On January 1, the year 2024 will begin. TASS has prepared this Factbox with background material on the history of the traditional New Year’s celebration in Russia.
Origins of the New Year’s holiday
From its adoption of Christianity in the year 988 until 1700, Russia used the Byzantine calendar, also known as the Julian calendar. It dated back to the creation of the world, which then was considered the year 5508. So, Russians initially celebrated the New Year in March, but then the holiday was shifted to September 1 in the 15th century. On that occasion, a festive ceremony usually took place on the Kremlin’s Cathedral Square, as well as a solemn church service, attended by the tsar, the Russian Orthodox patriarch and bishops, and members of the nobility.
In December 1699, Emperor (Tsar) Peter I (Peter the Great, reigned from 1682 to 1721) issued two decrees that introduced a new chronological system, which counted years starting from the birth of Jesus Christ, and ordered that the New Year be celebrated on January 1. However, the modernizing Russian monarch refrained from introducing the Gregorian calendar that many European countries had switched to, and so Russia continued to use the Julian calendar and, thus, celebrated the New Year’s holiday 11 days later than other Europeans. With time, the gap between the two calendars grew, reaching 13 days in the 20th century.
How the spruce fir tree came to be a symbol of the holiday
Peter the Great also ordered that Moscow’s thoroughfares and the homes of the nobility be decorated with spruce fir trees and pine branches. The tsar borrowed this tradition from the Europeans who lived at that time in Moscow’s German Quarter, located in what is now the city’s Lefortovo District.
The townsfolk were told to congratulate each other, burn bonfires in the streets, shoot rifles and set off fireworks. As well, a fireworks display took place on Red Square. New Year’s celebrations lasted all of seven days back then.
At the same time, the tradition of holding masquerade balls, public festivities and popular merriments arose. Under Empress (Tsarina) Elizabeth I (reigned from 1741 to 1762), court balls modeled after those in European capitals became fashionable.
The first Christmas holiday fir tree meant for public display was placed inside the St. Petersburg railway station in 1852. Later, trees began to be installed and decorated at other public sites. Representatives of the nobility, the merchant class and industrialists also organized charitable New Year’s celebrations for children. A spruce fir tree for the imperial family, as a rule, was put up and decorated at the Great Gatchina Palace.
Spruce trees were put up and decorated for Christmas, December 25, and remained in place until the New Year. At that time, New Year's celebrations were perceived only as a supplement to the Christmas holiday. All attributes of the holiday were imbued with Christian themes.
Sweets, fruits, ribbons and candles were used to adorn Christmas trees, but later special decorations were introduced, which usually reflected Christmas themes. People started to adorn their trees with small bells, figurines of angels and shepherds. Stars, candles and lanterns were supposed to remind people of the Star of Bethlehem and the lights that shone for those who traveled to worship the newborn Christ child. As time passed, glass Christmas decorations started being imported from Germany, and at the end of the 19th century, Russia’s own production of glass ball decorations was launched at a factory near the town of Klin, northwest of Moscow.
At about the same time, the country borrowed the European custom of making artificial Christmas trees, with the initial models made from pieces of fabric. The Christmas tree tradition was interrupted by World War I. In 1915, German prisoners of war, who were being held at a hospital in Saratov, organized a Christmas party, which consequently sparked enraged comments in the Russian press. Thus, Emperor (Tsar) Nicholas II (reigned from 1894 to 1917) banned the custom of decorating trees for Christmas.
Consequences of the October Revolution
After the October Revolution of 1917, the tsarist ban was lifted, and on December 31 of that year the first public Christmas tree was put on display at the Mikhailov Military School in Petrograd (the wartime name of St. Petersburg). There was no celebration in the Moscow Kremlin, which suffered from shelling in November 1917.
In January 1918, the Council of People’s Commissars of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) passed a decree introducing the Western European Gregorian calendar. The Russian Orthodox Church did not accept the change and continued to adhere to the traditional Julian calendar. This is why Russian Orthodox Christians celebrate Christmas on January 7, which under the Julian calendar corresponds to December 25. At the same time, a new unofficial holiday emerged — the Old New Year — which is celebrated on January 14.
In the first years of the Soviet Union, the tradition of Christmas and New Year’s celebrations continued. Special New Year’s parties for the children of government and Communist Party officials were held at the Grand Kremlin Palace. However, in the mid-1920s, a campaign against religious practices was launched across the country. As a result, Christmas was banned in 1929. At the same time, there were proposals to move the New Year's celebration from January 1 to November 7 (Day of the October Revolution). While the Soviet authorities did not take this step, Christmas celebrations were condemned as an alien "bourgeois and religious" legacy and outlawed in 1929.
