Anna and Ivan's Wedding

We had a great time Saturday, completely filled with wedding activities surrounding Dima’s sister Anna and her husband-to-be, Ivan. Dima picked us up at noon to go to his parents’ apartment, where we were treated like family and invited to a big table of food as soon as we walked through the door. The mushrooms we had picked on Thursday had been made into potato pancakes, and they were very, very good. There were also meat patties, liver, beef and rice steamed in cabbage leaves and cold, shredded turkey covered in clear jello (which failed to make our top 10 list of favorite Russian foods).

After eating, we helped with the decorations while Dima’s cousin Sergei dressed himself in a white wedding dress hanging in the hallway. This, we were told, was good luck for the wedding, but not a traditional custom. The more beautiful of the two brides was waiting for the groom to come, and she looked stunning. When the groom arrived, the bridesmaid stopped him at the door and asked several questions regarding his bride, which if answered incorrectly, meant that his friends had to cough up money so that he could pass to the next question. After answering half a dozen questions, he went to the 5th floor, where he had to answer another series of questions, and correctly identify his wife’s lips on a sheet of paper that had been kissed by all the women present at the pre-wedding party. Once inside the apartment, Sergei appeared in his wedding dress, where the groom once again, had to answer a question by presenting Sergei with a gift, which finally allowed Ivan access to his bride.

Afterwards, we went to a 5 minute civil wedding ceremony, held in Tver. Once the bride and groom are officially wed, they visit several of the monuments in the town, eating chocolate and toasting with champagne. One of the monuments in Tver included the World War II memorial, which leads to a small chapel at the crossing of a bridge. Flowers were laid at the memorial, and then the bride and groom locked an engraved padlock around one of the bridge’s iron spindles, throwing the keys into the Volga river.

A two hour ride later to Kalin, the home of famous Russian composer Tchaikovsky, we settled into the evening’s dinner and celebration. The tables were full of fruits and typical Russian salads, caviar toasts and vodka, steamed fish and potatoes, red and white wine, and champagne. Many games were played through the night, with rounds of dancing and eating in between. There is a definite routine in Russian weddings: eat, toast the newlyweds (drink), play games, drink, dance, and drink again. Travis and I managed to maintain our sobriety by having only a sip after each toast. It is a traditional custom to follow a shot of vodka with a salted cucumber spear, which of course, we had to try once. Other than a few people, we realized that most everyone had managed to avoid drinking too much. We made several new friends Saturday night, and by the end, the groom’s best man was asking Travis and I to “come back to his village to drink vodka”. Um, nyet. Our trusty and sober friend Dima was the only one taking us anywhere. No one driving that night drank anything more than a sip of champagne after the first toast, as there is a severe 2 year loss of your license for doing so. The police randomly pull drivers over for any reason at any time, so your chances of getting caught are very high. So, at 2 am, we made it back to our hotel safe and sound and happy to experience yet another Russian tradition.