So to help you understand a bit about the Russian holidays I have to tell you some history first. As you know Russia is a Christian nation, specifically Russian Orthodox, which means their church closely resembles the other Orthodox churches. There are many similarities between them but time has made them all grow quite distinct from one another. One point of pride for the Russian orthodox church is that their church is much the same as it was 1000 years ago and keeping with that tradition, they also use the Julian calendar. This was a reform by Julius Ceasar over the old Roman calendar and it is something the Russian Orthodox still continues using (though revised slightly in the 1920s). The rest of the world uses the Gregorian calendar which was a revision of the Julian calendar by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582. So, as you can see, there are some problems with dates. When people in America are celebrating Christmas on the 25th of December (according to the Gregorian calendar), people in Russia have to wait until January 7th for their Christmas celebrations.
But the history of Christmas in Russia does not end with the Orthodox church. There was another event that forever changed the holidays, the Russian Revolution in 1917. The official state policy reguarding religion during the Soviet Union was that there would be a strict seperation of church and state. This was a huge blow to the orthodox church because they had been a priviledged and dependent part of Tsarist Russia. The USSR later declared that they were atheists and forbade most religious ceremonies or holidays. The leaders of Russia found themselves in a partiularly interesting position when the holidays came around. While you can change laws with the ink of a pen, it is harder to change what people had been doing for centuries. So they came to a compromise. The leaders deemed that New Year was not a religious holiday and could therefore be celebrated. This made New Year the biggest holiday in Russia. On New Year, families gathered together, presents were exchanged, New Year's trees were put up (actually an introduction by Peter the Great), and the minutes to the next year were counted down.
A Russian Orthodox Priest
Now in the 21st century, the Russian Orthodox church has revived and returned to it's previous, although slightly tarnished, stature and religious practices have been reinstated. But once again we have found that you can change the laws but the hearts and minds of the people are harder to sway. If you experience the holidays in Russia today, you can see that Dec. 31st/Jan. 1st is still more popular than Jan. 7th. I was curious of course and asked many of my students to explain their feelings about the holidays and many of them thought it ridiculous to celebrate Christmas after New Year. They felt that the orthodox church should reform their calendar. I know that the two students that said this are by no means an accurate cross section of Russia but it is an interesting point.
But now the good stuff. America believes that there is a jolly, old, fat man, clad in a red jumpsuit, that flies all around the world in one night and delivers presents to children. Russia is not without their own myth (hopefully kids under 10 don't read this, if so, that last word was a typo). They have a old, thin, blue clad man that travels around Russia and gives presents to children. His name is Grandfather Frost (Ded Moroz). And can you guess which day he gives presents on? New Year? Yep, that's right!! But he is not alone in his cause to bring joy to children at New Year, he has help. He can be found roaming the streets with his granddaughter, Snow Maiden, (Snegurochka). They usually deliever their presents in person and you can hire people to come to your house and pretend for your kids.
So, as it turns out, we get to celebrate two Christmases in Russia!! Yeah, two calendars.
P.S. All these facts were either borrowed from Todd or from wikipedia. If I got something wrong, let me know. :)
