The ethnographer listed the main traditions of Ivan Kupala in Russia

The main traditions of Ivan Kupala in Russia included the collection of medicinal herbs and roots, as well as compulsory bathing in ponds and dew, which were attributed miraculous powers, jumping through fire and night festivities of young people. Sofia Didkovskaya, a researcher at the Department of Ethnography of the Russian People at the Russian Ethnographic Museum, told Izvestia about this.

Modern ideas about the holiday often associate Ivan Kupala with the cult of the sun, bonfires and flaming barrels and wheels rolling down the hills. But historical evidence paints a different picture.

"Russian peasants, unlike Ukrainians and Belarusians, rarely lit bonfires. Dmitry Konstantinovich Zelenin, who was at the origin of the study of the ethnography of the Eastern Slavs, suggested that the tradition of building bonfires, as well as setting fire to the wheel, could have been borrowed by the Eastern Slavs from Western peoples. Motives unrelated to the sun were much more important in the context of the holiday," Didkovskaya explained.

In modern culture, Ivan Kupala bears mixed features of various traditions of Slavic peoples.

"In the East Slavic tradition, the Kupala ritual complex was distinguished by significant regional diversity, while the Russian Kupala ritual, compared with the Belarusian and Ukrainian, was significantly less developed. For Russians, Peter's Day (July 12) and Ilyin's day (August 2) were considered equivalent and sometimes more significant milestones. They celebrated the change of economic seasons: the ripening of crops, a turn in the weather, the beginning of haymaking and preparation for autumn. Within the framework of the Russian national calendar, Ivan Kupala formed a single festive cycle with the days of Agrafena Kupalnitsa and the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul (Peter's Day). This whole period was understood by the peasants as the time of the highest flowering of nature," the ethnographer noted.

The Eastern Slavs believed that on Kupala night, natural forces reach their maximum. The peasants gathered herbs, believing in their special power.

"The holiday was known to Russians and Belarusians as Ivan the Herbalist, and to Ukrainians as Ivan Tsvetoshin or Ivan Lopushnik. From that day on, they started harvesting bath brooms, and until June 24, they didn't even mow the grass, considering it insufficiently nutritious for livestock," Didkovskaya said.

According to popular belief, water also had miraculous healing powers that night. The peasants bathed not only in lakes and rivers, but also in dew. They also tried to water the cows with dew so that they would give a lot of milk.

"Bathing in reservoirs among the Eastern Slavs often took place at the moment of throwing a ceremonial tree, wreaths, greenery, and an effigy into the water and was the culmination of the holiday. Although it could also become his conclusion: boys and girls ran to the water to swim or douse themselves with water at dawn, when the Kupala bonfire was completely burnt out. The Russian custom of bathing was related to the eve of Ivan — the day of Saint Agrafena, which was popularly known as Agrafena-the bathing place. In the Novgorod province, girls bathed with flowers and herbs, guessing on them on the water. In the southern provinces, peasants poured water on each other and sprinkled livestock," the expert explained.

Kupala night also had a dark side. It was believed that all evil spirits were activated at this time: witches, warlocks and mermaids. In Polesie, the holiday was even called "Witch's Ivan". Special charms were used for protection: wreaths with wormwood, aspen branches, twisting greenery on cattle horns. Kupala bonfires also had a protective value. A witch was burned in the fire: a straw effigy with a face smeared with soot (Mara, Morena, Kupala).

"Any woman who ignored the Kupala bonfire or failed to jump over the fire was suspected of witchcraft. She could have been severely whipped with nettles and doused with water for "forced cleansing." The remains of the Kupala bonfire — firebrands, stubs, coals, ashes — were considered a magical means of increasing fertility, so they were scattered across fields and gardens, stuck into the ground among crops, buried in beds or carried home and lit a new fire in the stove," the ethnographer shared.

On Midsummer Day, young people in the villages had the opportunity to have a lot of fun: girls and boys stole carts, dragged gates onto roofs and propped up the doors of houses so that it was impossible for residents to leave.

"In general, young people of both sexes spent the whole night together: singing, dancing, swimming. Scientists see in this an erotic subtext and echoes of the archaic institution of marriage periods," said Didkovskaya.