The Russian Year
holidays, celebrations and school
or why they get an extra Christmas
holidays, celebrations and school
or why they get an extra Christmas
If a holiday falls on Tuesday, people are given the option of working the
previous Saturday so that they get the following Friday to Tuesday off.
Seasons begin on the first of the Month: March 1–Spring, June 1–Summer,
September 1–Fall, December 1–Winter. (In August, Moscow and north of
Moscow has fall weather already.)
January 1 NOVY GOD New Years Day
Parties and parades are given in honor of Father Frost (Dyed Moroz) and the
Snow Maiden (Snyegurochks)
January 6 Christmas Eve
Holy Supper held. An extra plate is set for missing members of the family so the
family is symbolically together. Children are set to watch for the first evening
star. When it is spotted, a single white candle lit and the meal starts. No
unpleasant talk allowed during meal and evening. Hay is strewn under table to
prepare for Christ child. Dyed Moroz and Snyegurochks deliver presents to
every family using a troika. After the meal, caroling is done, than church is
attended.
January 7 ROSHDESTVO Orthodox Christmas
Christmas celebrations vary greatly by culture.
January 13 Orthodox New Year
February 25 DYEN SOVETSHKOY ARMII I VOYENNO-MORSKOVO
FLOTA soviet army-navy day
Men are given gifts by those they know.
March 8 MYESHDUNARODNIY SHENSKIY DYEN
International Woman’s Day
Although not noticed in America, it is a big deal in Russia. Day before, cards,
gifts and flowers are given to fellow students, co-workers, and colleagues
On actual Day, family and friends gather and women are given gifts.
March 17 St. Alexsei Day/Spring Thaw
Day of fasting.
Last week of March School Holiday
April 30 Ceremony of Holy Fire (rural Russia)
Fireworks and rockets are set off.
May 1 PRAZDNIK VESNY Spring Holiday (former Workers Day)
May 9 DYEN POBYE DY
Victory Day for Great Patriotic War (WW II)
Parades and celebrations. Lay bouquets on veterans graves.
(First two weeks of May are a continual celebration in Russia)
June 12 DYEN NEZAVISIMOSTI ROSSIY
Russian Independence Day (from Soviet Union)
June 23 Eve of St. Ivan’s Day
Take the first outside bath of the year in local rivers.
Last two weeks of June “White Nights” take place
Can read at 3 am without artificial light in St. Petersburg
Is still daylight at 10 pm in Moscow
July 21 PRASDNIK ICONY KAZANSKOI BOZHEI MATERI (in rural
areas)
The Holiday of the Icon of Kazanskaia Virgin Mary
Hold services in holy place while carrying an icon covered in ritual scarf. Holy
water is gathered for the year. If you swim in the river this day, it will wash
away your sins for the previous year.
July 22 Feast of St. Maria
Maria (Mariya) Chekov's Name Day
July 28 Eve of St’s Peter's and Paul's Day.
Children play tricks on each other and adults.
July 29 DYEN SVYATYCH PETRA I PAVLA
Sts Peter's and Paul's Day
(Pavel Chekov’s Name Day)
Cook and share an elaborate meal, sing and dance.
August 19 YABLOCHNYI SPAS Transfiguration of the Lord’s Day
(“Apple Jesus Christ”/Harvest Festival)
Sanctifies new apple harvest. No apples may be eaten prior to this day. It is
believed that God gives apples to those in heaven this day (He will not if apples
have been eaten prior to the day by relatives of the dead.) Apples are left on
graves as presents. Village springs are blessed and thanksgiving services are
held. Large dinner is held.
September St. Michael’s Day
Celebrated for an entire week. Rural villagers prefer weddings to take place
this week.
September 1 All Schools Begin, unless it is Sunday
For information on school and education, see last entry.
Oct 7 DYEN KONSTITUTSIY Constitution day.
Last Two Weeks of the Year
No business is conducted as everyone prepares for the end of the year holidays.
Both Western and Orthodox Christmas is observed.
Houses are decorated with Christmas trees.
YOLKI--Holiday Parties are held.
December 24 Western Christmas Eve
Dyed Moroz and Snyegurochks deliver presents to every family using a troika.
December 25 Western Christmas
Christmas celebrations vary greatly by culture.
December 31 New Year’s Eve
Parties are given.
