MOSCOW, December 1. /TASS/. The festive New Year’s tree that will grace the Kremlin grounds for the New Year’s holiday is a 95-year-old spruce from the vicinity of Volokolamsk, to the northwest of Moscow, the press service of the Russian Presidential Property Department told TASS on Thursday.
The perfect tree will be cut down on December 12 and it will be delivered to the Kremlin two days later.
"The fir tree is growing near the Gryady village in the Volokolamsk city district and is 95 years old, 27 meters tall, the trunk’s diameter is 56 centimeters and the span of its branches is 10 meters," the press service said.
The search for the Kremlin’s "perfect fir tree" began this summer. This year’s spruce was chosen from among 62 rival candidates. Only 37 trees had made it into the short list, with requirements stating that it is not supposed to be shorter than 25 meters, nor older than 120 years.
Another important condition is that there should be direct access to the tree in order to avoid harming any nearby plants. The perfect tree should have a pyramid shaped crown and be deep and rich in color, without any broken and dry branches.
For the first time, a real fir tree was installed on Cathedral Square within the Kremlin’s walls in 1996. Due to severe frosts in 2001-2005, which prevented the tree’s delivery, it was replaced with an artificial one.
In 2005-2006, fir trees were brought from Veliky Ustyug, the homeland of Russia’s renowned New Year’s gift-bringer Grandfather Frost. Since 2007, these holiday fir trees have been delivered from the Moscow Region.