Christmas here in Russia, as I might have mentioned, is not really celebrated; lately, people have started to mark the occasion as it a good excuse for another party, but there is no real meaning/history behind it.
New Year's in when it all happens. People here started wishing each other a Happy New Year around midday on New Year's Eve. This is the time when gifts are exchanged, and for well-behaved children, a visit from Ded Maroz (Father Frost) is in order. Now Ded Maroz is very similar to our own Father Christmas, except that this one takes his granddaughter along to help him give out presents to children. His granddaughter's name is Snegurochka (The Snow Maiden) and here is one of my favourite pictures of her. For anyone familiar with the works of Rimsky-Korsakov, this is the same Snegurochka.More on Ded Maroz here.
Snegurochka features in many different fairy tales, but most have one thing in common: in the presence of warmth (eg the end of winter), she melts and dispappears...
More on Snegurochka here.
On New Year's Eve, we went to pad 54 to cheer up Sasha while he supervised the logging there. We left for a couple of hours to go to the CPF, where entertainement, food and (alcohol-free) bubbly were being provided. The show was fun for an hour, a bit less so for the next 45 mins...
It was a mix of songs, mostly traditional NY ones, of games such as drawing pictures with a blindfold, and people from the audience acting a little play being read out, involving Snegurochka being captured by a lion and saved by Ded Maroz! All pretty jolly. Also, quite a few people were in fancy dress for the occasion.
After popping the champagne and very large party poppers at midnight, we returned to pad 54 geo-unit where we had our own party.
A few days before NY, my DSV had started calling me Snegurochka, which quickly caught on...so I walked around wearing tinsel for while ;-)
And so to finish, here are a few more pics from the our little NY party...
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