Unlike in the West, the New Year is not celebrated to the final toll of the clock
at midnight
PERSONAL CELEBRATIONS DURING THE YEAR:
NAME DAYS
Russian’s celebrate the feast of the Saint they are named after with a party
given for their friends, like a Birthday party. Person whose Name Day it is
provides food, etc. Saint’s whose feast day it is are announced on TV each
morning. Proper greeting is S imeninami! (Happy Name Day!)
BIRTHDAYS
Celebrated with a lunch for family and friends.
To ensure good luck for the year to come, the last present opened must be the
most beautiful. When celebrated at work, birthday person provides food, etc:
not the guests. On sixteenth birthday, you receive your passport. Russian
passports contain your first name, last name, patronymic; your date of birth,
your place of birth, your nationality. (Where you were born, or if mixed
ethnicity (mother Great Russian, father Georgian), you can choose which it will
list.)
HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION
End of eleventh grade. Celebrated with an all-night party.
DAY BEFORE ENTERING MILITARY SERVICE
Celebrated with an all-night party. In old days, those scheduled to serve played
accordians and sang songs about the town.
CHRISTIAN HOLIDAYS WHICH DATES OF CELEBRATION MOVE
EACH YEAR:
SHROVETIDE
The four days prior to Lent. Visit relatives, party and gorge themselves on
butter.
LENT
Forty days of fast and abstinence and penitent living. Butter cannot be eaten.
Salted mushrooms are eaten instead of meat.
EASTER
Even non-religious people in Russia celebrate Easter.
On the evening before, a church service is held in which the entire congregation
proceeds around outside church with lighted candles.
Starting at midnight, everyone greets each other for the day by exchanging
three kisses and saying Khristos Voskrese (Christ is Risen). The proper response
is Vo istinu voskres. (He is risen indeed.)
Special food is served including:
pashka blessed, sweet pudding made with eggs, sour milk and raisins cooked in a
tall rectangular mold with an orthodox cross carved on it’s top crust. similar to
cheesecake
kultch Easter cake similar to sweet bread
Easter bread is baked with treats hidden inside.
Eggs are colored. krashenniye yaitsa–uk pisanki Boiled in onion water for
traditional ochre, boiled with colored paper for other colors.
VOZNESENIIE Ascension Day
40 days after Orthodox Easter. In rural Russia the Cuckoos Funeral Rite is
performed. There are five known versions: usually women ‘baptize’ a doll and
bury it. Men must find it.
DUKHOVSKAA SUDOTA Whit Saturday
49 days after Orthodox Easter. They visit their deceased relatives in the
cemetary.
TROITSA Whit Sunday
50 days after Orthodox Easter. Merriest holiday. They go to the forest, make
birch wreaths for their head, sing limericks (chestushki) at the river.
DUKHOV DYEN Whit Monday
51 days after Orthodox Easter. Visit natural wells and brooks for water, it is
health-giving.
CUSTOMS SURROUNDING LIFE EVENTS:
WEDDINGS
(For traditional Wedding Customs, see Rural Russia)
Couples are told by Russian Orthodox Church to cover icons in the bedroom
before having sex.
All weddings must take place in a Wedding Palace or a Civil Registry Office.
(They may be followed up by church weddings later.)
After civil ceremony, the couple visit historically significant places and leave
bouquets of flowers. (In Moscow...the Grave of the Unknown Soldier in the
Kremlin or Sparrow Hills at MSU. In Petersburg...the Rostrol Columns on the
spit of Vasilovsky Island, the Bronze Horseman, the Field of Mars or the
Piskarovskoem Cemetery)
The couples car is decorated with big wedding rings on roof, a doll on front of
hood, and with flowers and balloons.
A wedding feast takes place in an apartment, restaurant or banquet hall. Both
families share expense for it.
At banquet, diners shout “gorko!” or ‘bitter’ as a request for the couple to kiss in
order ‘to sweaten life’. (In America, we ‘clink our glass with a fork’ for the same
request.)
DEATH
Corpse lies in an open coffin in church, at home, at work or in the room the
cemetery provides so that people can kiss the person good-bye. The spouse sits
next to the coffin.
If they are Orthodox, they are laid out at home and friends and family prays
through the night.
Otpevaniye is the funeral service. Every person attending throws dirt on the
coffin.
Pominki is the wake after the funeral service. Takes place afterward at a home
or private room in restaurant.
Mirrors are covered for nine days if the person was laid out at home.
