Christmas in Russia

• 1. Introduction

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  Christmas in Russia arrives not on the 25th of December as most of the world knows it, but on the 7th of January. That gap of thirteen days is the first clue that the holiday's story here is unlike any other. The Russian Orthodox Church marks the birth of Jesus Christ on the 25th of December on the Julian calendar, which simply does not align with the Gregorian calendar used across the West. The result is a celebration that feels both familiar and quietly foreign. What is it that makes Russian Christmas distinct? Why did the Soviet state ban it entirely, then quietly bring parts of it back? And why does New Year's Day, not Christmas, remain the most important holiday on the Russian calendar today? Those questions sit at the heart of this story.

• 2. From Rus to Revolution

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  Prince Vladimir's baptism of Rus in the late 10th century is the moment historians point to as the beginning of Christmas as an official celebration in Russia. The early Christian community of Kievan Rus may have marked the birth of Christ even before that decree, but Vladimir's order gave the holiday its formal standing. By the 19th century, the celebrations had grown elaborate. A lavishly decorated Christmas tree became a centerpiece of the season, a tradition imported directly from Prussia by Alexandra Feodorovna, the wife of Tsar Nicholas I. She brought it from her homeland, and within a generation it had taken hold across Russia. Gift-giving followed a similar pattern, taking root at roughly the same time. The gifts that children received were practical as well as festive: candy, books, toys, and clothing. The figure who delivered them was Ded Moroz, the Russian counterpart of Saint Nicholas or Father Christmas, though described as a little taller and less stout than his Western equivalent. Rooted in Slavic folklore, Ded Moroz traveled with his granddaughter Snegurochka, the Snow Maiden, the two of them riding together on a sleigh pulled by a trio of horses.

• 3. Soviet Erasure

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  In 1929, a decree of the Stalinist regime abolished all religious holidays, Christmas among them. The Bolsheviks had argued for years that Christmas was a pagan sun-worshipping ritual with no foundation in scientific fact and dismissed the Christmas tree as a bourgeois German import. For most of the 20th century, official Russia treated the holiday as if it had never existed. Then came the reversal. In 1935, in a move that surprised many observers, state policy shifted. Many Russian Christmas traditions were revived, but as secular New Year's celebrations rather than religious ones. The Christmas tree was renamed the New Year's fir tree and declared a delight for children across the entire Soviet Union, including in Central Asian republics that had never historically celebrated Christmas due to their different religious traditions. Ded Moroz kept making his visits. The decorations stayed up. Gift-giving continued. The rituals survived, stripped of their sacred meaning and reassigned to January 1st.

• 4. Return and Persistence

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  In 1991, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Christmas was reinstated alongside other religious holidays. The following year, 1992, it became a national public holiday in Russia, falling within the ten-day holiday stretch at the start of the new year. Even so, the decades during which Christmas had been banned left a lasting imprint. New Year's Day, which had absorbed so many of the holiday's traditions during the Soviet period, remains the most important holiday on the Russian calendar. Christmas has not reclaimed that position. The reinstated holiday coexists with New Year's rather than overshadowing it, a balance shaped by seventy years of intentional policy. In 1999, an atheist named MV Agbunov brought a challenge before the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, asking the court to test whether recognizing the 7th of January as a federal holiday was constitutional. The court rejected the request, ruling that the relevant provisions addressed public holiday law and did not implicate the constitutional rights the applicant cited. In 2008, a Russian neo-pagan group filed a similar complaint, arguing that recognizing Orthodox Christmas as an official holiday contradicted the constitutional principle that no religion can be established as state or obligatory. The court rejected that challenge too, on the grounds that decisions about public holidays fall within the competence of the Russian Parliament and are not a constitutional matter.

• 5. The Church's Calendar

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  Christmas Eve in Russia falls on the 6th of January, and the services that day are long. The Russian Orthodox tradition holds several services including the Royal Hours and Vespers combined with the Divine Liturgy, marking the close of the Nativity Fast. The Nativity Fast is one of only four of the church's 12 Great Feasts that are preceded by a period of fasting. After those evening services, families return home for the Holy Supper, the traditional Christmas Eve dinner that consists of 12 dishes, one for each of the Twelve Apostles. No meat appears on that table; the eve remains a mandatory fasting day. Devout families then return to church for the All Night Vigil and Midnight Divine Liturgy. For those who cannot attend in person, that service is broadcast nationally on television from the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, with the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia presiding, and regionally from major cathedrals across the country. Christmas Morning brings one more return to church for the Morning Divine Liturgy of the Nativity.

• 6. The Feast Table

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  Old Russian Christmas tables were built around meat in forms both extravagant and practical. Roasted pig, stuffed pig's head, roasted meat chunks, kholodets (a meat jelly), and aspic were among the principal dishes. Goose with apples, sour cream hare, venison, lamb, whole fish, and whole baked chicken also appeared in abundance. That range of large roasted and baked preparations was directly tied to a feature of the Russian oven, which was suited to handling generous portions. Finely sliced meat and pork were cooked in pots alongside semi-traditional porridge. Pies in their many forms were considered indispensable at Christmas, just as at other major holidays. They came both closed and open: pirogi, pirozhki, vatrushkas, coulibiacs, kurnik, saechki, shangi, kalachi, cooked casseroles, and blini, with fillings that ranged from herbal and vegetable to fruit, mushrooms, meat, fish, cheese, and mixed varieties. Sweet dishes included berries, fruit, candy, cakes, angel wings, biscuits, and honey. Beverages ran from kompot and sweet soups to sbiten and kissel, and from the beginning of the 18th century, Chinese tea joined the table as well.