Sunday 26 February 2017

This station we've just passed, this is where the witches gathered on Midsummer, or so the local legend tells it. The word Kres is very important in old culture. It means bonfire, but it also refers to Midsummer night, Fireflies, the God of sun, industry and intelligence Kresnik, and in a sense all sorts of magical things branching from all of the above. The station is called Fireflies, or it could mean the location where one of the signal pyres used to be. 
'Tis saturday. It's so late in the day that a blond man sat opposite of me and I thought if we come into another region where the sun will still reach us, I will ask to photograph his face, but the sun has since set and it was no deal between me and myself. People coming onto the train smell some of booze or of milk (farmland) or of DONUTS! It's Pust, the time when people put on costume to frighten the winter away! Grotesque creatures in long- wool hides, with horns, ribbons and cow bells move in packs, making terrible noise, making babies cry, crossing towns and fields to shoo the winter. They are the scariest part of Pust, but the most delicious certainly are donuts - puffy balls of oily dough fried brown and filled with peach marmalade. If you're a pro, you can eat five, although for a normal person one will feed you onto next tuesday.

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