Singing in the shower

When did I stop singing in the shower? Is it something you do only when young? Only before your soprano turns to a gravely tenor? Or is it when you forget your Russian? Yes, I used to sing folk songs about birch trees in the shower--sad songs of unrequited love, of soldiers dying, of birds flying away.

That memory was really buried deep until today when I read the following in “Birch Use in the Former Soviet Republics,” by Andriy Boyar, Agroborealis, Summer 2004 (University of Alaska, Fairbanks).

“In Central and Eastern European countries, as well as in Russian Siberia, one of these features [related to the environment] is the relationship of people to the birch tree. Birch forests are a truly distinguished characteristic of the Russian, Belorussian, and Ukrainian landscapes. They are of national pride. Hundreds of songs, legends and fairytales are devoted to birch. The Slavs learned to write and read using flat pieces of split birch bark when paper was unknown to them in early centuries. The beginning of spring is timed from the first appearance of birch leaves; the first spring month in the Ukraine is named Berezen, from the root word for birch.”

I had no idea that birch trees did anything other than whisper your lost love’s name in a very minor key or provide a backdrop for Soviet films. They have medicinal uses and the article includes a list of 28 ailments that birch helps, from gout to bronchitis to dandruff. The author provides relevancy for internet searches for these terms in both Russian and English and the method of using the birch product.

And birch beverages! Who knew? I think I’d heard of kvass, but didn’t know it was made from birch sap. Mr. Boyar provides a recipe in case you want to gather some birch sap this spring (I think it is more difficult than collecting maple syrup). Birch also has cosmetic uses for freckles, pimples, face masks, and oily skin. Birch branches are cleaning tools for sweeping yards and whipping the body in sauna. In rural households it is still used for lighting and heat. Ukrainians decorate with birch branches for Christian holidays and fishermen used to use it for fishing gear. Hail the amazing birch and the ingenious Slav.

There is a lot of research on the versatile birch going on in Alaska, and the previous issue of Agroborealis describes that. These files are pdf, in a nice readable format. Many libraries can catalog these free government agricultural and forestry journals for a local on-line collection so they will come up in a search. This involves staff availability, but if you request it, they may try to accommodate.