Five years ago, Mayor Yury Luzhkov and conductor Valery Gergiev, the general and artistic director of St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theater, put their heads together and came up with the idea of a music festival to celebrate the Russian Orthodox Easter season. In little over a month following their decision, the first Moscow Easter Festival made its debut, with a week-long parade of orchestral and choral concerts and bell-ringing from churches throughout the city.

Since then, the Easter Festival has greatly expanded in both length and scope. This year’s sixth annual installment begins on Easter Day, April 8, and concludes with a pair of concerts, one outdoors in Victory Park, the other at the Moscow International House of Music, on Victory Day, May 9. Over 100 events have been scheduled, including, as in the case of the past two festivals, an extensive program of concerts in regional cities.

From the very beginning, the festival’s main series, its so-called “symphonic program,” has been dominated by Gergiev and his musicians from the Mariinsky. Indeed, this year, apart from a pair of instrumental soloists, the symphonic program is entirely a Gergiev/Mariinsky affair, to the total exclusion of Moscow’s own extraordinarily rich fund of musicians. However much Luzhkov may believe that the Moscow Easter Festival compares to similar events in Europe and America, it seems inconceivable that any other major city would undertake something like it without substantial participation in its principal program by local musicians.

Nevertheless, a visit by Gergiev and the Mariinsky is always welcome and for this year’s festival they bring not only orchestral concerts, but also evenings of ballet and a fully staged production of opera. As in the past, the festival focuses on the music of a single composer, in this case Igor Stravinsky, chosen because of the 125th anniversary of his birth later this year. Among the composer’s works to be heard on the Mariinsky Orchestra’s five programs are three of his ballets written at the behest of impresario Sergei Diaghilev — “Petrushka,” “The Rite of Spring” and “The Wedding” — three of his symphonies and his oratorio-like opera “Oedipus Rex.”

The Mariinsky’s ballet is due to present Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake,” with the magnificent Ulyana Lopatkina dancing Odette/Odile, Ludwig Minkus’ “Don Quixote,” the company’s exciting program of ballets choreographed by William Forsythe, George Balanchine’s masterful full-length “Jewels” and a program of three one-act Balanchine ballets. By way of opera, the theater brings to the festival its newest production, Sergei Prokofiev’s “The Love for Three Oranges,” which opened in St. Petersburg to rave reviews just two weeks ago.

The choral program, unlike the symphonic, finds Moscow well represented, with some half-dozen local choirs due to be heard. Joining them, as usual, will be choral groups from other parts of Russia and from other predominantly Orthodox countries, in this case Armenia, Georgia, Serbia and Ukraine. The highlight of the program is almost certain to be the gala concert on April 17 at Tchaikovsky Hall, when all four choirs from abroad take the stage along with Moscow’s Sirin Ensemble and the Alania Choir from Vladikavkaz.

The bells of churches all over the city will once again be heard, mostly at mid-afternoon, every day of the festival.

Last year, the Mariinsky’s festival tour of the regions left both the orchestra and Gergiev thoroughly exhausted for their final Moscow concerts, as even the indefatigable maestro was forced to admit at a meeting with the press. A much less grueling trip has been scheduled for this year. The result ought to be some rather less tired-sounding concerts than those that closed the 2006 festival.

For a schedule of the Moscow Easter Festival, see the Calendar listings or visit www.easterfestival.ru.

Babka is the traditional Easter bread in Poland and parts of Russia. 

¾ cup milk
1 package active dry yeast
4 cups all-purpose flour
½ cup sugar
2 teaspoons finely grated lemon zest
½ teaspoon salt
1 stick butter at room temperature
3 egg yolks
1 cup raisins

Glaze:
2 tablespoons lemon juice
¼ cup confectioners’ sugar
¼ cup water

Bring the milk to just above blood heat in a small pan. Sprinkle the yeast over ¼ cup warm water and let stand about 5 minutes or until bubbly.

Mix 1½ cups of the flour with the sugar, lemon zest, salt and the yeast mixture in a large bowl. Gradually beat in the warm milk until smooth. Let rest for about 15 minutes to give the yeast time to begin working. Beat in the butter and egg yolks and then the remaining flour. Cover the bowl loosely with plastic wrap and let the dough rise in a draft-free place for an hour or until it has doubled in bulk.

Punch the dough down and then work in the raisins, making sure to distribute them fully. Grease a 9-inch tube pan and place the dough in it. Cover again and let rise until the dough reaches the top of the pan: about 2 hours.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350 degrees, and place a rack in the lower third. Bake the babka for 30-35 minutes until the top is browned and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes.

To make the glaze, combine the lemon juice, confectioners’ sugar and water in a small pan and bring to the boil. Reduce to simmering point and stir constantly until syrupy, about 5 minutes.

