All photos courtesy Alexei Druzhinin, Russian Presidential Press and Information Office, TASS.
Putin often attends church services during major Orthodox Christian holidays, but this is the first time the Kremlin has reported that the president has participated in the ice swimming event
MOSCOW, January 19. /TASS/. Russian President Vladimir Putin visited a monastery to the northwest of Moscow on Thursday and took a dunk in the icy waters of Lake Seliger to celebrate the Epiphany, which commemorates the baptism of Jesus Christ, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
“On the occasion of Epiphany, Putin attended a liturgy and also took part in the Epiphany bathing in Lake Seliger,” Peskov said.
Putin visited the Nilo-Stolobensky monastery in the Tver Region after wrapping up his working visit to St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region.
This winter season, central Russia has not encountered traditionally cold weather and this night the temperature failed to go below minus 6-7 degrees Celsius, Peskov said. This is not the first time Putin has gone for such icy ritual immersions. The president has taken part in the ice-hole bathing event “for several years already,” he added.
Putin often attends church services during major Orthodox Christian holidays, but this is the first time the Kremlin has reported that the president has participated in the ice swimming event.
The ritual dunks in frigid waters take place overnight to January 19 on one of Orthodox Christianity’s major holidays, Epiphany. However, ice swimming is a folk custom rather than a religious ritual.
Image credit: Smith College, President Kathleen McCartney. When Jodi Shaw, a Smith College alum and…
Illustration: Adramelech, from the 1863 edition of Collin de Plancy's Dictionnaire infernal — Source. Remember…
Corporeal prison, by Erik Pevernagie, oil on canvas, 2004 In 2011, then 16-year-old Demitrius Minor…
Filmmaker Chico Colvard, courtesy C-Line Films Filmmaker Chico Colvard accidentally shot his sister in the…
In my ongoing research on Antifascism and NeoFascism in the U.S., I have had contact…
Anyone following the Sarah Braasch "Napping While Black" incident at Yale University has probably heard…