Interview with Anna, founder of Northern Capital Wiccans (NCW) group, Saint-Petersburg, Russia.
Anna is a founder and admin of the vKontakte group Northern Capital Wiccans (NCW) (http://vk.com/wiccaspb) [vKontakte is the largest Russian-language social network website with over three hundred million users]. In the departing year, the group has actively functioned as part of Russian Wiccan community, completing a yearly cycle of collective sabbat rituals (attended by about a 10-15 participants each), organizing a book discussion club and several other regular meeting circles for Wiccans (rune-lore, Tarot, handcraft, religion studies). In July, 2013, the group met with Enenna, a Traditional Wiccan Priestess from Warsaw, and in August, 2013, one of the group’s leaders served as a priestess at an annual Wiccan Summer Festival, held by Russian Wiccan Alliance (RWA) in a woodland area near Moscow.
Anna is a young girl in her early 20s, living with a partner (she was one of the first Wiccans in the community to be handfasted) in central Petersburg. Anna is a schoolteacher by profession; she is interested in runecraft, sewing and dancing. At the present moment she is especially drawn to worship of and communication with god Loki.
The NCW group was created in late 2009. I created it motivated by a trivial desire “to find people of a common interest” (Wiccans often use that phrase, you know). I was looking for such people for myself, aiming at selfish ends. The name came about on the spot: it needed to be something nice, but different from the standard name of “Wiccans of [insert city/town]”. [“Northern Capital” is a broadly used Saint-Petersburg’s nickname in Russia]. Besides, if I’m not mistaken, there was already a group back then called “Wiccans of Saint-Petersburg”, though no one knows what happened to it now. NCW was made for virtual communication; of course, I wanted to meet people and practice with them in real world, but it looked like a distant dream at that point in time. I knew not a single Wiccan in real life then.
- I move to the question which is usually asked first: how did you become Wiccan?
I think it all started from Scott Cunningham books that I had a look into some time earlier than 2009. They fascinated me, though it was not in a week that I passed from studying them to doing rituals, because I had some sort of second thoughts, if not fear: it’s one thing to read something in a book, but practicing it in real life is different story. I think I started to practice in late 2008.
As a child I was baptized as an Orthodox Christian, and as an adolescent I explored Orthodoxy, but growing up in a non-religious family, I gave it up, as no one supported me at all in my surrounding. Besides, I have always been drawn to things mysterious and pagan, always been keen on mythology. As it happens to many people, I was reading books, and sort of finding there views of my own – and it finally turned out that what I believed was named Wicca. I became an open Wiccan after my self-dedication ritual, which occurred at Yule.
- That’s interesting. I already have a kind of “statistics” concerning timing of self-dedication by Russian Wiccans. Many choose Ostara, I have cases of Mabon, but so far no Yule. What it means for you now to be a Wiccan?
It’s not a simple question. We all know various lists of “Witches’ Rules” and other codes that have to do with ethics of self-perfection. Good or bad, it is not part of my everyday life. Wicca for me today means first of all worshipping certain gods in a certain way. Wicca is very much a part of my everyday life, for my best friends are Wiccans, and we practice together intensively. I have long noticed that I measure time by sabbats: thinking of something that would happen, say, in January, I mark it as “after Yule”.
- What was the first time you practiced with other people?
It was the NWC Samhain 2010, which gathered about 15 persons. It was the second group sabbat, the first being Mabon. We passed to practicing together after a period of getting familiar with each other in real life, meeting in cafés and parks. The group was created for communication in the first place, as I said. After fall of 2010 the practice stopped. Many people just vanished, others stayed but we just did small rituals by two or three persons. The present format of the group exists for a year or so. [Anna was interviewed in August 2013]. Besides the fact that the group gave birth to a close company of friends, it itself came back to life: meetings and rituals have become regular, the aims became much clearer. Besides communication now, the group aims at practicing together – both in a ritual and non-ritual way. There are both practices that are linked to the Wheel of the Year and those that are not. At the same time the group became less open. Now the rituals are restricted to the people who gather regularly, and exclude those who come for the first time. [At the moment of the interview NCW had 61 members].
I changed my attitude to the group. Now I think that NCW has chances for the future as a Wiccan community. For quite a long period it was obvious for me that the group had died and that nobody needs it. Its activity stopped for about two years and I never thought there would be a revival. In any case, I thought, even if new people came and we started to meet again, it would not last long. Now we have a stable membership, a pool of activists, and we have opportunities to get in touch with like-minded people from other places.
- How can a person become part of NCW?
