Крещения

January 19th is a holiday in the Orthodox tradition that commemorates the baptism of Jesus. On this day all of the waters become holy and believers wade out naked into the rivers and lakes in a ritualistic freezing bath. Many of them then proceed to drink copiously to warm themselves and become stumblingly drunk.
Here in Kiev, the city was abuzz with talk of the holiday. Especially for us foreigners, every Ukrainian I know was asking me if I knew of the holiday and if I would swim. My host mother had told me the night before that she would be staying up until midnight so that she could fill a few water bottles from her sink, which she usually doesn’t drink from without first filtering. She said that at midnight, the earth would bloom as the water became blessed. Of course, she must have been speaking metaphorically, because nothing blooms this time of year in the sub-zero temperatures.
One of the guys who works at the school told me that he had gone swimming that morning and he seemed awfully proud of it. The teachers were all discussing the holiday in class and I heard once again how all of the waters were indeed sacrosanct today. I also learned that it was impossible to get sick from swimming in the freezing water—like, actually impossible. I didn’t know if people were just kidding around about all of this, like maybe how we pretend to believe in ghosts on Halloween and Santa Claus at Christmas. But, the more I asked about it the more I came to understand that this was not a holiday story for fun; people were under the real impression that the water possessed some holy quality.
Something I have noticed here in Eastern Europe is that mysticism and superstition is still very much alive. Those same holiday traditions that we take as entertaining remnants and observe as a matter of convention are taken seriously here. Even in daily life people are more superstitious.
Ever the skeptic, I was on the lookout for any signs of the divine all day and decided to join up with some friends to go swim that evening.
After my morning shower in the blessed water I felt my usual self. I washed down my breakfast of hotdogs and pickles with tea, which should have been blessed as well I assume. With an excessively full day ahead of me, an edge of stress was mounting. By mid-afternoon I was fully flustered as I rushed to get to class and made it thirty minutes late and then had to leave early to meet with the swimming group.
A large group had assembled in the computer room of the language school. I put on my bathing suit under my boxers, long johns, and pants and we set off. I had forgotten to bring a towel and had also forgotten my slippers. I had walked around earlier trying to buy a pair but decided against paying $6 for them—big mistake.
The 12 of us set off on the metro and arrived at “Gidropark.” By this time the sun had set and the temperature had dropped to about -10 celsius. We walked down towards the river where a large crowd had amassed. As we came closer I had the unpleasant sight of several grown men running out of the water completely naked, penises a-flopping for all to see.
Down on the bank I started to undress. I didn’t realize how biting the cold was until I took off my shirt and felt the wind blow right through the tissue, fat, and muscle of my chest. I took off one shoe and put my foot down on the snow-covered sand. In the time it took to take off the other shoe, my toes had gone completely numb. Everyone else was undressing and we got together for a group photo.
Me and two others were set to go on the count of three. Running to the water, one of the other guys slipped on the ice and slid in on his back. I ran in and submerged myself, too numb already to feel much additional shock from the cold. I didn’t feel like spending too much time in the freezing filthy water of the Dnieper, so I hopped back out. It was probably warmer in the water, especially with the wind chill, and I was jumping up and down trying to swish all of the water off of me with my hands. I begged a towel from one of the other guys after he’d already dried off, though it didn’t do much good.
Toes and feet had become painfully cold, legs were too numb to feel, and everything else felt like it had just experienced an electric shock. The hair on my head had already frozen into little hedgehog needles. Although they were covered in sand and wet, I shoved my feet down into my boots without my socks on to try to get some relief. The buttons on my shirt were difficult to work as my fingers had become arthritic with the frost. I had to get my wet bathing suit off but was in no position to amble about in the dark looking for a good spot to change. So, I grabbed a towel—which was abnormally small—and tried to cover myself up. There simply was not enough fabric, so I just turned around, covered my front, and pulled the suit down. There I was in all of my pride, standing naked on the frozen banks of the Dnieper!
Dressed again and filthy from the sand, we made our way back to the metro. My bathing suit had frozen completely in the form of my legs. On the sidewalk we ran into a number of other swimmers who were now stumbling so drunkenly that one of them fell right into one of the girls I was with. I noticed that one of the drunk swimmers was carrying a beeswax candle, the kind that are always sold in the Orthodox churches here.
Back on the subway I was feeling anything but blessed. Sensation was starting to circulate back into my extremities. My toes were painfully sore and I thought I may have gotten some mild frostbite. My hair started to thaw under my hat.
At the bar afterwards we all sat and merrily passed around the cameras looking at pictures from the swim. After a few rounds of drinks I think I started to feel the holiness of the day flowing down deep into my tummy, filling me with a radiant and blooming glow. With new friends around and big anticipation for new and wonderful adventures, I think I finally began to understand what made this holiday so special.