Revival of the holiday
On December 28, 1935, the Pravda newspaper published an article by Pavel Postyshev, a senior Soviet politician, entitled "Let’s organize a great New Year’s tree for the kids on New Year’s Eve!", in which the author urged an end to the "wrongful condemnation" of the holiday tree, and called on the authorities to hold collective festivities for children. On December 29, Pravda published a resolution by Alexander Kosarev, the secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Leninist Young Communist League (Komsomol), that on January 1 all Komsomol members and Young Pioneers (a youth organization for children and adolescents aged 9 to 14) would hold New Year’s tree celebrations at schools, children's clubs and orphanages.
On January 1, 1936, Pravda’s front page featured a photo of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and the text of his New Year’s greetings. At the same time, a New Year’s party for children and youngsters took place at the House of the Unions’ Column Hall. The party involved the key personage associated with the New Year’s holiday, Ded Moroz (or "Grandfather Frost"), who was joined by his helper Snegurochka (or the "Snow Maiden") a year later.
On the night of January 1, 1942, the first official New Year's greeting to all citizens of the USSR was broadcast on the radio, which was read out by the Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets. His speech was dedicated to the dramatic events then taking place on the combat fronts of the Great Patriotic War.
On New Year's Eve 1944, the national anthem was performed for the first time in the USSR, the text of which was written by Sergey Mikhalkov and El-Registan (real name: Gabriyel Ureklyan), while the music was composed by Alexander Alexandrov.
Starting from 1954, New Year’s celebrations for kids and teens were held at St. George’s Hall in the Grand Kremlin Palace. Since 1962, these events have been held in the Kremlin Palace of Congresses (now the State Kremlin Palace). The country’s best students were invited to the unveiling of the first Kremlin New Year’s tree. The event was broadcast on the radio, and detailed reports were published in newspapers. Since then, the celebration in the Kremlin has been referred to as the "main New Year’s tree of the country." Moscow trade unions organized the event. Since the mid-1960s, the holiday has been held in the form of a festive gala performance.
In the 1970s, Soviet leaders initiated the tradition of addressing the nation on New Year’s Eve. General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Leonid Brezhnev was the first to make such an address, which was aired on national TV on December 31, 1970.
In the Soviet era, the holiday’s features changed. The Star of Bethlehem was replaced by a five-pointed red star and wax candles were replaced by garlands of electric lights. Figurines depicting the Kremlin towers, cosmonauts, satellites, sheaves of wheat and other symbols were now used instead of nuts, fruits and figurines of Christmas characters.
New Year’s celebrations in Russia
For the first time, a real fir tree was installed on Cathedral Square within the Kremlin walls in December 1996 at then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s initiative. In 2001-2004, an artificial installation resembling a tree was used instead of a real one due to the harsh winter frosts. On two occasions, the trees were brought from Veliky Ustyug in the Vologda Region in Russia’s North, which is said to be where Grandfather Frost lives, but delivering the tree in an impeccable condition from a dense forest several hundred kilometers away turned out to be a rather tricky task, and so the organizers began selecting trees from forest stands closer to Moscow. The main celebration — the All-Russia New Year’s party, also known as the "presidential" party — takes place at the Grand Kremlin Palace. More than 5,000 children from all regions of Russia are invited to attend the gala event every year.
On New Year’s Eve, the Russian president addresses the country with his annual holiday speech. After that, at the stroke of midnight, TV channels and radio stations broadcast the chiming of the clock in the Kremlin’s Spasskaya Tower, which is then followed by the playing of the national anthem.
Holiday vacation period
The official dates of the New Year’s holidays in Russia have changed many times. January 1 was declared a non-working day in 1948, while the January 7 Christmas holiday became a non-working day in 1990. In 1992, January 2 was also declared a day off. On September 25, 1992, amendments were adopted to the Labor Code of the RSFSR, according to which, in addition to January 1 and 7, January 2 became a non-working day. These days off were also preserved in the Labor Code of the Russian Federation (adopted on December 30, 2001, and entered into force on February 1, 2002).
On December 29, 2004, new amendments were made to Article 112 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation, under which the New Year’s holidays lasted from January 1 to January 5 inclusive, with January 6 as a working day, and January 7 as a day off. However, in practice, January 6 was also a non-working day, since Saturday or Sunday, coinciding with the New Year’s holidays, were moved to that day.
Since 2013, the official New Year’s holidays have run from January 1 through 8. The corresponding amendments were made to the Labor Code on April 23, 2012. Of these eight days, the actual holidays fall on January 1-6 and 8, and Orthodox Christmas is celebrated on January 7. The non-working days coinciding with these holidays (Saturday and Sunday) can be rescheduled to other dates by decision of the Russian government. As a rule, they are added to the May holidays. The authorities in Russia’s 89 regions may establish additional non-working days, including December 31, for employees of institutions and organizations under their jurisdiction.