Votian and ingrian folk songs

St. Elijah’s Day (Votian iiĺää päivä < Russ. ильин день, August 2) was celebrated in every Votian village. In several villages, the celebration was particularly special—it was a major communal village feast where outsiders were not welcome and which had retained the features of an archaic feast called vakkovõ. The name of the feast is shared by Votians and Ingrians and has old Baltic-Finnic roots, while other names of the feast derive from Russian language (brattšina < братчина, klattšina < складчины). Participants brought malt and food to the communal feast with food and beer; people ate and drank and lighted a bonfire. In the song praying for rain, St. Elijah’s is addressed with a prayer that he would send rain. The song was fairly well-known in western Ingria. Oudekki Figurova herself has said: Se on Soikola virsi, Iiliä, se on Soikola praaznik (’It is Soikola’s song, St. Elijah’s, it is from Soikola’s feast’). She had heard the St. Elijah’s song namely from people from the Soikola (Soikino) village.

People believed that hay dries well until St. Elijah’s Day. This day also marked the sending off of the summer, since after that the weather became colder.