Devyatiy Dyen: the day the soul departs earth and everyone gathers for the
Pominiki. A service and meal on the (fourth) (ninth) day after a person’s death,
it celebrates the passing of their soul into heaven.
Sorokovoy Dyen: forty days after the death the cemetery is visited and a rich
meal is shared.
Traditionally, women were burried in their wedding dress, even if they were
unmarried and it had not been used yet.
SCHOOL:
On September 1 all schools begin, unless it is a Sunday. (Even the new private
schools)
The school day runs from 8:30-2:30, 6 days a week.
If the school is overcrowded, the students are broken in two groups: 8:30-1:30
and 1:30-7:30.
First grade to ninth grade is compulsory for all children.
Children graduate from high school at the end of eleventh grade.
They are assigned a homeroom when they enter school. There are 30-40 kids per
home room and it will remain their homeroom from first to eleventh grade.
Because of this, students in the same home room become very close to each other
and ‘friendships formed over a student desk’ are highly valued.
Beginning in second grade, there are specialized schools for economics, math, art,
and foreign language. Students in these schools share their homeroom with 10-15
other children.
Tenth and eleventh grade students may go to vocational schools.
Eleventh grade students must choose a speciality and then concentrate their
study on that speciality their last year.
All teaching and testing is oral. Whispering answers to each other and using crib
sheets is considered acceptable and is not seen as a moral transgression.
COLLEGE
The summer after 11th grade, the VUZ, a written and oral test is given to apply
to colleges.
High school transcripts, grades, etc do not matter. Only the VUZ is taken into
account.
Only one college is applied to.
Tuition is free and students receive a government stipend for expenses.
Students who do not get in often take evening or extension courses.
College lasts 4-6 years, depending on the subject being studied.
During the last year of college each student must write and defend a thesis.
Degree earned at the end of Russian College/University study is higher than a
Bachelors.
After graduation, students work 2-3 years in a government assigned position.
HIGHER EDUCATION
Graduate study is three years.
Students receive a ‘Kandidat Nauk’-- candidate of science degree. It is higher
than a Masters.
To receive a Doctorate (“Dokotor Nauk” or “Doktorat”) is much more difficult
than a Western Phd. To qualify, it is required that the person make a major
original contribution to their speciality study.
previous Saturday so that they get the following Friday to Tuesday off.
Seasons begin on the first of the Month: March 1–Spring, June 1–Summer,
September 1–Fall, December 1–Winter. (In August, Moscow and north of
Moscow has fall weather already.)
January 1 NOVY GOD New Years Day
Parties and parades are given in honor of Father Frost (Dyed Moroz) and the
Snow Maiden (Snyegurochks)
January 6 Christmas Eve
Holy Supper held. An extra plate is set for missing members of the family so the
family is symbolically together. Children are set to watch for the first evening
star. When it is spotted, a single white candle lit and the meal starts. No
unpleasant talk allowed during meal and evening. Hay is strewn under table to
prepare for Christ child. Dyed Moroz and Snyegurochks deliver presents to
every family using a troika. After the meal, caroling is done, than church is
attended.
January 7 ROSHDESTVO Orthodox Christmas
Christmas celebrations vary greatly by culture.
January 13 Orthodox New Year
February 25 DYEN SOVETSHKOY ARMII I VOYENNO-MORSKOVO
FLOTA soviet army-navy day
Men are given gifts by those they know.
March 8 MYESHDUNARODNIY SHENSKIY DYEN
International Woman’s Day
Although not noticed in America, it is a big deal in Russia. Day before, cards,
gifts and flowers are given to fellow students, co-workers, and colleagues
On actual Day, family and friends gather and women are given gifts.
March 17 St. Alexsei Day/Spring Thaw
Day of fasting.
Last week of March School Holiday
April 30 Ceremony of Holy Fire (rural Russia)
Fireworks and rockets are set off.
May 1 PRAZDNIK VESNY Spring Holiday (former Workers Day)
May 9 DYEN POBYE DY
Victory Day for Great Patriotic War (WW II)
Parades and celebrations. Lay bouquets on veterans graves.
(First two weeks of May are a continual celebration in Russia)
June 12 DYEN NEZAVISIMOSTI ROSSIY
Russian Independence Day (from Soviet Union)
June 23 Eve of St. Ivan’s Day
Take the first outside bath of the year in local rivers.
