When for the first time they began to celebrate the New Year in Russia, and who gave champagne to the Russian people

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Different peoples have different traditions, and sometimes different times for celebrating the New Year. In Russia, the date of the beginning of the New Year has changed several times - depending on important historical events and the worldview of the ruling persons. It was celebrated both on March 1 and September 1. And traditions were also completely different at different times.

How many dates for the celebration of the New Year were in Russia in pre-Petrine times

It is unlikely that historians will ever be able to find out how and when exactly our pagan ancestors celebrated the new year. Researchers suggest that, like many other peoples, the ancient Slavs associated the new year with the beginning of the revival of nature, therefore it was celebrated in the spring. Presumably, this took place at the beginning of the second decade of March, on the day of the vernal equinox. There is also an opinion that the countdown of the new year went from the day of the winter solstice.

With the arrival of Christianity in Russia and the introduction of the calendar, which gave the name to the twelve months, the first day of the year was March 1. In the fifteenth century, Tsar Ivan III made his contribution to the chronology system, which was then conducted according to the Byzantine system - from the creation of the world: in 1492, according to his decree, the countdown of new years began on September 1. It was the day of “summing up the results” of the harvest, payment of dues and duties, completion of existing trade agreements and the conclusion of new ones, lease of land, hunting and fishing grounds. The September New Year also had a church basis. On this day, the Monk Simeon was venerated, the first pillar, nicknamed by the people the Flyer. The first day of the new year was marked by celebrations on the cathedral square of the Moscow Kremlin, where the townspeople and residents of the surrounding villages flocked on the occasion of the holiday. In the presence of the tsar and noble persons, a festive church service was held, headed by the Patriarch. Generous alms were distributed to the poor and the poor, and the offended and dissatisfied were given the opportunity to submit a petition to the sovereign with their complaint.

How they began to celebrate the New Year after the reform of Peter I

The innovations of the first Russian emperor also touched the sphere of chronology. Instead of the Byzantine one, Peter I introduced a counting system from the Nativity of Christ, according to the Julian calendar, as mentioned in the decree of 1699. The highest command was ordered from now on to start the year on January 1. In addition, the reformer tsar, gravitating towards European traditions, ordered to celebrate the New Year's holiday as magnificently as possible, so as not to lag behind abroad. The first year of the new century met with Peter's characteristic scale - bells rang, big cannons fired in the square and small ones in private estates, unprecedented fireworks brightened the sky, resin barrels were lit, folk festivities lasted a week.

Houses of noble people and state institutions on the facade should have been generously decorated with pine and juniper branches. For citizens with a small income, one or two green twigs above the gate were enough. Subsequently, a spruce was “assigned” to the festive New Year's greenery. The autocrat borrowed a beautiful tradition of decorating a green tree and making gifts to each other in the German Quarter, where he was a frequent guest. With the light hand of Peter I, the holiday lost its churchly principle and turned into a secular one. However, the Orthodox people reasoned in their own way: they made the New Year tree a Christmas tree and began to decorate it accordingly - with the Star of Bethlehem, angels and other Christian attributes.

What Peter's custom was revived by the Bolsheviks

Another amendment to the calendar was introduced by the 1917 revolution. Firstly, Russia switched to the Gregorian calendar, as a result of which the date of the beginning of the new year changed. Further - more: the New Year was declared a counter-revolutionary product of priest's obscurantism, imbued with bourgeois ideas. Hence the decision: to cancel the decadent celebration and introduce the day of the "Red Blizzard", symbolizing the beginning of the world revolution. And at the same time to destroy holiday trees - as a relic of tsarist times. The innovation did not take root: the "blizzard", raging, subsided, and the country's leadership began to think that the people, and, first of all, the children, need to return the holiday.

At the initiative of the famous party leader Pavel Postyshev, the New Year celebrations were "rehabilitated" and a Christmas tree was arranged for children and youth in the Column Hall of the House of Unions - with dances, songs and, of course, gifts. New Years were also celebrated in houses of culture and village clubs, schools and orphanages. Naturally, the attributes of the celebrations have changed dramatically. The eight-pointed star of Bethlehem was replaced by the five-pointed communist one; instead of angels on fir branches, hammers and sickles, Budenovites and pioneers appeared. But the main thing was done - a beautiful bright holiday returned to the homes of Soviet people, which still makes us happy.

How the tradition of celebrating the New Year with champagne appeared

In Russia, light sparkling wine appeared through the efforts of Peter I. However, this drink came, as they say, not to the court. Boyars still preferred to drink something stronger or sweeter for the holiday - vodka, mead, liqueur. Besides, champagne was rare. It became traditional at the capital's balls only at the beginning of the 19th century, when the high society tasted and appreciated the fizzy drink. Prince Lev Golitsyn began to produce domestic sparkling wine for the royal court. Champagne was not available to the common people, because one bottle would have to pay more than half of the monthly salary.

After the “rehabilitation” of the New Year, the question arose of how to make it truly festive, providing all segments of the population with light sparkling wine. As conceived by the government, champagne was to symbolize the material well-being of the Soviet people and demonstrate the high standard of living in the country abroad. This task was entrusted to a highly qualified specialist, winemaker-technologist Anton Frolov-Bagreev. In pursuance of the Decree "On the production of" Soviet champagne ", dessert and table wines" under his leadership, a special technology for the production of sparkling wine was developed. By 1954, champagne was on stream, which significantly reduced its cost. In the 60s, thanks to the popularization of sparkling wine by cinematography and television New Year's lights, "Soviet Champagne" became a traditional attribute of the New Year.

At the top officials of the Soviet state also had their own traditions of how to celebrate the new year.