The Ciuvasci New Year

The heirs of the Volga Bulgarians celebrate the awakening of the earth, the farmers' New Year.  There are at least 100 thousand followers of the traditional  "Tura" religion. Its elements are present in Russian Orthodoxy. They would have also inspired Lenin's "Communist Sabbath".

Moscow (AsiaNews) - On May 1 in Cheboksary, an important Russian city on the Volga, representatives of the local traditional "Tura" religion celebrated one of the main holidays of the Tuvets: the "Man Kun" or "Great Day", which marks the awakening of the earth, the new year of the farmers.

The Ciuvasci are an almost endangered people, whose exponents are decreasing year by year, and they do not want to lose their culture and traditions, especially in times when the Russian Parliament passes laws on the protection of the specificities of the many peoples of Russia.

Chuvashia is an autonomous republic of the Russian Federation, inherited by a decision of Lenin after the revolution in order to identify and control the ethnic group which is believed to be the only true heir of the "Bulgarians of the Volga", the first Asians with whom the ancient Russians confronted in European territory. This year also marks the 1,100th anniversary of Islam, which the Bulgarians proposed to Prince Vladimir of Kiev before he chose Christian-Byzantine baptism, but in Chuvash they claim popular paganism as their true spiritual root.

The religion of "Tura" was officially restored after the end of the atheist regime in 1995, with its center in Čeboksary. The new founders were Ivlev Danilovič, a mechanic of plastic instruments, and Fedor Madurov, a fairly well-known sculptor and deputy of the local provincial council in Soviet times, who died shortly after the founding. Madurov had built the first "Turkic church" in the republican capital, called "Kermečuk" (in Kuwaiti for "church"), where a group of activists continued the work begun.

In the Kermečuk there is the main symbol of the Turkish religion, the ritual stump "Jupa" that comes back to life during Man Kun, allowing to start again the work in the fields with the agricultural rituals called "Akatuj", after the great winter frosts. The date of Man Kun is actually determined by complicated atmospheric calculations, even if it is actually celebrated on May 1st, the official beginning of spring for all Russians who call this passage the "maslenitsa", the day of butter that today is integrated in the Christian rites of Lent and Easter. Thus, the Kuvazhia religion constitutes a distant echo of the Russian paganism of "Mother Earth" (Mokoš), many elements of which are preserved in Orthodox spirituality.

The Turkish priestess Rusalina Selentaj, in an interview with Idel.Realii, points out that "the Man Kun never coincides with the Christian Easter, because the calculations of the two feasts are always different... we prepare for the feast with the participation of the whole population, which cleans the fields and the farmyards in order to start sowing". According to Rusalina, it was the Tuvets who inspired Lenin, who was born not far from Čeboksary, to create the communist institution of "subbotnik," the "communist Saturday" in which everyone was required to clean up yards and apartment buildings on a weekly basis, in an emphasis on social participation.

On the eve of Man Kun, "Kalam" is celebrated, the farewell to the previous year with the commemoration of the ancestors and all the dead, during which the rite of "Siren" or purification takes place, a kind of Turkish baptism to enter through the door of new life, as at the first Man Kun, when the creation of the world took place. The heat of summer just around the corner is a sign of the world being reborn, with even esoteric interpretations predicting an evolution of the earth and mankind towards ever more perfected stages.

The son of the sculptor-founder, Dmitry Madurov, believes that Christian Easter in Russia has absorbed many elements of Man Kun, such as the lighting of the fire at the beginning of the Vigil after the fire of the past year has been permanently extinguished. A few dozen people gathered in Čeboksary this year, but according to Madurov there are at least 100 thousand Tura adherents around the world, who want to express in a picturesque way a hope for peace and new life.