February 14, 2011 – Did you know that…

• …there are many days honoring martyrs named Valentine in the Church Calendar and nobody is 100% sure which one exactly this holiday is celebrated after, as there are at least two Valentines who were executed on February 14^th. What everybody is sure about, however, that this holiday originally had nothing to do with the romantic love.

© Tatyana Molchanova

• …the love part of this holiday crept in sometime in the middle ages when everything seemed to somehow revolve around the Romantic Love and is based on an allegedly completely unfounded legend that goes something like this. The emperor Claudius II ordered young men to stay single. Supposedly, he did this to grow his army, believing that married men didn't make for good soldiers (it makes sense, I guess). The priest Valentine, however, secretly performed marriage ceremonies for young men. When Claudius found out about this, he had Valentine arrested and thrown in jail.
  
  
  © Tatyana Gindin
  
  
  
  
• …the "Roses are red" poem can be traced as far back as 1590, to Edmund Spenser's epic"The Faerie Queene":
  She bath'd with roses red, and violets blew,
  And all the sweetest flowers, that in the forest grew.
  
  

© Elmira Shirinova

• …in Mexico Valentine's Day is called Dia del Amor y de la Amistad (Day of Love and Friendship). It is similar to the United States' version, but it is also common to see people do "acts of appreciation" for their friends.
  
  

© Marina Barskaya

• …and last but not least, apparently quite a lot of Americans celebrate something called SAD– are you ready? – Singles Awareness Day (seriously???). This "holiday" is obviously a protest against Valentine's Day and usually takes place on February 13^th or February 15^th. It's customary to wear green on that day, because green is considered to be the "opposite" of red.
  
  

© Sue Chuang

In Russia we tend to adopt all the world's holidays. We really don't care about the philosophy behind the celebration: as long as there's a chance to party with some kind of premise to toast to, we just go for it. So…

HAPPY V-DAY EVERYONE!

P.S. What a great excuse to share all the 218 heart pictures I have collected so far, too!:)