One week before Orthodox Easter the Russian church celebrates Pussy-Willow Sunday – an analogue of Palm Sunday. Few people know that this holiday has also Slavic past. Its name before Russia’s Christianization was Вербохлест (Verbohlest) which meaning is “to whip with a pussy-willow twig”.
The church after introduction of Christianity into Russia hid the sense of this Slavic pre-Christian tradition behind the ecclesiastical holiday linked to the arrival of Jesus Christ to Jerusalem on the ass. The only thing the church left was its main symbol pussy-willow as the palms are not grown in Russia.
The pussy-willow has been always very significant plant in the Russian culture. In the Slavic tradition it was associated with fast growth, flexibility, fertility and force. The reason is that among other plants it’s first in bud. Pussy-willow tree symbolizes spring, the people believed that it gave health, power and beauty to men and domestic animals.
The holiday Verbohlest was celebrated at the beginning of spring.
The people used to gently whip each other and domestic animals with a pussy-willow twig wishing good health. Like this they drove out winter illnesses. In some regions the sterile women used to eat the buds of the pussy-willow believing it would help them to give birth to a child.
The young people whipped the girls on legs showing their sympathy which was a fertility rite.
