Christmas and New Year in a parallel world
January 1, 2006 | 12:00am
MOSCOW – The spirited ringing of bells followed by heartwarming hymns of praise fill the air as holiday shoppers rush directly from the Metro to the fir tree-lined mall for last-minute gift purchases, almost brushing past a familiar red-costumed figure whose beard is as white as newly fallen snow.
A cursory glance at this scene suggests Christmas in Paris, Brussels, Edinburgh or Cologne – or any European city. A closer look, however, reveals twists to the usual Catholic or Protestant Christmas trappings – these are not quite the same Christmas trees, gifts or Santa Claus as we know them.
Welcome to Russia, where Christmas and New Year take on a character all at once recognizable and peculiar.
Here at Moscow’s Red Square, the hymns heard from the Kazan Cathedral vaguely sound like carols but are actually just ordinary liturgical songs sung in regular services all year round, even on Christmas Day.
On every street corner or plaza stands a giant tree – but not for Christmas. The firs near GUM department store facing Lenin’s Mausoleum, at Lubyanka Square in front of the former KGB building and the city hall along Tverskaya (Moscow’s Ayala Avenue) remind passersby of the coming new year.
Like Russian Cyrillic script that ultimately feels like a mirror image, a sort of Bizarro World version of our own Latin script, Yuletide in Russia at first blush feels less alien than the more commercial displays of the season now common in non-Christian countries.
Yet when one tries to get into the spirit, one discovers that their version of the holidays – both secular and religious – can be more than meets the eye.
To begin with, Christmas isn’t celebrated on December 25. For 75 years, it wasn’t even celebrated openly following the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. It was only after the Soviet Union was dissolved that the new government reinstated the holiday, according to the pre-Revolutionary Julian calendar, on January 7.
Thanks to Christmas’ deep roots going back to the 10th century (introduced in Russia from Constantinople along with Orthodox Christianity), the holiday immediately found a place in the quasi-official and official calendars.
Practically endorsing the informal practice of extended New Year holidays, the Russian government approved in late 2004 setting the non-working days until January 10, 2005, which covers the old-style Christmas. This is not fixed and varies each year: in 2006, Russians get back to work on January 9.
Still, not everyone took a shine to the lengthy unscheduled break. Moscow Times columnist Georgy Bovt even described the abrupt holidays as "pure hell." (It didn’t help that Moscow experienced balmy weather of up to 6°C in the first days of January 2005, breaking a 126-year record.)
In a way, with most ordinary Russians – especially those who grew up during Soviet times – who do not spend the time on holiday overseas, secular New Year celebrations carry greater weight than the more earnestly religious Orthodox Christmas seven days later.
Despite the restoration of Old Calendar religious observances, Russians mark New Year’s Eve the way Filipinos do Christmas Eve – with carols, aguinaldo (gift giving) and tree decorating. It is more common to greet another with "S Novym Godom!" (Happy New Year) than "S Rozhdestvom Khristovym!" (Merry Christmas).
This is because the more external manifestations of Christmas – as Filipinos know it – were transplanted during Communist times to the more acceptable New Year.
Christian traditions, such as the decorated tree and Saint Nicholas, brought to Russia during Byzantine times – replacing kolyada, the pagan winter festival – became symbols for New Year instead: yolka (fir tree), and Ded Moroz (Grandfather Frost).
This being Russia, however, the usual traditions get a tweaking.
The New Year tree, for example, is normally not festooned with gifts like the Western Christmas tree. Grandfather Frost, the secularized Saint Nicholas, rides a troika pulled by three horses to distribute presents to children accompanied by his granddaughter, Snegurochka (Snow Maiden).
Accordingly, throughout December restaurants and hotels offer venues for companies to hold their annual corporate or office New Year (and not Christmas) parties or special New Year dinner menus.
While this mix-and-match can be confusing at times, Russians also mark the New Year in ways familiar. On the Eve, family and friends gather for a festive dinner an hour before midnight and pop open champagne bottles to mark the occasion. Many also light fireworks, such as bengal’skie ogni (lusis or phosphorus sticks).
In Moscow, crowds gather in Red Square with the obligatory sovetskoye shampanskoye (champagne) and raise their glasses to toast the New Year once the kuranty (clock) at the Spasskaya Tower of Moscow Kremlin strikes midnight – an event televised around the country.
Until 1991, this basically signified the conclusion of festivities. Today, Christmas is undergoing a revival and is being celebrated in a grander fashion every year, with the faithful participating in an all-night mass in incense-filled cathedrals amidst the company of the painted icons of saints.
Apart from the traditional festive kolyadki (carols), which incidentally take the form of a Halloween-like costumed visits of manger animals from house to house, Orthodox Christmas is a more somber affair than its Latin cousin.
For the devout Orthodox, it begins officially on November 28 with a 40-day fast called Filipovka (Saint Phillip’s Fast) that ends on Christmas Eve, January 6. As with the fasting during Lent in Easter, people are not allowed to eat any kind of meat, fish or dairy product.
The fast, which typically lasts until after the evening worship or when the first star – the star of the Magi – appears in the sky, is ended with a special meal. Although all the food served is typically Lenten, this Holy Supper is unusually merry and – unlike the New Year dinner – heavily symbolic.
Traditionally, the Holy Supper consists of 12 different foods, symbolic of the Twelve Apostles, including fruit, nuts, bread, honey, vegetables and red wine. Kutya, a porridge of sweetened rice or wheat berries with honey, nuts and poppy seeds, was traditionally the first or last food eaten.
Compared with New Year, Orthodox Christmas is characterized more by its religious solemnity; churches turn to overflowing. President Vladimir Putin, for example, attends the services at the Church of Christ the Savior on the banks of the Moscow River.
As for December 25 – Christmas Day, according to the Western Gregorian calendar – it passes almost unnoticed. That is, except for 1991 on Christmas night: the Soviet flag was lowered over the Kremlin to symbolize the end of Communist rule.
The small but tight-knit Filipino community in Moscow also does not fail to gather to give thanks over a rich feast – a kind of noche buena (Christmas Eve dinner) or media noche (New Year’s Eve feast) rolled into one – at the US Embassy dacha (country house) in the city outskirts.
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