The Russian Easter banquets are certainly the most peculiar things of the kind that can be seen, both from the time at which they are taken, (the sun often rising on the dessert,) and from the appearance and demeanour of the guests. Whole colleges and corporations come in gala dresses to pay their court ; after the unvarying salutations " Christohs vosskress," eat something ; and go away again. Thus the professors of a university pay their respects to the curator, the judges, secretaries, and other officers of the law courts, to their president, &c. All is bowing, congratulating, and kissing. The cooks and confectioners give themselves a world of trouble to prepare their dishes with some reference to the time. Lambs made of butter are often paraded in the middle of the table, the fleece admirably imitated in butter also ; lambs of sugar, decorated with flags, crosses, &c. Many dishes appear in the form of an egg, which seems to be held almost as sacred. Some years ago, a court lady gave an Easter breakfast to the imperial family, at which every dish at table was served up in eggs. The soups sent up their savoury steam from gigantic ostrich eggs, furnished, as well as the other eggs for holding hot food, by the porcelain manufactory. Here eggs produced chickens full grown and ready roasted, and there a monstrous birth developed a sucking-pig ; while pasties, puddings, creams, game, fruits, and jellies blushed through egg-shells of fine glass. Lastly, by way of dessert, eggs of gold paper were offered, containing almonds, raisins, and sweetmeats of all sorts.
To be thoroughly national, two dishes are indispensable at an Easter breakfast, paskha and kulitsh. Paskha is made of curds beaten hard, and served in a pyramidal form ; the kulitsh is a thick round cylindrically shaped white loaf, sometimes made with a multitude of little kulitshi sticking upon it, like young oysters on the back of an old one, with plums, consecrated palm-twigs, &c., which latter always project a little from the crust. Both must be decorated with flowers and wax-lights; and if, in addition to these, a hard egg and a dram be swallowed, the common Easter breakfast of a Russian of the lower class has been taken, and you may go to sleep for some hours with a good conscience wherewith to begin the enjoyment of the Easter festivities.
Of these, beyond all dispute the most interesting (where a pair of pretty lips are concerned), is the Easter kiss. I will endeavour to give some idea of the enormous consumption of this saccharine article at this time of yoar.
In the first place, all members of a family, without exception, kiss each other : if the family consist only of ten individuals, there are at once ninety kisses. Then all acquaintance meeting for the first time at Easter, even where the acquaintance is but slight, would think it a breach of politeness not to kiss and embrace each other with the greatest cordiality. " The devil take you, Maxim," I once heard an old woman exclaim to a young man, " can't you say ' Christohs vosskress,' and give me a kiss ?"
If we suppose now that every person in St Petersburg has, upon a very moderate average, a hundred acquaintances more or les intimate, that calculation will give for St. Petersburg alone, with its half million inhabitants, a sum total of fifty million Easter embraces. Let us consider only on how large a scale many individuals must carry on the business. In the army every general of a corps of 60,000 men must embrace all the officers, every colonel, those of his regiment, and a select number of soldiexs into the bargain. The captain salutes all the soldiers of his company, who are mustered for the purpose. The same in the civil department ; the chief embraces all his subordinates, who wait on him in their gala dresses. Considering how numerous are the divisions and subdivisions in a Russian bureau, the chief must have no little occasion for lip-salve on the following day; for, as far as I observed, these official caresses are by no means mere matters of pretence, as they are sometimes on the stage, but real downright smacks, such as might be exchanged by lovers. A subordinate officer has enough to do, who has often a dozen grades above him; but as to the poor dignitaries, they must be fairly out of breath. Herein, of course, as in all other cases, the largest share of business falls to the emperor's lot. Let us consider his numerous family, his enormous retinue, the countless numbers who come to salute him on Easter morning-, those of the nobles whom he is more intimate with and may meet by accident ; and even then he has not done. On parade the whole body of officers, and some of the privates picked out for the occasion, are^ honoured \nth. an imperial embrace, which is not refused even to the meanest sentinel of his palace as he passes him on Easter Sunday.