Unalaska, AK – The local Russian Orthodox community celebrated Slavi, or Russian Christmas, this weekend and invited the community to a potluck and singing at the Senior Center.

A major component of Russian Christmas is starring - going house to house with a large, decorative star and singing traditional Orthodox Christmas songs in Russian, Aleut, and English. The songs talk of Jesus' birth and blessing the new year. At each house the star and the singers are met with food and good cheer. Oftentimes people call their relatives who are away from Unalaska to let them listen to the singing over the phone and share the spirit from afar. Starring starts on January 7, when Russian Christmas is celebrated, and lasts for three nights.

Community member Irene McGlashan said starring and singing church music has been part of her life since her earliest memories. "I've always been involved with church songs because my grandpa would rock me to sleep singing and reading out of the Bible. And I was able to start reading with him" in Russian.

During Russian Christmas her uncle would put her on his shoulders and carry her from house to house where she would sing and collect treats.

Church reader Vince Tutiakoff said when he was child in Unalaska, starring was a much bigger deal than it is now. "I'd go out with my grandmother and my uncles. At the time we'd have maybe 30 or 40 people and maybe two or three stars, depending. And it was really the high point of the beginning of the year, to go starring. It was very important, it was fun, festive." Nowadays they move from house to house with only one star and about 20 people.

Tutiakoff said fewer children and young people are involved with the church than there used to be and the community is much smaller. When he was young, he says the church was everything. "You get married in the Church, and you get buried in the Church. And everything in between is part of our life in the Church. Was for me, still is."

Though church attendance is dropping, Tutikoff said the spirit of the holidays is still strong. "It's the same spiritual feeling that everyone else would have for Christmas and New Year's. Our traditions are Aleut and Slavonic. We carry the stars to the homes to bring happiness and sing for those that have passed on the year before, in their home. For a lot of us it brings back memories of our grandmothers and grandfathers and mothers and dads and uncles and brothers that we've lost over the years. So it's kind of like a joyful, yet tearful -- a tearful, joyous season."

You can listen to all of the songs the choir performed during the potluck in the Jukebox section of our website.