The Russian Winter Festival is celebrated for twelve days between December 25th and January
5th. It is similar to Christmas, although Christmas is not officially recognized. Evergreen
trees are decorated and called New Year’s trees.
Grandfather Frost, Dyed Maroz, looks
like Santa Claus with his long red robe, white beard and black boots. He has a helper called Snow
Girl and comes shaking his jingle bells on New Year’s Day, the most important day during the festival.
Toys are given to the children by Grandfather Frost along with spicy ginger cakes. Carnivals, sports
and special performances of the circus are performed.
A Traditional gift is a set of Matryoshka
dolls. They are unique in that they can be opened to reveal several smaller dolls nested inside
each other. The Nutcracker ballet is associated with Russia at this time of the year.
Some Russians fast during the time before Christmas Eve. But at the sight of the first star in the
sky, a twelve course supper begins. There is one course for each of the twelve apostles. Fish takes
the place of meat and there borsch (beet soup), cabbage stuffed with millet, and cooked dried
fruit. The specialty of Christmas Eve is kutya, whole-wheat grains soaked for hours, seasoned
with honey and crushed poppy seeds. Hay is spread on the floor and table to encourage horse-feed
for the coming year, and humans cluck to encourage hens to lay eggs.
