OLD NEW YEAR

In Russia, winter break ends Jan. 14 in observance of the country’s “old new year.” Although the wording seems counterintuitive, this unofficial celebration owes itself to the 1917 revolution.

The Russian Revolution of 1917 involved two main uprisings. In the February Revolution, the people overthrew Tsar Nicholas II to create the liberal Provisional Government in its place. The October Revolution brought the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, into power.

In an attempt to modernize and conform to the standard “time-counting system” of Europe, the Bolsheviks made the switch from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar, which was 13 days ahead. Overnight, Jan. 31, 1918 became Feb. 14, 1918 and the country “lost” two weeks of their year. 

Because of the controversy surrounding this, the Orthodox Church compromised with the Bolshevik government in that the Julian calendar could be used for religious purposes while the Gregorian would be used in civic life. This meant that Christmas on the Julian calendar was now Jan. 7, after the New Year on the Gregorian calendar.

Due to the Nativity Fast, an Eastern Orthodox practice of abstinence and penance leading up to Christmas, Russians would not be able to celebrate the Gregorian New Year drinking alcohol or feasting on their festive duck. This pushed them to observe the Old or Orthodox New Year, as well since it was after their feast had ended.

Junior Anastasia Smolentseva reflected on how her family’s celebrations of the Old New Year changed when she moved to the U.S.

“I used to celebrate the holiday with all of my family, my friends, my grandparents and my godparents. It would end up being a table of about 30 people, full of traditional Russian food. Now, I get to eat dinner with just my parents, call my brother and wish him a happy holiday, and go to sleep,” Smolentseva said.

To her, the Old New Year is a smaller, family-based holiday. “I think the fact that it’s a religion-based holiday has a lot to do with it,” Smolentseva said. “Growing up in a post-soviet household, we don’t take religious holidays too seriously.”

The Old New Year may indeed be a thing of the past, for Russian-American immigrants at least. “I haven’t really met anyone in the U.S. who celebrates it, and even within Russia, it’s growing rare. There definitely are still people who observe it, but I think being so far away from Russia it’s a lot less likely,” junior Elizaveta Vinnik said.