Everything in the West is already over – after the 25th of December – but it has barely begun in Russia. The week before New Year’s Eve is the busiest week of the year in the great Motherland that reaches from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok, meaning that a couple of days before the big holiday there is almost no food, alcohol or candy left in the stores. Despite the old Soviet days of дефицит [deficit] being long gone… Every place you go to is crowded to the very limit – from those parks for children with ice-sculptures in the center of every town to big capitalistic-style malls out in the suburbs. Everyone is trying desperately to get their hands on that last perfect gift, as well as finding enough chocolate and champagne to last up until the middle of January (which is when Russians celebrate Старый Новый Год [Old New Year] according to the old calendar used before the Bolshevik Revolution).

New Year’s Eve is the when Russian kids get their “Christmas” gifts. That’s the evening when Дед Мороз [a Soviet version of Santa Claus] comes knocking on the door with his grandchild Снегурочка [‘Snow maiden’], a gorgeous blonde who in later years has been accused of being his lover. For grown-ups this is the night of numerous salads and an abundant flow of alcohol and gathering of relatives and friends and watching Ирония Судьбы [the classic 70’s movie “The Irony of Fate” shown every year on TV around New Year] on TV. It is the night when the president makes a stern speech from the Kremlin, which has been Putin for the past seven years, and this year will be his last time. The bells of the Kremlin and the Russian National Anthem are the classic constant comrades for Russians ‘meeting’ the New Year.

Russians don’t make any promises for the New Year, as my native people the Swedes tend to do. In Sweden this holiday is full of “next year I will do this and that and yeah, I will be a better person and last year was so bad I bet this year will be even worse and oh my Lord do I think I’ll have a hang over tomorrow and then how can I get up and start a new life and get running and oh no…” Russians do it better. Russians dart out on the town after listening to Putin at midnight, they rush out to the center of the city, to watch the fireworks, run into friends, drink some more champagne and perhaps, why not, end up at another party across the town. In some cases, even a couple of parties. New Year in Russia is free from depressing views and discouraging reviews of the past year and lacks any kind of promises for the future one.

There are two Russian traditions I especially like – the first being the tradition of girls asking the first man they meet out and about on the town after midnight for his name. His name is supposedly the name of her future husband. When I did this, two years ago in Omsk, I met a certain Viktor… The other one is that if you run into Дед Мороз & Снегурочка in the city after midnight you’re supposedly about to have a very good year. That also happened to me in that same year, when 2006 came around. I don’t know if these traditions have any truth to them – I did have a very good year in 2006, but I have yet to marry a Viktor. All I know is that celebrating New Year in Russia is fun. A whole lot of fun!

Happy New Year! Счастья, здоровья и любви всем!