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14 February — Happy Valentine’s Day!

Let the Love be with you! Today and forever.

This is the day which people try spend with their loved ones, give them flowers, kisses, small presents, and lots and lots of love.

It is a relatively new holiday in Russia. In Soviet times all holidays except for New Year, which has replaced Christian Christmas, were abolished, and people were offered several new Soviet holidays like Labor Day, Anniversary of the Socialist Revolution of 1917, Women Day, etc. Valentine’s Day ceased to exist along with Christmas and others, but recently Russian people started celebrating various “Western” holidays such as Halloween, St. Patrick’s Day, and Valentine’s Day among them.

Of course in essence it is not a Russian holiday, but the idea which entangles it is really a magnificent one: it is an excellent motive for people to say “I love you” to those who they really love, but always fail to utter the magic words for one or another reason. So please take good care of your love and people who surround you.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Dates in History

869—Kirill, enlightener and inventor of Cyrillic (Slavic) alphabet, dies.
Kirill and his older brother Mefody are assigned to Moravia (currently, a region of central and eastern Czech Republic) in 863 in order to preach Christianity in Slavic language. Before their departure Kirill and Mefody invent Slavic alphabet and translate several liturgical books from Greek into Slavic. Kirill and Mefody lay the foundation for Slavic literature. Their followers, banished from Moravia in 886, continue their teachers’ work in South Slavic countries.