At the present moment the group has restricted access, due to a large number of people who registered before, with very vague notions of what Wicca is, but too much desire to obtain a Harry Potter wand. To get accepted into the group one should write to me, explaining why one needs the group and tell something about him/herself. I regularly check for membership requests, and if people do not write these things to me, I send them a questionnaire. It contains, besides other things, a clause: “You are: Wiccan/interested in Wicca?” Of course, the group was created for Wiccans, but if persons can explain comprehensively what they want from participating in the group and what they seek – they are welcome, let’s explore and learn together! However, NCW is not a teaching group – we do not teach Wicca or the occult.
NCW is exclusively for people who live in Petersburg and the surrounding Leningrad district, for the reason that the main thing in our activity now is meeting persons in real life. So the physical ability of a person to come to a meeting or ritual is crucial.
- What is a NCW meeting like?
Usually, if it is not a sabbat, we just sit over a cup of tea. It can be either a preparation of the forthcoming sabbat or one of the clubs: we now have a book discussion club (which is also movie-discussion club), which is dedicated to books and movies linked to Wicca/Paganism/the occult, a religion studies club, and Tarot and rune clubs (the latter is run by me).
- How do NCW relate to the Moscow-based Russian Wiccan Alliance? You took part in the Pagan meeting in August, 2011, that started the creation of RWA, first under auspices of Pagan Federation International.
What concerns me, I’m not in touch with RWA. But at least two NCW activists are also active in the Alliance.
- How do you think being a Wiccan influences people’s everyday life? What happens when a person starts to identify as a Wiccan/Witch openly?
The first thing which young Wiccans (and most Wiccans in Russia are young) usually face is a bunch of conflicts with parents, relatives, friends and partners. Even in the age of Internet, when it is easy to find out what Wicca is about, many people still think it is devil-worship that “takes you to hell”. Even my non-religious mom, who seemed to listen with some interest to my talk about Wicca and my practices, mentioned to me once that she’d feel safer about me if I put on a headscarf and went to the church. That would be understandable and normal, while putting on a pentacle and going to the woods is weird, scary and no one knows what could happen to me. Talking about Wicca can make even non-believers suspect there is God. When I once told mom about a ritual at which something went wrong, she said, “Don’t you think it was a sign that what you do is something totally wrong?” Such things happen to many people.
- And the last question: what are your plans for NCW?
Our chief aim for today is to preserve what we’ve already got. Enthusiasm is a thing that expires quickly, and if it fades, NCW will also fade. Of course, we’d like to become a safe haven for those Wiccans who seek acceptance and company, but I don’t know whether at the moment we can become such. In the soonest perspective in late summer we’re having a book club meeting and a park cleanup, and there’s an autumn ahead, which means preparing for Mabon!
Interviewed and translated by Garzia
First appeared in: Vremya Luny, (Fall, 2013), № 6, P. 16-18.
Vremya Luny (Moon Time) is a Russian-language Wiccan e-zine.
Website: https://sites.google.com/site/tempuslunae/
LJ: http://tempuslunae.livejournal.com/
Anna is a young girl in her early 20s, living with a partner (she was one of the first Wiccans in the community to be handfasted) in central Petersburg. Anna is a schoolteacher by profession; she is interested in runecraft, sewing and dancing. At the present moment she is especially drawn to worship of and communication with god Loki.
The NCW group was created in late 2009. I created it motivated by a trivial desire “to find people of a common interest” (Wiccans often use that phrase, you know). I was looking for such people for myself, aiming at selfish ends. The name came about on the spot: it needed to be something nice, but different from the standard name of “Wiccans of [insert city/town]”. [“Northern Capital” is a broadly used Saint-Petersburg’s nickname in Russia]. Besides, if I’m not mistaken, there was already a group back then called “Wiccans of Saint-Petersburg”, though no one knows what happened to it now. NCW was made for virtual communication; of course, I wanted to meet people and practice with them in real world, but it looked like a distant dream at that point in time. I knew not a single Wiccan in real life then.
- I move to the question which is usually asked first: how did you become Wiccan?
I think it all started from Scott Cunningham books that I had a look into some time earlier than 2009. They fascinated me, though it was not in a week that I passed from studying them to doing rituals, because I had some sort of second thoughts, if not fear: it’s one thing to read something in a book, but practicing it in real life is different story. I think I started to practice in late 2008.
As a child I was baptized as an Orthodox Christian, and as an adolescent I explored Orthodoxy, but growing up in a non-religious family, I gave it up, as no one supported me at all in my surrounding. Besides, I have always been drawn to things mysterious and pagan, always been keen on mythology. As it happens to many people, I was reading books, and sort of finding there views of my own – and it finally turned out that what I believed was named Wicca. I became an open Wiccan after my self-dedication ritual, which occurred at Yule.
- That’s interesting. I already have a kind of “statistics” concerning timing of self-dedication by Russian Wiccans. Many choose Ostara, I have cases of Mabon, but so far no Yule. What it means for you now to be a Wiccan?
