Father Frost came up with Postyshev

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The Communists did not like Christmas, but people stubbornly refused to give up Christian traditions. Stalin decided to take advantage of the celebration of the New Year in the hope that the atheistic holiday would replace the religious one. However, the citizens of the USSR have made a family holiday since the New Year, without annoying communist ideology.

Not everyone welcomed the New Year with joy, as they had to pay tribute

Christmas appeared in Russia, when in the 10th century Prince Vladimir of Kiev took Christianity. Accordingly to the modern tradition, the period of Christmas holidays lasted from Christmas to Maslenitsa. Speaking of the New Year, unlike Western Christianity, in Russia there was the Julian calendar, which was attached to the biblical date of the creation of light, and not to the birth of Christ. And since the beginning of the calendar year did not count from January 1. For example, before the XV century the New Year began in March, and after 1492 in September. Not everyone welcomed the New Year with joy, because it was the moment of paying tribute and taxes.

In the XVII century, when the representatives of the Romanov dynasty were sitting in the Moscow Kremlin, even the ceremony of celebrating the New Year was even timed. On the Cathedral Square, the king received congratulations from the patriarch of the Orthodox Church and had an audience with the aristocratic boyars and delegations from individual sections of the population. The ceremony ended with a collective earthly bow and a luxurious banquet.

Customs changed in 7208 from the beginning of the world, and according to the modern calendar - in 1699. The pro-Western Russian Tsar Peter I issued a special decree about the celebration of the New Year. According to the decree, it was "following the example of other nations and Christian powers" to plant coniferous trees in front of each house and decorate them. The Muscovites, regardless of their origin and position, had to dress in the best outfits and celebrate on the streets. The decree regulated how to "make fireworks and shoot guns and guns," but recommended to use alcohol in moderation. The king wanted his subjects to demonstrate a cheerful mood for seven days. Who refused - that was what jail and whip waited for. The case, started by Peter I, was fixed in the Russian tradition and gradually overgrew with fashionable western novelties.

Father Frost was at first evil ...

In the XIX century, St. Nicholas appeared on the supplement to the tree, and he distributed gifts to children. At that time among the Russian intelligentsia there was a fashion for native folklore, so Saint Nicholas was renamed Father Frost. Also popular was the tale about the Snow Maiden - a girl fashioned from snow, who was a good spirit of winter, and with the coming of spring she returned to the forests of the far north.

But not immediately these fabulous characters took root in the Christmas rituals. First, folk tales dealt with the Evil Frost, the destroyer of human souls. Only playwright Alexander Ostrovsky and composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov have wrought an evil spirit, turning it into a popular Santa Claus. All this, however, was lost with the arrival of the Bolsheviks.

From the ban to the order to celebrate

Contrary to the general opinion, the Communists were not formally forbidden to celebrate Christmas and New Year. But this does not mean that they did not rebuff these traditions. Holidays received a lot of criticism in the media. Officially they were called bourgeois remnants, which did not meet the spirit of the times and the revolutionary changes of society. In their place a new tradition arose, namely the celebration on May 1 or the anniversary of the Bolshevik coup.

A special annoyance to the new government, which led an active struggle against religion and the Orthodox Church, caused Christmas. In the 20-ies of the XX century anti-Christmas company joined the avant-garde poets and organized atheistic movement. Those who observed the tradition were branded and expelled from the Komsomol and the party. Party organizations created special patrols, which at Christmas watched the Soviet families and reported on the events of the celebration of the Holy Evening. But, not paying attention to the efforts of the Kremlin, there were artels, or cooperatives, who were engaged in the production of Christmas decorations.

After the coming to power of Stalin began a real wave of repression. In the early 30-ies of the XX century, the media launched a propaganda company dismissal from the work of believers, and sometimes their arrest. As a result, Christmas was taboo.

This situation did not last long, because the Kremlin not only took the New Year's custom, but also made it an instrument of propaganda and weapons in the fight against religious "zamorochki."

In November 1935, speaking at the First All-Union Conference of Workers and Stakhanovite Workers, Stalin said his famous phrase: "Life has Become Better, Comrades: Life has Become Merrier," which the audience was greeted with stormy applause. The leader ordered the celebration of the New Year and the installation of Christmas trees on the square in front of the Mausoleum and in the courtyard of the Kremlin. In the beginning it was a holiday for children. In the winter of 1936 the leader organized a ball of excellent pupils of communist education in the House of Trade Union for the children of the Stakhanovites. Following this, Pavel Postyshev (one of the Party's ideologues) published an article in the newspaper Pravda, in which he wrote that since the USSR has become "better" and "happier", the proletarian children have the right to have fun. The article recalled that the first Christmas tree in 1919 was organized by Lenin himself. The authorities tried to propagate gifts to all children with a propagandistic aim. Special propaganda brigades delivered gifts even to hard-to-reach places in the country.

There is a version that Father Frost came up with Pavel Postyshev, who at that time was the head of the propaganda and propaganda department of the CPSU Central Committee, the head of the organizational and instructional department of the CPSU Central Committee. Recall, it was Postyshev who was one of the organizers of mass repressions in the Soviet Union. He also became famous for having withdrawn a million matchboxes from the sale, since the flame of the match reminded him of Trotsky's profile. He also banned the sale of "Amateur" sausage, as a counter-revolutionary ...

In the midst of repression, the Bolsheviks, sensing the lack of festive mood among Soviet people, in 1935-1936, decided to offer the people such a new celebratory deity. In 1937, Father Frost for the first time officially appeared on the stage of the House of Culture.

