Pan cake week/Shrovetide

The work is called "A wide Pan-cake week" and the artist has chosen to depict one of the ancient Russian feasts, which is called "Maslenitsa" or "Pancake-week".
This feast is arranged to send off the cold winter and welcome the beginning of warm spring. It usually takes place the week before the Lenten fast. In ancient times Maslenitsa included different magic and religious rites that afterwards transformed into traditional folk customs, such as burning of a woman of straw that embodies the winter, baking of sacrificial bread - pancakes, dressing masquerades, various games, driving in a sledge at high speed and many others. Celebration is in full swing as people are having a good time inside and out of doors.
Here the artist have depicted a moment when people are burning the figure of Maslenitsa. Maslenitsa is painted here in dark grey colour. The people that dancing around it are painted in red colours, simbolizing the fire!
The edge of a lid is decorated with the beautiful gold original pattern, while the sides of a base of the box are decorated with pattern painted in silver colour.
The box is constructed from paper-mache. The exterior of the box is painted with black lacquer while the interior is completed with dark red lacquer. The lid is not hinged and the box rests on a flat bottom. The artist writes his name, title and the village name of Palekh at the bottom of the composition.