Ivana Kupala, 7 July 2016

Everything about this night is paired: fire and water, the two people jumping together, the wreath and whoever finds it downstream.

The customs are transparently about courtship, which is presumably why nobody has ever needed to organise it. Kupala runs itself, on the same date, without a committee.

I have watched it a number of times now, always from the edge, which is the correct distance for a guest at somebody else's midsummer.

A good night to everyone by the water.