The festive culture of mining plants in the Urals: the Dobryanka case

On the basis of documentary ethnographic sources from the late 19th to early 20th centuries, the study reconstructs calendar festivals and rites of that period, recorded at one of the mining plants in the Urals—Dobryanka, in the western part of the Perm Governorate. Common festivals celebrated at Uralian mining plants include the greeting of birds (kashke-plishke), “sending off” water (seeing off the Kama), Day of St. Sergius, Pentecost, etc. The industrial calendar was related to the main household and holiday cycles; special “corporate” festivals emerged at private plants, coinciding with name-days of the plants’ owners; archaic forms of traditional ritualism were preserved; calendar festivals were more and more regarded as forms of leisure with less and less religious meaning; multiple calendar traditions coexisted; and new urban forms of festive culture were adopted. The holiday culture of plant settlements was intermediate between rural and urban forms of calendar ritualism. Each peculiarity of industrial calendar rites is described using ethnographic examples from the corresponding holiday cycle. The findings indicate rather unusual features of folk culture in the industrial settlements of the Urals.