Easter cards by Natalia Stepanova

"Perhaps there is not a single person who would not know what Easter is. While still children, we watched how our parents were preparing for the bright resurrection of Christ. A week before the holiday, walls, ceilings and stove were flooded. The rugs were erased and curtains starched. From the chests of drawers and chests, tablecloths with brushes and embroidered napkins got. The jelly was cooked and the Easter cakes were cooked. Early in the morning on Sunday, parents woke the children earlier than usual, as it should, to hang out and to flare up with the whole family. The sleepy children sat around the festively set table, impatiently pulled their hands to painted testicles, fidgeting from the desire to bite every dish as soon as possible, and there were a lot of them to children"s joy on the table. There are ruddy cheesecakes with cottage cheese and jam, magnificent shiny bombers with fish, pies with beets, carrots, potatoes and cabbage, sugar codel with raisins, butter rolls with bird cherry and poppy seeds and, of course, the main decoration of the table is Easter, assailed by highlights and marmalade, sprinkled with painted colored millet. Here, on a festive bowl, fried carps, chicken, homemade cheeses and jelly, salted loads, soaked apples and watermelons flaunted, all this pleased and captivated the eye. A lamp burned at the icon, and in the air, and in the atmosphere of the house, it somehow smelled of a holiday in a special time and there was an anticipation of some miracle. It was so joyful and light that it seemed to everyone that life would be amazing and endless. Then we still did not know and did not understand that it was on this day that the Lord, along with his resurrection from the dead, granted an eternal and endless life to all of us.
And exclaiming joyfully: "Christ is risen!", We congratulate each other on the most important, most amazing and happy event of our life - our immortality. "