The Russian Customs and Holidays

Read the text and say how many official holidays are in Russia today.

The Russian love for holidays is known the world over. Every holiday is good in its own way, and the Russians are not indifferent to their meaning and ritual side. Thus, Russian holidays present a mixture of new and old, religious and secular, professional and private. National holidays reflect multicolored Russian history. Christian traditions were combined with pagan ones and therefore strongly connected to the seasons and agricultural cycle. Church holidays were mixed with those introduced during the communist regime. And Russian people do not mind: every holiday deserves its celebration.

The New Year is the first in calendar and in popularity. It will be true to say that now the New Year is a greater holiday than Christmas in Russia. Long before December 31 sparkling fir trees appear in the streets, shops, offices and houses, bringing the joy of festive preparations and hope for happy miracles in the coming New Year. It is time to make wishes and presents to all friends and relatives. Children are looking forward for Father Frost (actually he is Grandfather Frost - Ded Moroz in Russian) and his granddaughter Snow Maiden (Snegurochka) to arrive at night and leave presents under the fir-tree. The grown-ups traditionally stay up for the whole night, making merry with friends and relatives.

The New Year celebrations slip to Christmas festivities and go on till January 8 –all these days from December 31 to January 8 are official days off now.

Russian Christmas comes two weeks later than in other countries, on January 7. This difference is due to the Orthodox Church that follows the Julian (old style) calendar. One of the traditional rituals on Christmas is Kolyadki. At Christmas night young people put on fancy dresses, gather in a noisy crowd and go in every house on their way, singing carols and merry songs. Hosts of the houses thank singers with all the kinds of sweat things like candies, chocolates and pastry. Among other Christmas traditions are wishes of wealth and happiness for everybody and snowball games. It was a custom for young ladies to tell fortune on these days, Svyatki. The Old New Year’s Day on January 14^th is not a public holiday, but many people celebrate it having a large meal in the families. This custom comes from Old Orthodox Calendar (Julian Calendar) according to which the New Year starts on 14^th of January.

Other Old Russian holidays include Maslenitsa, or a Pancake week, Easter, Ivan Kupala Day, the Trinity (Troitsa) and many various festivities. A Pancake week is a celebration of the sunlight and spring. A century ago Maslenitsa was a merry and widely celebrated holiday similar to the carnival in Western countries. It was a time of games and contests especially horse racing and fistfights. A big doll of straw was burned as the final act of saying goodbye to the already passed winter. Through the whole week people cooked pancakes (bliny) served with honey, caviar, fresh cream and butter. Nowadays the celebration is not so diversified but people do treat themselves and their guests with tasty pancakes.

At present there are 8 public holidays in Russia: New Years Holidays and Christmas, Defender of the Motherland Day (or Man’s Day), which falls on February 23^rd, International Women's Day, which is celebrated on March 8^th, Spring and Labor Day on May 1^st, Victory Day on May 9^th to commemorate the victory over German Nazi in Great Patriotic War, 1941-1945, Russia Day (Independence Day), which is observed on June 12^th when it was adopted the Declaration of the state sovereignty of Russia on this day in 1991, and, finally, a recent official holiday which is called Unity Day on November 4th, commemorating the anniversary of the Russian people’s victory over the Polish invaders back in 1612. There are other popular holidays in modern Russia: Cosmonautics Day on April 12^th, which gained the status of the International Day of Human Space Flight adopted by United Nations General Assembly on April 7, 2011; Radio Day on 7^th May to commemorate the invention of radio in 1895 by Alexander Popov; Tatiana’s Day on January 25^th which is also know as Students’ Day because Saint Tatiana is the patron of students in the Russian Orthodox Church.

Answer the following questions:

1) What holidays are celebrated in Russia?

2) What traditions are combined in the Russian holidays?

3) What is the most popular holiday in Russia?

4) How is the Orthodox Christmas different from the Western Christmas?

5) What is the favorite holiday for the Russians?

6) What is your favorite holiday? How do you celebrate it?

7) Do you observe Old Russian holidays? Do you think the Russians should celebrate them? Why?