that were blessed at church. After the matins all the people in the congregation exchange Easter greetings, give each other krashanky, and then hurry home with their baskets of blessed food (sviachene). In eastern Ukraine they go home, place the sviachene on the table, and the oldest member of the family opens the cloths in which the food is wrapped, slices pieces from each item, and distributes them to members of the family along with a piece of unleavened bread that has also been blessed. In Western Ukraine, especially in the Hutsul region, the people first walk around the house three times. Only then do they enter the house, ceremoniously open the bundle (dorinnyk) over the heads of the children, and sit down to the table to break their fast. Modern pasky usually have a white glaze made from sugar and egg and are decorated on top with coloured wheat grains or poppy seeds. However, an old custom, which is still practised in some Ukrainian regions and diasporas, is to create dough ornaments for the paska. The symbolism of these ornaments is connected with spring themes: the awakening of nature, resurrection and rebirth. Birds, especially larks, as heralds of spring, took a much-deserved place on pasky. Assyrian paska In Iran and the diaspora, Assyrians will eat a paska cake on Easter, Ida Gura. The tall cake is decorated with a cross on top to represent Calvary, the place of Jesus' crucifixion, and surrounded with colored eggs to symbolize the people who visited Jesus during his death and were at his cross. Eaten with other foods Paska is eaten with hrudka, also called syrek, a bland sweet custard similar to cheese made from separated eggs and milk and beets mixed with horseradish (chren/hrin) and kovbasa. Pască Pască is a traditional Romanian and Moldovan pastry. Especially made for Easter, pască is a tart with a cozonac dough base filled with fresh cheese like urdă or cottage cheese, raisins, eggs and sugar. Other variants include sour cream, chocolate, or berries fillings. See also Challah Cozonac or Kozunak is the Romanian and Bulgarian name for a type of Easter Bread Kolach Kulich, Russian paska bread Paskha, Russian Easter dish made from quark List of sweet breads References External links Sweet breads Yeast breads Easter bread Assyrian cuisine Iranian breads Moldovan cuisine Romanian cuisine Russian cuisine Slovak cuisine Ukrainian cuisine Cuisine of the Midwestern United