Ironically, Postyshev, as a "Japanese spy," was shot February 26, in a terrible frost. In this frost his body lay for several days ...

Stalin issued a special decree, which recommended celebrating the New Year and adults. He invented a new tradition in 1937-1938, during the period of mass terror. Now it was necessary to celebrate in the all-Union republics, including in the camps of the Gulag. The Propaganda and Agitation Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party issued a special instruction that accurately described the acceptable scenarios of the holiday. Adults were supposed to celebrate the New Year only in work collectives. The children were invited to New Year parties, organized by trade unions or district party committees. They could choose approved suits, for example, rabbits or Bear, or red heroes, civil war and collective farmers. There was a celebration of Father Frost, who read poems that praised the role of the party and Stalin. To help children understand the spirit of the times, the role of Santa Claus was played by trade union leaders or famous military men. The Snow Maiden, as Grandfather Frost's granddaughter, was supposed to be a Komsomol member. All the New Year parties were devoted to ideological goals. In 1936, the leitmotif of the celebration was adopted by the Soviet Constitution. At the top of each Christmas tree (instead of the Bethlehem star) a five-pointed red star shone. The industry produced Christmas decorations with Soviet symbols, for example, in the form of airplanes and airships, or figures in national costumes of the peoples of the USSR.

Holiday of the eternal deficit

But over time, unlike May 1 or the anniversary of the October Revolution, the New Year was the only non-communist holiday of a family nature. There are three reasons for this. First, in 1948, Stalin ordered the January 1 weekend, which allowed families to spend New Year's Eve together. Secondly, the key condition for such meetings was the development of housing construction in the Khrushchev era. In the 1950s and 1960s Soviet people began to move from communal apartments to modest but own apartments. In the third, such a holiday was liked by the Soviet party nomenclature. For the well-nourished nomenclature, the New Year was a kind of confirmation of their status, the best proof of which was a rich celebratory table.

The nomenclature had New Year's sets with scarce food products: from meat, fruit to sweets and alcohol. For ordinary people, New Year preparations were not a simple matter, as the country's economy functioned with an eternal deficit problem. Therefore, the preparation began at the end of the summer. Each delicacy, which managed to buy, was postponed to the New Year's table.

The obligatory dish of the New Year's table was (and still remains) a salad "Olivier". The magazine Ogonyok claimed that the salad was cooked in tsarist Russia by the French chef Olivier. And in his original recipe was the meat of crayfish. Of course, in the Soviet reality there could not be a question of cancers, so the salad was "democratized" with chicken meat. But when the food shortage reached its climax, in the 80s, instead of chicken meat, a doctor's sausage was added, which could be bought without problems in Moscow alone. Therefore, the salad was renamed the "Metropolitan". But this name did not stick.

Another difference of the dish of the New Year's table was the salad "Under the fur coat". According to the magazine Ogonyok, the recipe is dated 1918, its author is a Moscow restaurateur. Frustrated that his restaurant turned into a snack bar, he invented a salad of political ingredients. The layers of potatoes and carrots symbolize the union of peasants and workers. Beetroot - a bloody revolution, and herring and onions portrayed the gloomy horror of the past.

The festive table could not do without champagne, which became the symbol of the New Year. Leonid Brezhnev ordered that the liquor and vodka industry provide each family with this drink. And although they produced a wide range of sparkling wines, the most popular variants were semi-dry and semisweet. Alcohol was supplemented by a mandatory bottle of Stolichnaya vodka, but only with a green label, because only this type of alcohol was highly appreciated by local gourmets. Children rejoiced in the Georgian lemonade, and from the 80s of the 20th century the Soviet equivalent of a Coca-Cola, a carbonated drink called Baikal. his recipe is still kept secret, it is known that it consists of several plant extracts, including cedar, lemon, black tea and eucalyptus. The holiday ended with a cake baked, as a rule, at home, because not all could survive in the kilometer queues for the hit of the New Year - the chocolate cake "Prague".

Apartments were decorated, of course, with Christmas trees. In the time of Khrushchev, a passionate reformer of agriculture, the balls on the tree were in the form of corn, grapes, and after a period of Soviet space successes - rockets and astronauts. In the Brezhnev era, when there was an arms race, decorations learned ideological militarization, industry manufactured jewelry in the form of bombers and strategic missiles.

New Year's Eve was spent in front of the TV. The production of TV sets in the 1970s made this type of entertainment widely available. The screen showed new comedies that became hits - "Ivan Vasilievich changes profession" or "The Irony of Fate" with Barbara Brylska, which became an obligatory attribute of the New Year. In addition to the films, the "Blue Light" enjoyed a show with the participation of famous stars of the stage, cinema and famous personalities. The mood was not spoiled by Leonid Brezhnev, who started the tradition of the New Year's address to the people. Over time, he delegated this duty to dictators. The key moment of the evening was "Rhythms of the world stage", when you could hear the banned hits, popular among Soviet youth. Most viewers tried to record music on tape recorders.

Children took part in traditional New Year's morning performances. The top of the dream was to get to the highest level, to the Kremlin Palace of Congresses, which was turned into a fairy-tale country, where orchestra players dressed in costumes of rabbits and bears played. But the highlight came when the 600 selected pioneers received a royal gift, which was a bunch of expensive chocolates and confectionery, placed in a plastic copy of the Kremlin's Spassky Tower.