Tomorrow is my Nicky’s nameday… here’s a modern riff on the well-known O kto, kto, kto, Nikolae lyubit (as it’s sung in Galician-Ukrainian dialect, the singers use “h” for “g”, they swallow the initial “k” in “kto”, and pronounce “Nikolai” as “Mikolai”). Happy nameday to all you Nicks out there! Lift the jug and cheer!
The icon above is of a real occurrence in history… in the early 20th century, a group of Carpatho-Russian coalminers took a (unpaid) day off to go to church for a feastday of St Nick. That day, a mine cave-in trapped many miners. The icon represents St Nicholas holding his veil of intercession over the Orthodox miners.