Russia has many праздники (prazdniki) celebrated throughout the year. But the most favorite and probably most important is Новый Год (Novyi Got) – New Year. It's celebrated on the evening of 31 December. At this time, family and friends gather around the table to see off the old year and greet the new year. The coming of the new year is marked by the Kremlin Clock (Kuranty) striking twelve. It is a tradition to have a decorated ëлка (yolka) (spruce tree) at home and to give each other presents. It is also a tradition to come into a new year without any debts, with an abundance of food on the table and wearing your best clothes – which symbolizes that the good wealth is carried over to the next year. Russians generally take the week off between New Year and Russian Orthodox Christmas, celebrated on 7 January.
Today we’ll go over this and several other holidays that you might find just as important as the people in Russia do.
Resources for further reading:
Pronouncing holidays in Russian
Practice Your Pronunciation With Rocket Record
That’s it for this lesson on holidays in Russian. I hope you learned a lot! To practice these new words, try marking your calendar with the holidays and important days in your life in Russian. You’ll start to remember them automatically after some practice!
Here are a few recommended Russian lessons to try next!
- Counting to 100 in Russian.
- Saying No in Russian.
- Let's check out the numbers 1-10 in Russian.
До скорого! (da skorava)
Natalya Dubrov: Rocket Russian