Carefully turn the babka out of the pan. Turn it right-side up (i.e what was the top becomes the bottom). Brush the warm cake with the lemon glaze. Cool completely before slicing for serving.

Note that the bread always rises into a slanted domed top. This one is best made with an electric mixer.

To make the initial sponge:
1½ packages active dry yeast or cakes of yeast
¾ cup bread flour

Stir the yeast into ½ cup warm water and let it stand for 10 minutes or until creamy. Stir in the flour vigorously to make a thick batter. Cover with plastic wrap and let stand until doubled: about an hour.

For the dough:
3¼ cups bread all purpose flour
¼ cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
4 eggs
9 egg yolks
1 cup ricotta
½ cup port or rum
3 tablespoons crushed aniseeds
grated zest of 1 lemon
½ teaspoon powdered cinnamon
2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter at room temperature
1 egg white, beaten

Beat the flour, sugar, salt, eggs and egg yolks in an electric mixer bowl until blended. Add the sponge and beat for about 6 minutes until the dough is golden and stretchy.

Mix the ricotta with the port, aniseeds, lemon zest and cinnamon and beat into the dough. Cut the butter into 8 pieces and place on top of the dough. Now cover the bowl with plastic wrap, leaving the butter on top of the dough, and let rise until doubled. The risen dough should be soft and elastic.

Beat in the butter until the dough is smooth. This dough seems more like a cake batter than a bread dough. Pour it into 2 well-buttered charlotte molds or souffle dishes or similarly deep dishes of 2 quarts capacity. Cover with a towel and let the dough rise to the top of the dishes.

Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Brush the tops of the loaves with the egg white. Bake 15 minutes. Reduce the heat to 350 and bake an hour longer. The dough will rise high above the dishes like a panettone and will always be tilted.

Children can help in working in the currants and shaping the buns, and everyone enjoys the fragrance as they cook. A minute or two after you cut the cross into the top of the uncooked buns, you see it open as the dough rises. This emblem of the Resurrection is symbolism in action. Buns with a cross of paler dough or white frosting lack this drama.

For the dough:
1 tablespoon (1 packet) dried yeast
4 cups flour
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup light brown sugar
pinch cloves or ¼ teaspoon allspice
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg, preferably freshly grated
1 cup milk at blood heat
2 eggs, lightly beaten
4 tablespoons butter
½ cup currants or raisins

For the glaze:
2 tablespoons white sugar
4 tablespoons cold milk

In a small bowl, mix the yeast with ⅓ cup warm water and set aside for 10 minutes until it is thick and a bit frothy. In the bowl of an electric mixer or other large bowl, mix the flour, salt, brown sugar, cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg.

Make a well in the center and pour in the yeast, then the warm milk. Mix thoroughly then add the eggs one at a time and the butter.

Knead or mix with a dough hook until the dough comes away from the sides of the bowl and does not stick to your fingers. Knead in the currants or raisins, being careful to distribute them throughout the dough.

Form the dough into a ball, place it in a bowl, cover with plastic and set aside in a draft-free spot to rise. Leave it until it has doubled in bulk, which will take about 2 hours.

Grease a baking sheet. Thump the dough or slap it on the counter several times, knead briefly then divide into 12 pieces. Roll each into a ball and place it on the baking sheet. (As you form the buns, poke any currants or raisins on the surface into the interior to prevent them burning during baking.)

Cover with plastic again and leave for 30-45 minutes or until doubled again. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. With a very sharp knife or single-edge razor, slash a criss-cross on top of each bun. Leave for 10 minutes so the crosses open. Bake the buns for 15 minutes or until the tops are golden brown and the bottoms sound hollow when rapped. Remove from the oven.

Immediately put the white sugar and milk for the glaze into a small saucepan and boil until it bubbles up the sides of the pan. Brush onto the top of the buns while they are still hot. This gives them a shiny top. Makes 12 buns.

Festive meals at Thanksgiving and Christmas end with traditional desserts and other sweet treats. At Thanksgiving it must be pies, though other desserts based on seasonal crops such as apples or pumpkins are welcome too. At Christmas, everyone has Christmas cookies, plus whatever cakes their national heritage demands, the chocolate log called buche de Noel from France, for example, a German stollen, or the fruitcake and Christmas pudding of England.

Easter does not bring such a panoply of traditional desserts in its train. Instead it has lots of breads. Hot Cross Buns came to our region from England. Immigrants from Poland brought babka. Greece has a braided or coiled bread called tsoureki, which has red eggs, still in their shells, baked into the crust.

In Portugal there is a bread called folar da Pascoa, in which whole unshelled eggs are placed on a layer of dough then held i position with criss-crossed dough strips. Italy has several Easter breads, many of them regional specialties. For example, the dove-shaped Colomba Pasquale comes from the North; gubana is a coiled bread from Friuli; while Rome has both Pizza Civatavecchia, a domed loaf flavored with port, ricotta and aniseeds, and Pizza di Pasqua, which is flavored with orange and lemon.