It’s not a simple question. We all know various lists of “Witches’ Rules” and other codes that have to do with ethics of self-perfection. Good or bad, it is not part of my everyday life. Wicca for me today means first of all worshipping certain gods in a certain way. Wicca is very much a part of my everyday life, for my best friends are Wiccans, and we practice together intensively. I have long noticed that I measure time by sabbats: thinking of something that would happen, say, in January, I mark it as “after Yule”.
- What was the first time you practiced with other people?
It was the NWC Samhain 2010, which gathered about 15 persons. It was the second group sabbat, the first being Mabon. We passed to practicing together after a period of getting familiar with each other in real life, meeting in cafés and parks. The group was created for communication in the first place, as I said. After fall of 2010 the practice stopped. Many people just vanished, others stayed but we just did small rituals by two or three persons. The present format of the group exists for a year or so. [Anna was interviewed in August 2013]. Besides the fact that the group gave birth to a close company of friends, it itself came back to life: meetings and rituals have become regular, the aims became much clearer. Besides communication now, the group aims at practicing together – both in a ritual and non-ritual way. There are both practices that are linked to the Wheel of the Year and those that are not. At the same time the group became less open. Now the rituals are restricted to the people who gather regularly, and exclude those who come for the first time. [At the moment of the interview NCW had 61 members].
I changed my attitude to the group. Now I think that NCW has chances for the future as a Wiccan community. For quite a long period it was obvious for me that the group had died and that nobody needs it. Its activity stopped for about two years and I never thought there would be a revival. In any case, I thought, even if new people came and we started to meet again, it would not last long. Now we have a stable membership, a pool of activists, and we have opportunities to get in touch with like-minded people from other places.
- How can a person become part of NCW?
At the present moment the group has restricted access, due to a large number of people who registered before, with very vague notions of what Wicca is, but too much desire to obtain a Harry Potter wand. To get accepted into the group one should write to me, explaining why one needs the group and tell something about him/herself. I regularly check for membership requests, and if people do not write these things to me, I send them a questionnaire. It contains, besides other things, a clause: “You are: Wiccan/interested in Wicca?” Of course, the group was created for Wiccans, but if persons can explain comprehensively what they want from participating in the group and what they seek – they are welcome, let’s explore and learn together! However, NCW is not a teaching group – we do not teach Wicca or the occult.
NCW is exclusively for people who live in Petersburg and the surrounding Leningrad district, for the reason that the main thing in our activity now is meeting persons in real life. So the physical ability of a person to come to a meeting or ritual is crucial.
- What is a NCW meeting like?
Usually, if it is not a sabbat, we just sit over a cup of tea. It can be either a preparation of the forthcoming sabbat or one of the clubs: we now have a book discussion club (which is also movie-discussion club), which is dedicated to books and movies linked to Wicca/Paganism/the occult, a religion studies club, and Tarot and rune clubs (the latter is run by me).
- How do NCW relate to the Moscow-based Russian Wiccan Alliance? You took part in the Pagan meeting in August, 2011, that started the creation of RWA, first under auspices of Pagan Federation International.
What concerns me, I’m not in touch with RWA. But at least two NCW activists are also active in the Alliance.
- How do you think being a Wiccan influences people’s everyday life? What happens when a person starts to identify as a Wiccan/Witch openly?
The first thing which young Wiccans (and most Wiccans in Russia are young) usually face is a bunch of conflicts with parents, relatives, friends and partners. Even in the age of Internet, when it is easy to find out what Wicca is about, many people still think it is devil-worship that “takes you to hell”. Even my non-religious mom, who seemed to listen with some interest to my talk about Wicca and my practices, mentioned to me once that she’d feel safer about me if I put on a headscarf and went to the church. That would be understandable and normal, while putting on a pentacle and going to the woods is weird, scary and no one knows what could happen to me. Talking about Wicca can make even non-believers suspect there is God. When I once told mom about a ritual at which something went wrong, she said, “Don’t you think it was a sign that what you do is something totally wrong?” Such things happen to many people.
- And the last question: what are your plans for NCW?
Our chief aim for today is to preserve what we’ve already got. Enthusiasm is a thing that expires quickly, and if it fades, NCW will also fade. Of course, we’d like to become a safe haven for those Wiccans who seek acceptance and company, but I don’t know whether at the moment we can become such. In the soonest perspective in late summer we’re having a book club meeting and a park cleanup, and there’s an autumn ahead, which means preparing for Mabon!
Interviewed and translated by Garzia
First appeared in: Vremya Luny, (Fall, 2013), № 6, P. 16-18.
Vremya Luny (Moon Time) is a Russian-language Wiccan e-zine.
Website: https://sites.google.com/site/tempuslunae/
LJ: http://tempuslunae.livejournal.com/