uchimsyavmeste:

What does the word Christmas (Рождество) mean for Russians? It’s one of the major holidays of the year, and it’s one of the holidays during the period of the New Year holidays (Новогодние праздники) in Russia. How did it happen, that we call these two-week holidays “New Year holidays”, but not “Christmas Holidays”? 

Let’s remember Russia a hundred years ago. It was standing on the verge of revolution, but on December 4, 1916, it was still a monarchy. Monarchy in Russia was deeply connected with the Church, because for Russians the King, or the Tsar (Царь) was given his power by the God. And faith was an important part of the Russian life, because when you believe in God, because as long as you believe in God, you believe in the legitimacy of your Tsar. Alexander III and Nikolay II (Александр Третий и Николай Второй), the last two Russian Tsars tried to bound the people around family values and Christianity even more than before, because of the rivals in the country (in 1881 Alexander II was assassinated by anarchists). As you probably know, it didn’t work out, and The Russian Revolution of 1917 (Революция тысяча дявятьсот семнадцатого года) started anyway, and the whole royal family was murdered. You understand, those communists didn’t believe in God, because if they did, they wouldn’t kill anyone at all, especially the Tsar, who was considered the closest figure to God. So the communists, obviously, forbade these beliefs at all, I mean, they forbade to be Christian. And what’s about Christmas? Christmas is the main holiday of the year, and it’s traditions go far beyond the celebration of God’s birth. They didn’t want people to lose the tradition, but they also didn’t want to celebrate a religious holiday. And they found a solution. Only in 1935 they decided to celebrate The New Year (Новый Год) instead of Christmas because these two holidays are the closest. And it was the same Christmas tree (рождественская ёлка), the same Christmas toys (рождественские игрушки), though now they became a New-Year tree (новогодняя ёлка) and New-Year toys (новогодние игрушки). 
A communist republic is all about communities. People should be together, they should be united, equal in everything. And every office, every factory, every school and kindergarten had a New-Year party that was very typical. Adults set a table with some food and Champagne, music and dances; kids had a theatrical performance, when they had to stop the evil forces from ruining The New Year by singing songs and dancing together, and there always came “Santa Clause” (Дед Мороз/Father Frost) with his granddaughter Snegurochka (Снегурочка), and the holiday was saved. Father Frost gave everyone a box of sweet treats and kids could happily go home.

All these traditions still exist, and I also had it in my kindergarten and in the first years of school. And when I grew older I participated in the organisation of such events. Older kids also have concerts where they can sing or dance, or read a poem or anything else related to the topic of The New Year or Christmas. 
All these parties usually occur in the last week before December 31. December 31 is a day of preparation. The families cook the whole day, clean the house, wait for the guests to come in the evening. They all sit together, drink, talk, watch some New-Year show and wait for the midnight. On midnight the President/General Secretary (the title of the leader of the country in communist countries) always gives a three-minute talk about the things happened this year and how the next year is going to be better, then everyone drinks and starts to party. They can go outside to watch fireworks, teenagers usually go to their friends, old people usually go to bed right after midnight. The New Year night is the night of the partying.
On January 1 everything is closed because people sleep. [If you are confused and don’t understand, whether I’m speaking about USSR or Russia right now, I’m speaking about both. It didn’t change since then.] And the next ten days are the days of doing nothing for atheists and the beginning of Christmas holidays for religious people.
It’s stupid to deny, that people still believed in God in USSR, because Lenin just couldn’t tell them to stop. And Christmas became an unofficial holiday, but it still existed. Russian orthodox church follows the Julian calendar and not the Gregorian, as Catholics and Protestands do, and it means that all the religious holidays are celebrated 13 years later than in the Western world. And it means that Russian Chistmas goes after the New Year and is celebrated on January 7. My mother, who is very religious, usually goes to church on Christmas Eve (в канун Рождества) and watches the service, that can last 4-5 hours (and you are not allowed to sit).

It means, that there’s a week between the New Year and Christmas, and it automatically becomes a week of caroling, which is actually very rear now. I think it exists only in very authentic communities, villages and among very faithful people. People go to houses and sing songs and offer to taste some special Christmas porige and always get something to eat in return. In period between Christmas and Babtising (Крещение),

when people can wash away their sins, there is one more tradition of Christmastide or Yuletide (Святки). This period was believed a good time for telling fortune, and people, especially women enjoy playing magic and trying to tell their future. This is an odd mixture of Christian and pegan traditions describe Russia very well, I think. True Christians say that telling fortune is a sin, but common people don’t really care about sins, they just want to have fun, so our Christmas traditions contain lots of pegan traditions as well.

In 1991, when USSR no longer existed, Christmas became an official holiday as well. Now we have an offical New Year holidays from December 31 till January 10, that include Christmas. We have official Christmas servises and they are supported by politicians again

because we returned to that rethoric of family values and spirituality, that existed in pre-revolutionary Russia, with Church being an important part of our lives. But as you understand, 1991 was only 25 years ago, and most of the population grew up in Soviet tradition of New Year being the secular Christmas, or the major holiday, and Christmas as a holiday for orthodox Christians. Russian Catholics and Russian Protertans celebrate Christmas on December 25, though it’s not a holiday in Russia, and you still have to go to work and can’t avoid your duties. According to statistics, which is very unreliable, as we all know, 75% Russians claim themselves orthodox, and 75% of these people celebrate orthodox holidays. But I can assure you, that lots of people who say they are orthodox, don’t even believe in God. And being orthodox for them is just a part of being Russian, and it’s just a part of their identity.