Last two weeks of June “White Nights” take place
Can read at 3 am without artificial light in St. Petersburg
Is still daylight at 10 pm in Moscow
July 21 PRASDNIK ICONY KAZANSKOI BOZHEI MATERI (in rural
areas)
The Holiday of the Icon of Kazanskaia Virgin Mary
Hold services in holy place while carrying an icon covered in ritual scarf. Holy
water is gathered for the year. If you swim in the river this day, it will wash
away your sins for the previous year.
July 22 Feast of St. Maria
Maria (Mariya) Chekov's Name Day
July 28 Eve of St’s Peter's and Paul's Day.
Children play tricks on each other and adults.
July 29 DYEN SVYATYCH PETRA I PAVLA
Sts Peter's and Paul's Day
(Pavel Chekov’s Name Day)
Cook and share an elaborate meal, sing and dance.
August 19 YABLOCHNYI SPAS Transfiguration of the Lord’s Day
(“Apple Jesus Christ”/Harvest Festival)
Sanctifies new apple harvest. No apples may be eaten prior to this day. It is
believed that God gives apples to those in heaven this day (He will not if apples
have been eaten prior to the day by relatives of the dead.) Apples are left on
graves as presents. Village springs are blessed and thanksgiving services are
held. Large dinner is held.
September St. Michael’s Day
Celebrated for an entire week. Rural villagers prefer weddings to take place
this week.
September 1 All Schools Begin, unless it is Sunday
For information on school and education, see last entry.
Oct 7 DYEN KONSTITUTSIY Constitution day.
Last Two Weeks of the Year
No business is conducted as everyone prepares for the end of the year holidays.
Both Western and Orthodox Christmas is observed.
Houses are decorated with Christmas trees.
YOLKI--Holiday Parties are held.
December 24 Western Christmas Eve
Dyed Moroz and Snyegurochks deliver presents to every family using a troika.
December 25 Western Christmas
Christmas celebrations vary greatly by culture.
December 31 New Year’s Eve
Parties are given.
Unlike in the West, the New Year is not celebrated to the final toll of the clock
at midnight
PERSONAL CELEBRATIONS DURING THE YEAR:
NAME DAYS
Russian’s celebrate the feast of the Saint they are named after with a party
given for their friends, like a Birthday party. Person whose Name Day it is
provides food, etc. Saint’s whose feast day it is are announced on TV each
morning. Proper greeting is S imeninami! (Happy Name Day!)
BIRTHDAYS
Celebrated with a lunch for family and friends.
To ensure good luck for the year to come, the last present opened must be the
most beautiful. When celebrated at work, birthday person provides food, etc:
not the guests. On sixteenth birthday, you receive your passport. Russian
passports contain your first name, last name, patronymic; your date of birth,
your place of birth, your nationality. (Where you were born, or if mixed
ethnicity (mother Great Russian, father Georgian), you can choose which it will
list.)
HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION
End of eleventh grade. Celebrated with an all-night party.
DAY BEFORE ENTERING MILITARY SERVICE
Celebrated with an all-night party. In old days, those scheduled to serve played
accordians and sang songs about the town.
CHRISTIAN HOLIDAYS WHICH DATES OF CELEBRATION MOVE
EACH YEAR:
SHROVETIDE
The four days prior to Lent. Visit relatives, party and gorge themselves on
butter.
LENT
Forty days of fast and abstinence and penitent living. Butter cannot be eaten.
Salted mushrooms are eaten instead of meat.
EASTER
Even non-religious people in Russia celebrate Easter.
On the evening before, a church service is held in which the entire congregation
proceeds around outside church with lighted candles.
Starting at midnight, everyone greets each other for the day by exchanging
three kisses and saying Khristos Voskrese (Christ is Risen). The proper response
is Vo istinu voskres. (He is risen indeed.)
Special food is served including:
pashka blessed, sweet pudding made with eggs, sour milk and raisins cooked in a
tall rectangular mold with an orthodox cross carved on it’s top crust. similar to
cheesecake
kultch Easter cake similar to sweet bread
Easter bread is baked with treats hidden inside.
Eggs are colored. krashenniye yaitsa–uk pisanki Boiled in onion water for
traditional ochre, boiled with colored paper for other colors.
VOZNESENIIE Ascension Day
40 days after Orthodox Easter. In rural Russia the Cuckoos Funeral Rite is
performed. There are five known versions: usually women ‘baptize’ a doll and
bury it. Men must find it.
