Votian and ingrian folk songs

In the song, the sister (or friend) criticises Maaroi about why she wouldn’t listen to good advice and settle in a home where the suitors wouldn’t come. She had even promised to kill the suitors but now the wedding is already beginning.

The song with a special rhythm was sung by young women during betrothal or on the eve of the wedding when they came together at the bride’s home. Sometimes the song was sung at weddings or in other situations when young women came together. The melody may be used to sing not the wedding song but other lyrics, which are mostly full of sorrow and tell about singing, sadness or the fate of young women. The lyrics of the “Maiden’s town” are commonly sung during betrothal or on the eve of the wedding by young women, but they were also sung at other social occasions.

Kadoi Aleksandrova has recounted about how the song was sung during the betrothal: The groom brought vodka and tobacco. Then the bride’s entire family was invited over and people drank vodka and smoked. And then all the bride’s girlfriends came from the village, then all the villagers, and they banged on metal sheet, shouting: “Come, have some tobacco, have some tobacco!” Then they were offered vodka and had a smoke—everyone had to smoke tobacco. Then they sung, the girls went through the village and they were all singing. Now I’ll sing the song that they were singing while walking through the village. So they said—they called the girl Maaroi—that Maarojani, sizojani... (‘Maaroi, my dear sister...’). It was a betrothal song.