Across the eleven time zones of the Russian Federation—from the Baltic canals of Saint Petersburg and the golden domes of Moscow to the frozen taiga forests of Siberia—the winter holiday season unfolds on a calendar completely upside down compared to Western Europe and North America. In Russia, the bustling gift shopping, the towering decorated spruce trees, the arrival of Grandfather Frost, and the nationwide midnight television address happen on December thirty-first for New Year’s Eve (Novy God), followed by a ten-day national midwinter vacation that culminates on January seventh with the quiet, sacred celebration of Russian Orthodox Christmas (Rozhdestvo Khristovo).
70 Years Underground: How the Soviets Turned Christmas Into New Year’s
Before the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, Imperial Russia celebrated a deeply religious Christmas on December twenty-fifth (according to the old Julian calendar), introduced with German-style decorated fir trees in the nineteenth century by the Prussian-born wife of Tsar Nicholas I, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. After the communists seized power, however, the Soviet Union embarked on a militant state campaign of atheism. In 1929, Christmas was stripped of its holiday status and turned into an ordinary factory workday; priests were persecuted, church bells were melted down, and communist youth patrols even walked along apartment sidewalks peering through windows to arrest anyone hiding a religious Christmas tree!
Realizing by late 1935 that families and children desperately missed having a joyous winter festival, Joseph Stalin’s government executed a clever cultural sleight-of-hand: they rehabilitated every single beloved tradition of Christmas, stripped out the religious Nativity, and moved the entire celebration six days forward to New Year’s Eve (December 31):
- The Christmas tree was renamed the New Year’s Tree (Novogodnyaya Yolka), topped with a five-pointed ruby-red Kremlin star instead of the Star of Bethlehem.
- The Slavic spirit of winter, Ded Moroz (Grandfather Frost)—wearing a floor-length blue, red, or silver velvet coat, felt valenki snow boots, and carrying a magic crystal staff rather than flying in a reindeer sleigh—was appointed the official secular bringer of New Year’s gifts, accompanied everywhere by his young granddaughter, Snegurochka (the Snow Maiden).
January 6 (Sochelnik): The 40-Day Fast and the First Evening Star
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the Russian government officially restored Orthodox Christmas on January seventh (which corresponds to December twenty-fifth on the ancient Julian calendar still used by the Russian Orthodox Church) as a national public holiday. For observant Orthodox Christians across Russia, the holiday is preceded by the forty-day Nativity Fast (beginning November twenty-eighth), during which believers abstain from all meat, poultry, dairy products, and eggs.
The fast reaches its strictest peak on January sixth, Christmas Eve (Sochelnik). Tradition dictates that no food at all is eaten throughout the daylight hours of January sixth until the very first evening star appears in the frosty twilight sky—honoring the Star of Bethlehem that announced the birth of Christ. Once that star shines, families gather around a dining table spread with a crisp white linen cloth (often over a handful of clean straw in memory of the manger) to share the meatless, dairy-free Holy Supper of Twelve Dishes:
- Sochivo (or Kutya): The mandatory ritual dish that gives Christmas Eve its Russian name (Sochelnik): whole wheat berries, barley, or rice simmered until tender and tossed with poppy seeds (symbolizing abundance), crushed walnuts, raisins, and golden honey (symbolizing the sweetness of eternal life).
- Vzvar and Lenten Classics: A warm, spiced fruit compote brewed from dried apples, pears, and prunes (vzvar—traditionally brewed in Russia to celebrate the birth of a child), alongside fried mushroom-and-cabbage hand pies (pirozhki), buckwheat kasha, pickled forest mushrooms, vinaigrette beet salad, and baked fish.
All-Night Vigil, Kolyadki Caroling, and Svyatki Fortune-Telling
Around ten o’clock on the night of January sixth, millions of Russians bundle up in heavy fur coats and scarves to attend the magnificent All-Night Christmas Vigil and Divine Liturgy inside incense-filled Orthodox churches—broadcast live across the nation from Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour—lasting three to four hours past midnight as choirs sing ancient Slavonic liturgical chants strictly a cappella.
Returning home at dawn on January seventh, families finally break the forty-day fast with a rich Christmas Day banquet of roast goose stuffed with sour apples and prunes, roast suckling pig with buckwheat, meat-in-aspic jelly (kholodets), and spiced honey gingerbread (pryaniki). In rural villages and historic towns, January seventh also launches the twelve mystical days of Svyatki (“The Holy Days,” January 7 to January 19, Epiphany):
- Kolyadovanie (Mumming and Caroling): Children and youths dress up inside-out in sheepskin coats and animal masks (such as a goat or bear), carrying a tall wooden pole topped with a spinning paper Star of Bethlehem from house to house to sing ancient Slavic blessing songs called kolyadki in exchange for pastries and coins.
- Svyatki Divination (Gadaniya): Immortalized in Russian literature by Alexander Pushkin, Leo Tolstoy in War and Peace, and Nikolai Gogol, unmarried young women traditionally spent the dark winter nights of Svyatki pouring melted beeswax into bowls of cold water or setting two mirrors facing each other by candlelight to catch a glimpse of their future husband’s face—before the entire holiday season closes on January nineteenth (Epiphany / Крещение), when hundreds of thousands of brave Russians plunge three times into cross-shaped holes cut straight into frozen rivers and lakes at minus twenty degrees Celsius.