DUKHOVSKAA SUDOTA Whit Saturday
49 days after Orthodox Easter. They visit their deceased relatives in the
cemetary.
TROITSA Whit Sunday
50 days after Orthodox Easter. Merriest holiday. They go to the forest, make
birch wreaths for their head, sing limericks (chestushki) at the river.
DUKHOV DYEN Whit Monday
51 days after Orthodox Easter. Visit natural wells and brooks for water, it is
health-giving.
CUSTOMS SURROUNDING LIFE EVENTS:
WEDDINGS
(For traditional Wedding Customs, see Rural Russia)
Couples are told by Russian Orthodox Church to cover icons in the bedroom
before having sex.
All weddings must take place in a Wedding Palace or a Civil Registry Office.
(They may be followed up by church weddings later.)
After civil ceremony, the couple visit historically significant places and leave
bouquets of flowers. (In Moscow...the Grave of the Unknown Soldier in the
Kremlin or Sparrow Hills at MSU. In Petersburg...the Rostrol Columns on the
spit of Vasilovsky Island, the Bronze Horseman, the Field of Mars or the
Piskarovskoem Cemetery)
The couples car is decorated with big wedding rings on roof, a doll on front of
hood, and with flowers and balloons.
A wedding feast takes place in an apartment, restaurant or banquet hall. Both
families share expense for it.
At banquet, diners shout “gorko!” or ‘bitter’ as a request for the couple to kiss in
order ‘to sweaten life’. (In America, we ‘clink our glass with a fork’ for the same
request.)
DEATH
Corpse lies in an open coffin in church, at home, at work or in the room the
cemetery provides so that people can kiss the person good-bye. The spouse sits
next to the coffin.
If they are Orthodox, they are laid out at home and friends and family prays
through the night.
Otpevaniye is the funeral service. Every person attending throws dirt on the
coffin.
Pominki is the wake after the funeral service. Takes place afterward at a home
or private room in restaurant.
Mirrors are covered for nine days if the person was laid out at home.
Devyatiy Dyen: the day the soul departs earth and everyone gathers for the
Pominiki. A service and meal on the (fourth) (ninth) day after a person’s death,
it celebrates the passing of their soul into heaven.
Sorokovoy Dyen: forty days after the death the cemetery is visited and a rich
meal is shared.
Traditionally, women were burried in their wedding dress, even if they were
unmarried and it had not been used yet.
SCHOOL:
On September 1 all schools begin, unless it is a Sunday. (Even the new private
schools)
The school day runs from 8:30-2:30, 6 days a week.
If the school is overcrowded, the students are broken in two groups: 8:30-1:30
and 1:30-7:30.
First grade to ninth grade is compulsory for all children.
Children graduate from high school at the end of eleventh grade.
They are assigned a homeroom when they enter school. There are 30-40 kids per
home room and it will remain their homeroom from first to eleventh grade.
Because of this, students in the same home room become very close to each other
and ‘friendships formed over a student desk’ are highly valued.
Beginning in second grade, there are specialized schools for economics, math, art,
and foreign language. Students in these schools share their homeroom with 10-15
other children.
Tenth and eleventh grade students may go to vocational schools.
Eleventh grade students must choose a speciality and then concentrate their
study on that speciality their last year.
All teaching and testing is oral. Whispering answers to each other and using crib
sheets is considered acceptable and is not seen as a moral transgression.
COLLEGE
The summer after 11th grade, the VUZ, a written and oral test is given to apply
to colleges.
High school transcripts, grades, etc do not matter. Only the VUZ is taken into
account.
Only one college is applied to.
Tuition is free and students receive a government stipend for expenses.
Students who do not get in often take evening or extension courses.
College lasts 4-6 years, depending on the subject being studied.
During the last year of college each student must write and defend a thesis.
Degree earned at the end of Russian College/University study is higher than a
Bachelors.
After graduation, students work 2-3 years in a government assigned position.
HIGHER EDUCATION
Graduate study is three years.
Students receive a ‘Kandidat Nauk’-- candidate of science degree. It is higher
than a Masters.
To receive a Doctorate (“Dokotor Nauk” or “Doktorat”) is much more difficult
than a Western Phd. To qualify, it is required that the person make a major
original contribution to their speciality study.
| Website design By Andriech. Original graphics by Vengaurd. Copyright 2006-2007 by Star Traveler Publications |
