Time to love!

Today Russia celebrates one of its main national holidays - St. Valentine's Day. Today is the day to love. You're supposed to love like never before. Today is the day when love for a specific person is higher than love for the Motherland!

And how did we live without Valentine? How did you love? Whom? On what days? And why should you love in the middle of winter, when the birds don’t sing, the flowers don’t grow, and the prices for those that grow in merchants’ tents on the occasion of the celebration are such that this is where feelings are tested. And who is he anyway, this holy man?

Either a monk or a bishop. He either healed the blind daughter of the executioner, whom he loved, or the blind daughter of the executioner loved him. Either he secretly married the first Christians, or he converted and married Roman legionnaires to Christianity. But there was only one outcome: Valentin was executed, and he gained holiness.

In Europe, this day has been celebrated for almost 700 years, but here we have it for 15 years. Why people suddenly remembered it is unclear. Here, by God, is the CIA and its machinations. Like everything new, like everything that came to us from the West, the newfangled holiday was greeted with hostility by enlightened circles and the clergy and with a bang by the broad masses.

The broad masses, what will you take from them? They need guidance. For them, March 8 exists to remember that there are wives, mothers, sisters and girlfriends, that there will never be another such opportunity to wash the dishes, take out the trash and buy flowers. For them there is February 23, when, under the guise of defenders of the Fatherland, they congratulate all the men in a row, including those who are pacifists, who mowed down and whom God simply had mercy on.

In general, in order not to suffer, so as not to look stupid (they say, why did you show up with flowers?), the calendar provides special days on which certain groups of citizens of various gender, social, professional and age categories should be honored. June 1 is Children's Day. And on June 2 - belt them!

It's the same with love. Loving every day is wasteful and careless. But everything needs order, and it is desirable that things proceed in an organized manner. Some, you know, will fall in love on the 14th, others on the 15th, others on the 5th or 20th. And then one day everyone fell out of love and moved on to other things on the list. This concerns the broad ignorant masses. They love Valentine's Day, sweep cards with baby dolls off the shelves, buy fabulous roses from kind mustaches in huge caps, and make verses no worse than Sumarokov.

And at the same time, the intelligentsia and clergy are on alert. Well, the clergy are generally always on their guard. At the word “love” he grabs the censer. There seems to be nothing wrong with the holiday itself, it’s just that it’s Catholic (something like the notorious “Catholic Christmas”, which is no less Lutheran, Calvinist, Baptist and whatever else you want, but you can’t explain it to people). And since he is Catholic, then in advance “not the same.” And, of course, we have our own adequate answer to their Valentine. Day of Peter and Fevronia! And there is no confusion with the legend, and the saints are verified. And it is celebrated in the summer, unlike February - crooked roads. Warm and Orthodox. But for some reason the stone flower does not come out yet. If anyone has heard about Fevronia and Peter, they are still in no hurry to celebrate them.

The intelligentsia does not particularly talk about the corrupting influence of the West and Catholicism, but treats Valentines cards ironically. Fashion. Something like MTV. Therefore, among educated people it is not customary to openly look for postcards, send e-mails with cupids and buy bouquets in acid-colored packages, although secretly from colleagues and friends, no, no, and bespectacled people will give up.

But in general, everyone is free to do with their love as they please on this bright, frosty day. You can give it to someone else, taking advantage of the occasion. You can keep your feelings to yourself. You can, on the contrary, harm someone as a sign of protest. The holiday is big, but not official. Nobody announced a day off with the transfer of Saturday to Monday, and Sunday to Wednesday - in order to sit at home, drink and go for walks for five days in a row, and the president did not address all the Russians in love.