of relief and took celebratory shots.

Naturally, after shots comes driving- (Haha, joke- the drivers were pretty sober) and we went to the Gost-Register, which unfortunately is not where the ghosts much register, but where civil contracts are made. Because of the USSR, religious weddings are relatively uncommon (though growing) and most couples have the actually ceremony of marriage in a government building. So it was done, in a pretty typical ceremony they exchanged rings, said vows, and popped some champagne. Then it was time to really party!

Well, not yet actually, first we had to do a Bishkek tradition of “walking” despite the flimsy-thinness of the dress, tradition dictates that new couples walk around the scenic areas of Bishkek to take pictures and show of their new love. So we did and as I was the official unofficial photographer, I was on hand to document everything that went on. We figured it was enough when both Igor and Alyona were literally shivering from the cold and unable to hold still for pictures any longer, but we really did get some nice pictures that will make a good keepsake for the couple.

So now, finally, it’s time to party (and eat perhaps more importantly- I was starving!). We arrived to the café where the reception was held at about 1600 and immediately start pouring Papa Kolya’s home-made wine, vodka shots, and home made pear juice, and stuffing our faces with a delicious variety of snacks, salads, breads, and sweets. This is the part of the weddings that I had been to that were Kyrgyz so I expected it to be very similar- and in some respects it was- there was dancing and toasts and all those nice things, but there were a lot of differences. First of all- Russian people are crazy. And I mean this in a totally positive and happy way- they are totally unselfconscious about themselves when it comes to dancing and having fun, and that translates into everything from a fat guy in a cape and no shirt playing a inflatable guitar with an Uncle Sam hat on to me and my host brother and the groom and a bunch of others doing a can-can to American 50’s music. The music was also surprisingly good- while there was a lot of the typical Russian crap pop, there was also a lot of funky old songs and even some, as I mentioned, American oldies, that really pleased me. It was fun, a lot of fun, and there was a lot of dancing (and less toasting, which suited me just fine).

After about eight hours of eating, dancing, drinking, and repeating that cycle, it was time to pack up and go home. I helped my family gather all the left-overs and then traveled home with them in a marshrutka to return and lay down for blessed, blessed sleep. The next morning I left early back to site but left with them the nearly 800 pictures I took- that will be a nice keepsake for them. And for me- well, it was a truly great experience and one that I will certainly never forget in my life.