Russian Holidays

All the Church holidays in Russia are still celebrated according to the Julian calendar. One of the most important of them is Christmas Day which is celebrated on the 7th of January.

Christmas was not able to be publicly celebrated during much of the 20th century. In addition, many Russians identify themselves as atheists, so religious observance of Christmas has faded out of fashion. However, increasingly, some Russians are returning to religion (Russian Orthodoxy), and therefore the number of people celebrating Christmas as a religious holiday continues to grow.

In Russia like in many other countries it is the Christmas Eve that is the most important time of the holiday. The Christmas Eve is the day when ends the 4-day Christmas fast, during which Russians do not eat anything till the end of the day (till the first star), and even the dinner has to be meatless. After a repast people go to church for a night service, and on the first day of Christmas they have a rich feast. The table hosts the traditional Christmas dishes: roasted suckling pig or goose with apples and buckwheat.

The holiday of Christmas gave a birth to Christmastide (Святки) - 12 days till the day of the 19th of January. Christmastide is the time to have masquerades, fortune-telling and trick-or –treating. Also during this time Russian girls used to guess “the future” and who would be “their groom”. It was believed that at Christmas time, such guessing was most likely to come true.