Ever since I was a kid, New Year was the biggest, best, most wanted and my favourite holiday of the year.
Maybe because my birthday is quite close to the holidays, the value of my personal celebration almost dissolves in everybody鈥檚 festive spirit, but as I grew older I understood that that鈥檚 why I actually liked New Year 鈥� I don鈥檛 care about celebrating myself, but I love that sense of total happiness and the drive to give, to make each other smile, that adds a pinch of magic to daily busy life.
In Russia New Year comes before Christmas, which is January 7, and thus the new year celebration is a bigger holiday. We start seeing first decorations and huge Christmas trees put up on different squares in the city at the beginning of November. By Dec. 1 the city is glazed.
I can't recall how St. Petersburg looked like in the 90s when it was quite bad financially in Russia, but as long as I can remember, it was gorgeous in winter. The architecture on its own is very unique and beautiful there, but decorated with lights and enhanced with the natural beauty of snow or frost the city feels like a separate beautiful and fragile world like the ones they put into snow globes.
No matter, if the times are tough or great, the city always decorates well for that time of the year. Every few years the government comes up with a new beautification theme, and then all the main arteries are dressed in a similar manner with a lot of lights and harmonious colours (we may have had many fluffs when it came to all kind of things, but the New Year decorations were always sophisticated and stylish). Businesses are encouraged to decorate too, so by the time the holidays come, the city becomes one festive ensemble.
New Year in Russia is both about the family, but also about going out and celebrating with everybody else.
In our family, we traditionally spent the day and the first hours of each new year together, and then everyone went out on our own. Most years, mom would get us theatre tickets for the New Year Eve 鈥� that was our way to kick-off to the celebration. After the show, which usually was a light comedy, we headed out to my grandparents'. Two hour-long stops later, we came home stuffed, happy, with hands full of gifts and candies that would last us through the next two weeks, and usually in a big hurry.
We always made sure that we are home at least five minutes before 12 a.m. That鈥檚 the time when the president delivers the speech, broadcasted on all TV channels. It didn鈥檛 matter who was the president (although throughout the past two decades we didn鈥檛 have much of variety), or how we felt about him, there was something stately and grand in those last few minutes of the expiring year. And right after 鈥淗appy New Year, dear Russian people!鈥� the screen would switch to the chiming clock on the Kremlin Tower in Moscow that started the count down.
These 12 seconds always were the most stressful in the whole year, as we (mostly mom and I) had to write all our wishes on a tiny pieces of paper, burn that paper, drop the ashes into the glass of champagne (that dad was opening and pouring while we were writing and burning our dreams) and then we cheer and drink it. And all that has to happen before the clock was done. Intense, eh?
And on the first second of the new year (the new beginning which always feels so happy and promising) the Russian national anthem would flood every centimetre of every apartment. I don鈥檛 know how it works with anthems, but they always make me feel even more sentimental and almost make me cry.
After the anthem, we all go to our hidings to get gifts for each other (we don鈥檛 keep them under the tree). And as soon as we are done we head outside to join the city celebrating, as there are thousands of fireworks in the air.听
The family part is usually just the beginning of the night, after which we all go downtown to meet with friends (there are always a few big celebrations with open concerts, fireworks and outdoor festivals in different areas of the city centre).
This year we got to be in St. Petersburg for all of the above and much more. And after a six-year break that鈥檚 all I wanted for the New Year.听
Hope you all received what you wished for as well. Happy New Year!
听
