Fighting covid with fire

The Nikola-Lenivets Art Park’s Maslenitsa festivities, in photos

Over the weekend, Russia celebrated the closing of Maslenitsa — an end-of-winter festival that combines elements of folk and religious traditions. For its 2021 festivities, the Nikola-Lenivets Art park, located in a village in the Kaluga region, chose the theme of the coronavirus pandemic. Attendees took in a performance by Moscow artist Sergey Pakhomov (a.k.a “Pakhom”) and the festival ended with the ceremonial burning of a wicker “Vaccination Tower,” which was built to resemble “a giant vial or a covid-cannibal castle.” “As soon as we burn it, the disease will subside and everyone will be healthy,” said the artist who created the tower, Nikolai Polissky, who founded the art park. Here’s an inside look at the celebrations in Nikola-Lenivets.