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The Russian love for holidays is known the world over. We adore holidays, indeed. But who does not? Perhaps our love for holidays is special for its indiscrimination – anything goes, just give us a chance to break the daily working routine and indulge into the surfeits of merry-making, eating and drinking. Of course, every holiday is good in its own way and we are not indifferent to their meaning and ritual side. Yet, it is not rare in this country that holidays vary both their attributes and meaning.
Thus, Russian holidays present a mixture of new and old, religious and secular, professional and private. National holidays reflect multicolored Russian history. Christian traditions were combined with pagan ones and therefore strongly connected to the seasons and agricultural cycle. Church holidays were mixed with those introduced during the communist regime. And we do not mind: every holiday deserves celebration. When a national holiday falls on a weekend day people enjoy additional day-off because it is considered to be unfair to miss either a holiday or a weekend.
Here is an outline of our major holidays. The New Year is the first in calendar and in popularity. It will be true to say that now the New Year is a greater holiday than Christmas in Russia. Long before December 31 sparkling fir trees appear in the streets, shops, offices and houses, bringing the joy of festive preparations and hope for happy miracles in the coming New Year. It is time to make wishes and presents to all friends and relatives. Children are looking forward for Father Frost (actually he is Grandfather Frost - Ded Moroz in Russian) and his granddaughter Snow Maiden (Snegurochka) to arrive at night and leave presents under the fir-tree. The grown-ups traditionally stay up for the whole night, making merry with friends and relatives.
The New Year celebrations slip to Christmas festivities and go on till January 8 - all these days from December 31 to January 8 are official days off now. Russian Christmas comes two weeks later than in other countries, on January 7. This difference is due to the Orthodox Church that follows the Julian (old style) calendar. However, our 'spacious soul' cannot but feel with the rest of the world celebrating this fairy holiday on December
Christmas came to Russia in X century to substitute for pagan festivities of the winter solstice. Traditionally, people celebrated the Christmas Eve (January 6) with their families. The next day, however, carousing and merrymaking started, including masqueraded visits to neighbors with song singing, round-dancing and playing traditional games. Russian Christmas is rich with beautiful traditions. One of them is called Kolyadki. At Christmas night young people put on fancy dresses, gather in a noisy crowd and go in every house on their way, singing carols and merry songs. Hosts of the houses thank singers with all the kinds of sweat stuff like candies, chocolates and pastry. Among other Christmas traditions are wishes of wealth and happiness for everybody and snowball games.
It was a custom for young ladies to tell fortune on these days; lots of fortunetelling methods have kept till days - yet they are not so widely used, of course.
In Soviet times they abolished Christmas as an official holiday. In spite of that, it was still secretly celebrated by many people. Sounds strange, doesn't it? For Russia it is quite OK.
Discrepancy between church calendars leads to the fact that January 14th corresponds to January 1 in the Julian calendar. And for those people who celebrate Christmas on 7 of January it is logical to meet the New Year seven days later. Others prefer not to lose a good chance to welcome the New Year twice. Until recently this holiday was known as the Soviet Army Day but nowadays it has become a holiday for all men by analogy with the similar Women's Day. All men and boys are praised as eventual defenders and helpmates. Russian women adore this holiday, when attention and care of men is guaranteed. On this day, it is traditional for men of all ages to give presents and flowers to women. Particular attention is paid to women inside their families.
Russian women hardly ever recollect that this holiday originated as a day of rebellion of women struggling to equal their rights with the men's ones.
At a second International Socialist Women's Conference organized in Copenhagen in 1910 Klara Zetkin, a champion of women's rights, proposed to fix 'a day of the struggle for women's rights', i.e. for equal opportunities.
As years went by, the holiday lost its original purpose and meaning, though in many countries it is the time for the feminists' rallies and the day of the struggle against the opposite sex.
In Russia, on the contrary, it is a day of affection and concord between the sexes. In a way, it is similar to such holidays as Valentine's Day and Mother's Day. It is a lovely holiday celebrating the beauty of women blossoming and nature awaking in spring. By the end of winter, right before the Lent comes a Pancake week. It is a celebration of the sunlight and spring. A century ago Maslenitsa was a merry, wild and widely celebrated holiday similar to the carnival in Western countries. It was a time of games and contests especially horse racing and fistfights. A big doll of straw was burned as the final act of saying goodbye to the already passed winter. Through the whole week people cooked pancakes (bliny) served with honey, caviar, fresh cream and butter. Nowadays the celebration is not so diversified but people do treat themselves and their guests with tasty pancakes. Paskha is the highest celebration of the Orthodox Church. At midnight the church service starts.
It is a good time for visiting friends and relatives. People greet each other with words "Christ is risen" and "Indeed risen..." and treat each other with brightly colored boiled eggs, a symbol of Easter. The holiday table is served with such specialties as paskha (rich mixture of sweetened curds, butter and raisins) and kulich (Easter sweet bread). Until recently this holiday was called International Solidarity Day of Workers but now it is known as Day of Spring and Labor. Some people like following the Soviet tradition of May Day demonstrations with bright banners, balloons and spring flowers. Russia celebrates Victory Day on May 9 to commemorate the millions fallen in World War II. Flowers and wreaths are laid on wartime graves and veterans come out into the streets wearing their military orders and medals. A solemn military parade takes place on the Red Square in Moscow. In the evening a colored salute is fired as a token of the victory over fascism. June 12 is Russia's newest holiday, Independence Day, which commemorates the adoption of the Declaration of Sovereignty of the Russian Federation in 1991. This holiday is equivalent to the Holiday of St. John the Baptist and relates to water. To celebrate this day young people gathered near river and ponds, sang songs and danced. Mass baths were taken in that day. In the evenings fires were burned and young people tried to jump over the fires holding each-others' hands. If after the jump hands were still together, it meant a sign of close wedding. People went deep into the forests in pairs and alone to find a fern flower, said to blossom at Ivan Kupala night only and to fulfill wishes.
It is not a public holiday, yet is still remembered and loved by some people. The same concerns Troitsa, another holiday manifesting the mixture of pagan and Christian traditions. On Troitsa (the 50th day after Paskha) the houses were usually decorated with fresh green branches. The maiden's clothes were put on young birch-trees and songs and dances round the birch-trees took place. The garlands made of birch branches and flowers were put into water for fortune-telling.
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Dates & Events
22 January 2026
Moscow time:
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22 January 2026
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