'Starring' in Alaska -- MP3 radio show

Here's a link to a two-minute radio show on Russian Christmas in Alaska. It's narrated by James Metzger, executive producer of the Pulse of the Planet radio show, and it's titled "Starring: Alaskan Russian Orthodox Christmas." Playing in the background for ambience, according to the credits, is a Slavic carol.

Metzger quotes Father Benjamin Peterson, dean of Saint Innocent Cathedral in Anchorage:

"Starring is one of those ways in which these very remote communities that are very often isolated from each other, especially in the dark and cold of winter, how they manage to kind of keep together. It's kind of a social glue that keeps these communities together. Some of them are only, have seven hundred people. Some of them have less - 300 people. So starring becomes a way that people connect with each other, and in the giving of gifts, you know, kind of open themselves to each other. Its kind of a way of renewing communities. So it even sends out a sense of belonging to people who are away from home - and, and keeps these communities together."

Fr. Benjamin says as the carolers go around, "each home becomes an extension of the church, in a sense a kind of little church."

According to the show's website, Pulse of the Planet is broadcast over 309 public and commercial stations around the world and on the Voice of America and the Armed Forces Radio Network, reaching more than 1 million listeners daily. The series is presented by the National Science Foundation.