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Growing up in Soviet Russia, I didn’t even know what Christmas was, let alone celebrate it. But every winter, we celebrated the biggest holiday of the year: the New Year. From the end of December to mid-January, schools, kindergartens, universities, and workplaces across the country held large-scale festivals with songs, dances, and gorgeous decorations.
For several weeks each year, you were transported from the harsh and bleak Soviet reality into the magic of the holidays with fireworks, marching bands, streetlights and firecrackers. The centerpiece of the holiday was the New Year’s pine tree (Yolka) that adorned every home and workplace.
My sister and I enjoyed the moment I helped my mother decorate the freshly cut yorka decorations my father brought home. And I couldn’t wait to go to my mom’s place of work to dance the holovord around the lit up tree and get a translucent bag of candy and her one tangerine. Long-bearded Grandfather Frost and his granddaughter Snow Girl. It was a fairy tale, albeit only for a few days.
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What I didn’t realize until my early twenties was that the Soviet government was actually giving us fairy tales. During his senior year of college, he was one of the few students sent to London on an exchange program. That her December, surprisingly, the British celebrated what they called Christmas, Christmas Grandfather Frost called her Tree and Santa her Claus, but without a charming granddaughter. did. Instead, he had a sweet and innocent reindeer, Rudolf. On December 24th and his 25th, the English also went to church and sang Christmas carols. They talked about the birth of Jesus Christ as the reason for the holiday. It was as shocking to me, 22, as it was to American children who learned that Santa didn’t exist.
Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church performs the Christmas liturgy at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow, Russia, Thursday, January 6, 2022.
(AP Photo/Alexander Zemlyanichenko)
That year, Granfather Frost and Snowgirl decided to remove religion from the Christmas holidays, which had been celebrated in the Russian Empire until 1918, when the Bolsheviks seized power, killed the Tsar, and declared atheism as the state religion. I learned that it was a designed Soviet invention. A sickle instead of a cross.
After declaring religion to be “the opium of the masses,” the new proletarian regime should declare that the state, not God, is the provider of all rights to man, and Vladimir Lenin, the supreme revolutionary, should be worshiped. I decided. His portraits hang on every wall and adorn the children’s first reading books.
By signing the decree “On the introduction of the Western European calendar in the Russian Republic” on February 8, 1918, Lenin canceled Christmas with a stroke of a pen and, in fact, all religious observances. Did. Until then, Russia followed the orthodox Julian calendar and celebrated Christmas, which is called the “birth of Christ”. By order of Lenin, Russia moved to the Gregorian calendar, 13 days ahead of the Julian calendar. Rozhdestvo Khristovo disappeared from the calendar en masse, and December 25, 1917 became the last Russian Christmas holiday. Today, in post-Soviet Russia, Orthodox Christmas is celebrated on January 7, but New Year is still his biggest holiday of the year.
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Since arriving, I have enjoyed the freedom of my adopted home, America. Americans are free to follow any religion or not at all. I converted to Judaism, which is her husband’s faith, so I don’t put up a Christmas tree in her house. So we put up the menorah and candles to celebrate Hanukkah.
My sister, who recently told me that she didn’t know about Christmas either until she left Russia, has a Christmas tree at her house in America. I also go to Our grandmothers told me that they secretly baptized us when we were babies. Our parents kept it a secret so that our family would not be suspected by the Soviet authorities.
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It saddens me that America is becoming more and more secular. Research shows that a quarter of Americans now have a secular worldview, and three of her 10 adults are non-religious.
I know the emptiness that can fill your soul, especially in difficult times, if you don’t believe there are other beings to care for you and guide you. I know what will happen. Soon it will begin to recognize itself as the Almighty and take control of every aspect of your life. I hope my American children will never be forced to worship the government. ! There are no cookies by Grandfather Frost’s chimney.
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