Ivana Kupala Day
Ivana Kupala Day is the day of summer solstice celebrated in Russia and Ukraine on July, 7 in the Gregorian or New Style calendar, which is currently the 24-th of June in the Julian or Old Style calendar still used by many of the Orthodox Churches.
This is a pagan fertility rite, which has been accepted into the Orthodox Christian calendar. It is a traditional midsummer day in Western Europe with which some pre-Christian traditions have been associated. It is opposed to the winter solstice holiday, or Korochun.
The name of this holiday combines the words Ivan (the Slavic name of John the Baptist), and "Kupala", a word derived from the Slavic word for bathing, as it was the first day of the year when the church sanctioned bathing and swimming in rivers and ponds.
There is an ancient belief that the Eve of Ivan Kupala is the only time of the year when the ferns are blooming. Whoever finds a fern-flower would become immensely rich. Hence, on that night village folk would roam through the forests in search of magical herbs. In N.Gogol's story The Eve of Ivan Kupala, a young man finds the fabulous fern-flower but is cursed by it. The witches' sabbath on the Eve of Ivan Kupala inspired a famous Russian composer M.Musorgsky to compose his Night on Bald Mountain.