At first it may seem odd that cakes and cookies are a must at Christmas and other holidays, while most countries have breads for Easter. Although these Easter breads typically have eggs, sugar, and flavorings to make them fancier than regular bread, they are still not as rich or gorgeous as the sweet baked goods of other holidays.

One explanation is that holidays that occur in the fall or early winter benefit from their proximity to the harvest. Typically many Christmas treats include nuts or dried fruits, which were plentiful in the fall. Even the spices typical of Christmas baked goods would have been easier to get in the olden days because they were easier to transport from their distant homelands when the weather was good.

Things were very different in Spring. In earlier centuries much food, including both vegetables and meat, was preserved for winter. By Easter these preserved stores would have run out. Luckily animals would be bearing their young, so there would be plenty of eggs and milk, and fresh supplies of butter or soft cheeses. These dairy foods enrich almost all recipes for Easter breads.

Even though many Easter breads also have a little sugar and spice, and in some cases a few raisins, it was the lusciousness of the new season’s dairy foods that would have made them really tasty, especially since, in the past, people would be newly released from the Lenten fast when butter, eggs and other animal products were expressly forbidden.

There is yet another explanation of why breads are an Easter specialty. This religious holiday is the most solemn of the Christian year, celebrating as it does the resurrection of Christ. Bread symbolizes this because it starts as a simple lump of unpromising dough, yet it rises because of the action of the yeast. The red-dyed eggs nestled in a well-risen Greek Easter bread specifically recall the blood of Christ, while the cross on a Hot Cross Bbun indents the dough, which rises again around the score marks.

The high domes of Italian Easter breads carry the same symbolic meaning, while the dove-shaped Colomba Pasquale commemorates victorious battles, but as the sign of peace, has been adapted to Easter.

Easter breads are often the work of professional bakers rather than home cooks. Traditionally they didn’t appear until a day or two before Easter. Hot Cross Buns, for example, were sold in the streets of England on Good Friday, the day of the crucifixion, which the cross in the bun symbolizes.

Though they are likely to appear in supermarkets weeks ahead of time nowadays, they are not difficult to make at home, and are a good project to share with children. The kids can mix in the raisins and shape the buns, and then witness the dough rising around the cross cut in the surface.

Other Easter breads can be made at home too, and since bread dough only rarely calls for nimble-fingered techniques, and happily tolerates some clumsiness - in fact a few slaps and thumps do it no harm at all - children can always help.

Of course, when children help, they like to eat the product of their work. Since bread, even the fancy bread of Easter, has less sugar and fat than cakes and cookies and considerably less than the chocolate goodies of the holiday, they can enjoy it without raising worries about too much sugar.

Here are some Easter breads to try at home. Read further >

In Australia, Autumn is a great time to visit Victoria’s King Valley and the annual Easter Festival at the Brown Brothers winery gives you the perfect excuse to get down there.

From Easter Saturday to Easter Monday, the grounds of the Brown Brothers Milawa Vineyard will come alive with live jazz, a farmers’ market, food stalls and plenty of Brown Brothers wine. There are also free vineyard and winery tours on offer.

The Milawa region is well known as a premier food and wine destination, so while you’re down there you might also want to check out the Milawa Cheese Company http://www.milawacheese.com.au/index.asp and Milawa Mustards http://www.milawamustard.com.au/.

For more information about the Brown Brothers Easter Festival, see www.brownbrothers.com.au. To find out more about the Milawa region, check out www.milawagourmet.com.

The city is ready and waiting for its iconic Bendigo Easter Festival

During Easter, chocolate comes second to the Bendigo Easter Festival. The festival is not only this city’s social and cultural event of the year, it also draws thousands of visitors to town. They come for the rides, the music, the dragons and the art.

More than 550 entries from 171 artists have been received for this year’s Rotary Art Show to be held at the Bendigo Town Hall. Last year’s exhibition, had record sales of more than $70,000. The show is an opportunity for artists and sculptors to showcase and sell their work. This year the preview evening and sale will take place on Wednesday, April 4, at 7.30pm, and the art show will be open from Thursday, April 5 to Monday, April 9.

Well-known local artist and former Department of Art and Design head at Bendigo College of Advanced Education Bill Delecca will judge the awards. Emily Koenders will be the demonstrating artist during the art show.

Members of the public can buy tickets for the preview evening by contacting Bryan McMahon on 5442-4884 or 0428-178-127. Bookings are essential and tickets are $20. It is a great opportunity to view the art while enjoying fine wine, good company and great food. The show is open to the general public over Easter with an admission fee of $5.

The exhibition, now in its 39th year, is organised by the Rotary Club of Bendigo, and money raised will go to local and overseas charities. And while the show will keep art lovers happy, there’s plenty of other events over the weekend for the whole family.