Flowers

DON'T BRING FLOWERS 

 

A recent survey finds most Russian school teachers don't welcome their school students showering them with flowers on the 1st of  September and some  have even told them not to bring them but flowers keep on coming. Old customs apparently die hard.

 

By Stephen Wilson

 

September 1 is the traditional first day of school 
in Russia when children bring flowers for the teachers.

"Yes I told parents to stop bringing flowers! I work in Lefortovo, but I live in Balashikhe. Every time {on the 1st of September} I have to order a taxi to take this flower shop home and have no where to put them. Two days later they wilt and even bringing them to the courtyard is a problem for me. By the way, to gather those flowers in a whole sack is heavy. We want to put it bluntly that our pay is not big. It offends me that such money is spent on wasted things. I have already hinted to the parents to give me some make up or something useful," complains the school teacher Tatiana  Aleksandrom. 

Oksana Chebotareva, a Russian English teacher, told me that after the 1st of September she notices that often the school bins are crammed full of dead flowers. She told me, "We get so many flowers we often end up giving them to the school cleaners."

 

The Russian school teachers were referring to the old custom where every 1st of September which marks the beginning of the academic year, practically every school child bring their school teacher a bouquet of flowers. At this time of year an estimated 17.1 million school students converge on Russian schools, and almost 2 million of them are first year school students. On this day all the children seem to surface from nowhere. They are conspicuous by their smart white shirts, and black or gray trousers as well as their lively banter on the streets. The streets of Moscow are seized by a lively and elated festive atmosphere. And even older people can be infected by their buoyant mood as they seem happy to see each other. But other reclusive and isolated students you might see going gloomily to and back to school.

The old custom of school students bringing flowers to their teachers is old. It stretches back 70 years to 1954-1955. But then the custom was different. It was mainly the male pupils who were expected to bring flowers to predominately female teachers. The female pupils were under no obligation and even then, the children usually clubbed together to present a bouquet of flowers. But now every student might bring a bouquet to a single teacher leaving a perplexed school teacher who doesn't know what to do with them or can 't carry them all home!  The custom of presenting flowers not only manifests itself in Education, but on March the 8th International Women's Day, on birthdays and to old veterans of the Great Patriotic War. But not every war veteran welcomes this. When I tried to present a bouquet of flowers to one war veteran a few years ago whom I know, he gallantly told me, "I can't take them. Give them to a woman".

Russians also have a custom where anyone in the audience of the theater can come up on to the stage after a performance and present an actor with a bouquet of flowers. When Yevgeni, a Russian businessman, did this in London after a performance, the cast were shocked. They just don't have this custom in England. Yevgeni told me that when he attempted to present a relative with a bouquet of flowers on her birthday abroad in the Arab Emirates it took him hours to find a florist. They don't have deeply rooted customs of giving flowers there as in Russia.

 

A recent sociological survey carried out in Russia in 2021, whose results were published by the newspaper of the Teacher's Union 'Teacher' found that 82% of teachers surveyed were against flowers being brought to them by school students. They often thought it was enough for the whole class to bring just one bouquet.{29%}More than half {75%} had already made this request via the administration. But requests by teachers to parents to stop bringing flowers proved in vain. They just keep on bringing them. As many as 67% of teachers polled thought that the money spent on flowers could be put to better use in the classroom. As many as 29% think the money would be better spent on school excursions or tickets to go to the theater. However, only 9% polled believed the money would be better spent through a donation to charity suggesting not everyone endorses the idea held by a pressure group to devote all the money to sick children or orphans.

 

How might we explain the results? Perhaps we live in a new era where more attention has been drawn to wasteful consumption, ecological issues and the rising popularity of charity. It might be the case that unlike during previous times, people did not purchase such a mass of flowers and that parents are overdoing the custom.

 

Nevertheless not all school teachers are against receiving flowers on this day. A school Primary teacher called Lena Leonidava stated, "I always react with pleasure to receiving flowers. We even have a custom where my daughter visits me every year to especially help me take them home ... I would 't like it if such a custom died out!" 

Given the insistence on parents continuing to bring flowers to school teachers despite their reluctance to take them, the death of this custom is not imminent.