Pinky celebrates the New Year in Moscow

I once again received a wonderful email chock-full of interesting information, links and photos from Anastasia about how she, accompanied by Pinky, celebrated the New Year!

Here it is :

"Hi!

Most of the photos in this story will be blurry because it was quite difficult to take pictures in the dark, hope you'll understand it...

Right now Pinky and I are drinking a home-made latte and thinking about the fun we had yesterday!

But first, let me tell you about the greatest event in Russia which unfortunately my family celebrates less and less thought the years - New Year, or Novy God (Новый Год).

Why New Year, you ask, why not Christmas? Well, Christmas is a religious holiday and in the Soviet Union religion was banned so Christmas became illegal. People were still celebrating it but secretly, however, Novy God became the whole-country spread. Also, Russia unites people of ALL religions so we have a holiday for everyone in the country.

Russian people used to meet New Year on September 1 before Peter I changed that on 1699-1700 New Year. Historians say that Peter "has cut a window to Europe" because he initiated lots of reformations that made Russia more of a European country. For example, he made men cut off their beards and wear European clothes. Well, there were some other more "serious" actions as well. People still argue whether his reformations were good or bad. In the 19th century, there were two big groups: западники (zapadniki - Westernists) and славянофилы (slavyanofily - Slavophiles). The first said that Peter had been right, the latter - that he had ruined Russia and that our country should have its own independent from Europe way of development. Anyway, whatever people say, Peter I had a great impact on Russia and it's a part of our history that we should know and respect.

How do we celebrate Novy God? New Year is the day of magic. It depends on the family, but some of them ask Дед Мороз (Ded Moroz. He's usually translated as Father Frost but he's a grandfather!) and his granddaughter Снегурочка (Snegurochka - The Snow Maiden) to come to their homes. Then, children would stay on a stool and read short poems about winter and get a present for that. My family didn't do that, I waited for Ded Moroz to come during the night so in the morning I would wake up at 4 AM and find the presents underneath the tree (we have a tree in Russia just like in other countries)! Fact: Ded Moroz doesn't ride a sleigh of deers, he rides Тройка - the sleigh of three white horses. We even have a song Troyka about it! You can hear it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKfF1HZTn8U (sorry if links are creepy to you, there'll be some more so you can feel the atmosphere of Russian New Year!).

All New Year Eve people watch Soviet movies. They're translated on every TV channel! My favorite one if Ivan Vasilyevich Changes Profession. It's about a scientist who accidentally opened a "portal" to the times of Tsar Ivan The Terrible and this scientist's neighbor who looked like the Tsar swapped with Ivan The Terrible (also by accident). It's very fun! Sending you some songs from the movie :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tDZl_wj8Fo - this happened when the neighbor as the Tsar accidentally sent a whole army to conquer something!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1t3h9osiFuE - take a closer look at the guy in brown - his dance is very Russian!

Here are some of my favorite songs from other movies:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5viIzp4rxC0 - "5 Minutes", a song about 5 minutes till the New Year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkDQ8YOQAVA - "A Song About Hares" - the classics. The man is Nikulin, I think he's the most famous Soviet actor, I even have a stamp dedicated to him!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goFIxxWru78 - "The Island Of Bad Luck".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dExwT_pEr9w - "A Little Song About Bears" - the student song about polar bears that help to turn the planet so people could meet and fall in love sooner.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4IqmeoeS1s - "Along My Street..." - this is a song with the lyrics of Bella Akhmadulina's poem with the same name. It's one of my favorite poems so I'm in love with this song! You can read the translation of the full poem here: https://ruverses.com/bella-akhmadulina/along-my-street/364/ . It's a very good website with translations of Russian poets' works - highly recommend!

These are the songs I can think of at once. Maybe I miss some great ones that deserve attention too...

After the movies there are some shows with Russian singers and comedians - I don't like them that much to be honest.

And then - five minutes left and Putin's speech begins. Everyone's gathered at the table. There are оливье (Olivier salad), селёдка под шубой (herring under a fur coat), холодец (kholodets) and some other dishes on it but people stop eating because it's almost here. The speech is over, Куранты (Courants) - the main clock of Moscow - is striking 12 AM, the Anthem of Russia is playing, everyone's drinking champagne and screaming "ура"! - hooray! Children drink very popular in Russia "children champagne" which is basically Russian lemonade - дюшес. I drink it too, haha :) But to make the clock strike fun there's a tradition which my foreign friends find weird. As the Courants strike, you need to write your wish on a small piece of paper, set it on fire, put in your champagne and drink - the wish will come true! It actually comes true every time I do it!! Hope this year it'll happen again :)

After the New year begins the Nevogodniye holidays - it ends only on January 8, after the Orthodox Christmas. It means we have a lot of spare time! I dedicate it to postcrossing, reading and watching TV-shows.

But we also have time to go out so I took Pinky to the traditional winter festival in Moscow - "Путешествие в Рождество", or "The Christmas Adventure". Christmas itself is not very popular in Russia nowadays, my family's never celebrated it so I don't know the traditions... but we have a festival named after it! It takes place all over Moscow and yesterday we visited two "stations". Firstly we went to my grandma's district and bought two fridge magnets made out of береста - Birch bark, a traditional handmade Orthodox Christmas toy, and an angel magnet. And, of course, we got the Christmas Passport. What is it for? Well, the "Christmas Adventure" offers not only markets, food and shows, it also has a winter quest! You travel about Moscow, answer questions about Christmas and New Year, get points and then exchange them to prizes! My mom and I find it not about the prizes but the joy so we're not chasing any points. But the passport is such an interesting souvenir! Pinky wants to keep one for herself :)

After the grandma's district, we went right to the center of Moscow - Tverskaya street. We went there by subway because there are no parking lots free from cars there. Pinky visited several metro stations: Park Kultury (again!), Chekhovskaya and Lubyanka + we crossed Arbatskaya and Pinky really loved it so we took a picture! This year's festival's theme is space. Seeing everything decorated for this theme was amazing! In one photo you can see dancers dressed as some kind of cosmonauts. They were everywhere! There were two stages with singers singing old songs. I didn't know the songs, neither did my mom but old ladies (we call them "grannies") were singing and waving. I felt very nostalgic for some reason!

On our way to Rozhdestvenka street, we stopped at Starbucks to warm up with a drink. We ordered hot chocolate but I decided to show Pinky something new and asked to add oat milk in my drink. Pinky was surprised! It was my first time drinking oat milk hot chocolate too... I always ask for oat milk for my coffee but hot chocolate - never. The taste was strange and very oat-ish, haha! I think Pinky prefers the regular milk though I myself would take oat milk again next time.

In one of the pictures, you can see a boy in a blue hat. Who is he and why was Pinky so excited to meet him? His name is Незнайка (Neznayka - Dunno). It's a famous character from Russian children's books about the adventures of a boy whose name basically means "Don't know". There are TV adaptations of the books as well. One of the parts was "Незнайка на Луне" - "Dunno on the Moon". That's why Neznayka is a part of the festival - some of his adventures were in space!

Well, that's how we spent our day. Pinky did enjoy it!

Have a lovely day,

Nastya"