Meat Festival, also known as Winter Festival and Pancake Week, is a traditional Russian festival handed down during the period of Russian polytheism. Later, because the Russian people began to believe in the Orthodox Church, this festival was associated with the carnival before the Christian Lent. The Eastern Orthodox Church (a branch of Christianity) starts the meat festival in the eighth week before Easter every year. For example, the meat festival in 2009 lasted from February 23rd to March 1.
The "Meat Festival" originated from the Orthodox Church. During the 40-day lent of the Orthodox Church, people were forbidden to eat meat and have fun. Therefore, one week before the start of fasting, people indulge in joy and eat meat at home to make up for the ascetic life during fasting. The "Xie Meat Festival" got its name.
The "Meat Festival" is also called the Winter Festival. Slavs in the Middle Ages believed that when the sun god Arila overcame the cold and night, it was the day when spring came. For farmers, this means that spring ploughing is about to begin. Therefore, every year at the end of February and the beginning of March, people in guslav will hold a grand ceremony to welcome the spring and send the winter, which produces the Winter Festival.