Festivals celebrating Jarilo were centered on an old idol in Voronezh. Involved with these celebrations was a man with his face painted red and white. He carried jingle-bells and was adorned with flowers. These celebrations always took place from the Wednesday or Friday following Whitsuntide (the week of the 7'th Sunday after Easter) till the next Sunday. Apparently, the Balts had a similar god.

Svarog was the creator of the sun. The sun and the hearth-fire are both personified as Svarog's son (Swarozhich). Both personifications were worshiped by the Slavs. The hearth-fire was kept burning in homes by the mothers and in sanctuaries by the priests day and night every day of the year but one. The were symbolically extinguished and restarted on the eve of the summer solstice festival. Their worship of the sun could be seen in the temples they built, designed so as to watch the sunrise from, and in their customs of sleeping with their heads facing east, and burying their dead likewise. When Christianity came to the Lusatian Slavs, they fused the two beliefs in the custom of turning to greet the rising sun upon entering a church. Svarog may have been thought to be a dragon-slayer and may have been able to change into a falcon, horse, wolf or whirlwind. The vila were maidens associated with Svarog, who were typically strong, naked battle-maidens (my favorite type) equipped with bows and arrows. Slovaks, Croats, Serbs and Bulgarians believed in them, crediting them as being friends of heroes. These people left offerings for them at springs, caves, stones, and under trees. Vila could transform into falcons, horses, wolves, and whirlwinds (as could Svarog), but to their list is added swans and snakes. If a man approaches them while they are dancing on mountain tops, they shoot arrows at him, blind him, or pull him into the ring and dance him to death. What a way to go. Gimbutas really had my interest here.