Short answers, pulled from the story.
Maslenitsa is an Eastern Slavic religious and folk holiday celebrated during the last week before Great Lent, specifically the eighth week before Eastern Orthodox Pascha. The date changes each year depending on when Easter falls. It is also known as Butter Week, Crepe Week, and Cheesefare Week.
Archaeological evidence from the 2nd century AD suggests Maslenitsa may be the oldest surviving Slavic holiday. The celebration has retained a number of elements of Slavic mythology in its ritual.
Russians traditionally bake blini and flatbread during Maslenitsa, while Belarusians and Ukrainians cook pierogi and syrniki. Meat is not eaten during the week, but dairy products, eggs, and fish are still permitted until Forgiveness Sunday.
Forgiveness Sunday is the final day of Maslenitsa, during which relatives and friends ask each other for forgiveness and exchange small presents. The straw effigy of Lady Maslenitsa is burned in a bonfire, leftover pancakes are thrown into the fire, and her ashes are buried in the snow to symbolically fertilize the crops.
Kolodiy, also called Babskyi Tyzhden or Women's Week, is a Ukrainian Maslenitsa tradition in which married women ritually "birth," "baptize," and "bury" a wooden log called a koloda throughout the week, symbolizing marriage and family. Unmarried men and women had logs tied to their legs by week's end as a playful penalty for not marrying before Maslenitsa.
After the Russian Revolution in 1917 and the establishment of state atheism, public Maslenitsa celebrations became much less common, with the holiday continuing mainly in homes and villages. In the 1960s and 1970s the USSR revived some folk holidays, and Maslenitsa returned to public squares with secular elements retained but "contemporary socialist elements grafted onto it."
Russian-Canadian composer Airat Ichmouratov composed the Overture Maslenitsa in 2012. It was premiered on the 24th of February 2013 in Chicoutimi, Canada, by L'Orchestre Symphonique du Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean under French-Canadian conductor Jacques Clement.