Christmas traditions in the Russian Empire

On January 7 Orthodox Christians celebrate one of their main holidays - Christmas. This day ends the time of New Year's festivities, and until 1918, when the Gregorian calendar was adopted in Russia, the Orthodox holiday of the Nativity of Christ was celebrated on December 25, and a series of New Year's holidays began with Christmas. It was for Christmas in the Russian Empire that it was customary to decorate a Christmas tree.

The first spruce branches in houses appeared under Peter I, when he ordered to celebrate the New Year not in September, but on January 1, and without fail, according to the German model, to decorate houses with evergreen beauties.

Decorating Christmas trees for Christmas in Russia began in the first quarter of the 19th century. The beginning of this tradition was laid by the wife of Grand Prince Nikolai Pavlovich Alexandra Feodorovna, who was a German princess by birth. Princess Alexandra Feodorovna arranged the first Christmas tree with gifts for children from noble families in December 1817, while she was in the Moscow Kremlin with her husband.

This tradition found many fans and quickly took root. First, festive Christmas mornings began to be arranged in noble families, and then in merchant families. It is interesting that both the Christmas trees and the gifts under them were precisely the attributes of Christmas, and not the calendar beginning of the New Year.

The Presidential Library’s collections contain the diary of Emperor Nicholas II, which shows that the New Year was not celebrated in any special way. For the emperor January 1 was an ordinary working day.

The first Christmas trees in Russia were sold by the Germans and the Swiss, who often owned confectionery shops as well. Therefore, evergreen trees began to appear in sweet shops, coffee shops and pastry shops. In St. Petersburg, a Christmas tree could be bought in the courtyard of the Anichkov Palace or in the Catherine Garden.

Christmas trees were decorated not only in houses, but also in public places - in Nobility meetings, clubs and theaters. According to custom in Germany, the Christmas tree was decorated on Christmas Eve, the day before Christmas. Decorations were small toys and all kinds of goodies: cookies, nuts, sweets and apples. For a festive dinner, real candles were lit on the Christmas tree, and a bucket of water was always placed nearby in case of fire. Children found gifts not only under the tree, but also on it - after the holiday, the tree with its delicious decorations was given to the guests for “plunder”.

An integral attribute of the celebration of Christmas was, of course, the church service.

New Year's holidays included Christmas, Christmas time, New Year's Eve, Epiphany. These days, the emperor and his family skated, sleighed, built ice towns, the children loved to lie in the snow. The saved and digitized album with photographs from the collections of the eldest daughter of the last Russian emperor, Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna, tells how fun the holidays were in the family of Emperor Nicholas II.

Gifts in the royal family were taken seriously. Dolls or outfits were popular gifts for girls, soldiers, sabers and guns, as well as small uniforms of their regiments, were given to boys. Christmas trees in the palace were dressed up several at once - for each member of the family. It was important to give gifts not only to children and relatives, but also to servants.

Thanks to the collection of the Presidential Library New Year’s Day and Christmas in Russia one has an opportunity to learn about rare secular and church books that reveal the history of one of the main Christian holidays - the Nativity of Christ.