Once you understand Ded Moroz (Дед Моро́з) and yolka (елка), you’re halfway there
4 December 2025 – Celebrating New Year in Russia: Different but Familiar
They do things slightly differently in Russia at Christmas, or rather, they do things the same but at different times and with different names.
In Russia, Christmas falls on the 7th of January, not the 25th of December; New Year is acknowledged on the 14th of January, not the 1st of January; and New Year’s Day is the 1st of January. Hold hard! I thought you just said that New Year in Russia takes place on the 14th of January? Well spotted, that man! The reasons for this ambiguity are twofold: firstly, the Russian Orthodox Church uses the older Julian calendar, not the Gregorian calendar, the older being 14 days behind; and secondly, during the Soviet period, religious festive holidays were purposefully deposed in favour of secularity. Hence, in Russia, nothing remotely festive-like happens on the 25th of December, apart from me using it as an excuse to raise a glass or two; but, as in the UK and elsewhere, the 1st of January takes centre holiday stage.
In short, both Orthodox Christmas and Orthodox New Year continue to be observed and revered religiously, but Russia’s major and most popular public holiday takes place, as it does in the rest of the world, on January the 1st.
Celebrating New Year in Russia: Different but Familiar
Though Christmas, in the sense that we know it in the West, is conspicuously absent from the Russian yuletide agenda, certain Christmas traditions, such as decorated pine trees and Father Christmas, the bringer of gifts, have been carried over to the New Year festivities, the only difference being that Christmas trees are called ‘New Year’s trees’ and Father Christmas ‘Father Frost’.
The lead-up to the Russian New Year differs little from the UK, with one exception, which is that in Russia the New Year starts 11 consecutive times. Twelve midnight New Year’s Eve happens in Russia according to the time zone relevant to each region. Yes, Russia really is that huge.
In winter, for example, Moscow is three hours in front of the UK and Kaliningrad two hours. Such differentials used to play havoc with our Russian-themed UK New Year’s parties. We had no other option but to bring the New Year in three times in a row, viz., three countdowns to midnight and three choruses of ‘Happy New Year’, followed by three champagne New Year toasts. What else could we do?
Celebrating New Year in Russia: Different but Familiar
Russia’s New Year’s Eve follows a universal template, but as it is the most significant event on the country’s holiday calendar, you will be harder pushed than in the UK to find a place in which to celebrate unless you book really early. In my experience, bars, restaurants, hotels and the like, especially those offering New Year’s entertainment, can be fully booked by November or even, in some cases, fully rebooked from the previous year.
Organised New Year parties, ie those which come with a ticket price, are not everybody’s cup of tea or bottle of vodka. The emphasis of the entertainment is not so often spectatorial as it is participatory. An exuberant master of ceremonies, with little respect for the introverted, will enthusiastically fulfil the remit for which they are being paid by getting you up on your feet and making you participate in all manner of dotty games and bizarre forms of amusement. Even small stay-at-home gatherings carry with them no guarantee that they will be impresario-free. Thus, my advice, before you go, is to brush up on your dancing techniques, and if you have any acting skills, dust these down as well. Beer and vodka aforethought are a credible solution.
Wherever you are, be it at a slick entertainment venue or in someone’s private house, the ubiquitous television is sure to play a part. In this respect, the line-up is not so different from what you would expect to find on New Year’s Eve in the UK.
Get ready for an evening of star-spangled party-style shows, a celebrity bonanza. These rumbustious, glossy, champagne-soaked events, where the in crowd get to strut their stuff or merely dazzle the camera with their august presence and famous faces, only differ from their British counterparts insofar as they surpass them. Russian New Year TV shows have never been the same for me since Kabzon left this mortal coil, but these programmes seem to become each year a little more St Petersburg to Britain’s Peterborough city centre; they have a higher buttercream-cake ratio compared to Britain’s poor iced bun.
The New Year’s Eve ritual of counting down the hours, then the minutes and seconds to midnight is no less universal. On the much-anticipated knell of twelve, up goes the mandatory chorus, ‘Happy New Year!’, glasses chink, and it’s down the hatch.
One aspect of the New Year ritual, which thankfully we are spared in Russia, is that we are not disposed to suffer men parading in tartan skirts garbed in silly long socks, not long enough, however, to conceal their knobbly knees, whilst blowing up a barbaric device which looks and sounds like a tortured cat.
The New Year cometh
Midnight strikes, revellers shout, the Kremlin clock appears large upon the nation’s screens, the skies both near and far blister and flash with fireworks, the president makes his New Year’s address, the national anthem plays – a spirit-lifting anthem – and then it’s back to doing what Gaviscon and the gleeful makers of paracetamol would probably willingly sponsor us for should we ever forget how to DIY.
Some things, it seems, are different, and others never change no matter where in the world you find yourself over the festive season.
Copyright © 2018-2025 Mick Hart. All rights reserved.
❤️New Year’s Eve at the Hotel Russ, Svetlogorsk
Image attribution
Father Frost smoking a pipe: https://www.romanovempire.org/media/ded-moroz-s-rozhdestvom-29bbdc