Bashkir Goose Feather Holiday

Come winter and hard frosts, and the people of Bashkiria celebrate the Goose Feather Holiday. The goose is the most popular domestic bird (and meal) in Bashkiria. A Bashkir housewife may raise up to a 100 geese a year, so she needs a helping hand from neighbors at the time of the holiday. After the geese are butchered and plucked, the neighbors must praise the host's geese. Then the neighbors are treated to a lavish meal including bliny. Following the meal, according to tradition, the women hang the geese on a koromyslo--a yoke--and carry the geese to the river. There they plunge the geese carcasses into icy water so that they are covered with an icy crust, inside which they can be preserved, hanging in the barn, until spring.

(from "Russian Life" Jan. 2001)