Peter the Great ordered to establish January 1st as the New Year’s Day countrywide

The decree of the emperor of all Rus’ of December 20, 1699 states: “So far in Russia people consider the New Year differently, from this date on stop fooling people and considering New Year everywhere from January 1st.  As a sign of a good start and joy to wish each other a Happy New Year, wishing prosperity in the family. In honor of the New Year day to make decorations from fir trees, amuse children, sled from the mountains”, - we read Sergei Knyazkov’s book, Paintings on Russian History, posted in the New Year’s Day and Christmas in Russia collection on the Presidential Library’s portal. Rare editions and beautiful illustrations presented in the collection spotlight the history of the New Year’s holidays, tell how the New Year day and Christmas were celebrated at different times.

Before Peter I, the new year began in Russia on September 1st. However, the tsar, having returned from traveling around Europe, wanted to get closer to its level in everything, starting with setting the date of the first day of the new year according to the Gregorian calendar”, - says Ivan Bozheryanov’s book “How the Russian people celebrated and celebrate Christmas, New Year’s Day, Epiphany and Shrovetide”. In 1699, Peter the Great last celebrated with Patriarch Andrian the New Year according to an ancient custom.

In 1700, realizing that the celebration of the New Year on January 1st was contrary to the old customs, Peter I decided to hold an unprecedented solemn action in Moscow. On the eve all the churches began a midnight vigil. Peter with his numerous court was at a festive service in the Assumption Cathedral, praying "earnestly". And then the streets of the main throne and its fortress walls lit up with a bright firework. “Illumination flashed in the winter sky, bonfires and tar barrels burned like torches mounted on long poles”, - Bozheryanov writes in the book “How the Russian people celebrated and celebrate Christmas, New Year’s Day, Epiphany and Shrovetide”. - Fun and amusement continued until Christmas. And all this time the city streets and squares were decorated with tall shaggy forest guests - evergreen spruce”.

Tsar Peter “noticed” the tradition of decorating the New Year tree being in Germany, where this evergreen conifer has been a symbol of eternal youth, immortality and longevity for centuries. This custom seemed to Peter I very beautiful, therefore, in the already mentioned decree "On the celebration of the New Year", cited in the book of Sergei Knyazkov Paintings on Russian History he ordered: "... On large and passing streets to noble people and houses deliberate a spiritual and worldly order in front of the gates to make some ornaments from the trees and branches of pine and juniper... but to the meager people each, though, put a tree or branch on the gate or above your temple..."

Until his death, Peter the Great made sure that the celebration of the New Year in Russia took place no worse than in overseas states. On the eve of the holiday, the emperor congratulated and personally generously gifted the most notable nobles and favorites, took part in court festivities and fun.   

New Year was to be celebrated for 7 days. Sergei Knyazkov notes how Peter I consistently and indefatigably accustomed the Northern capital to lush balls and assemblies borrowed from Europe.  

The emperor himself set the tone: Alexander Kornilovich’s book “New Year in 1724” says: “At 6 a.m. Peter and the whole Imperial family went in covered sleighs from the Winter Palace to the St. Petersburg side to the Holy Trinity Cathedral to listening to the mass. The sovereign sang that day on a choir with singers, and he himself read the Apostle... The sovereign was in the Preobrazhensky uniform, green with a red collar, and a red camisole, both lined with a golden gown, in striped stockings, white with blue, and in northern leather shoes a deer with its fur up... Dinner was prepared in the Senate building, where the Diplomatic Corps was waiting for the emperor”.

Under Catherine II, they began to hold solemn masquerade balls. Under Nicholas I there was a democratization of the New Year and other festivities. This is written by Aleksey Grech in the reference book “Petersburg in Pocket” published in 1851: “Balls during the winter are the most brilliant in the Noble Assembly and usually after midnight turn into masquerades, which all the classes have access to”.    

In the second half of the XIX - early XX centuries, the image of the main character of the New Year – Father Frost, giving children gifts is gradually formed. The postcard “Happy New Year!” from the collections of the Presidential Library depicts two small children sleeping in a canopy bed, in the background - a man in a carnival costume, with a beard, holding toys in his hands. This is not the final “edition” of Father Frost, because his image was born gradually.

Since the twenties of the last century, New Year day was not celebrated in Soviet Russia; January 1 was a normal working day. But it was not possible to eradicate the holiday: the New Year’s trees simply "went underground".

The tradition of universal family unity was recalled in 1935, when Pavel Postyshev, a candidate for membership in the Politburo, put forward a proposal in the Pravda newspaper to return the New Year tree holiday to the citizens, fixing it in consciousness as a bright and happy childhood moment. In 1937, the order of the party and government “On the celebration of the New Year in the USSR” was issued, and the first official New Year’s tree of the USSR with a red star instead of a Christmas one at the top was held in the Hall of Columns.

Previously, religious-themed toys hung on the branches of green beauties, but new times required new ideas. And then the company "Moskabel" opened a new workshop for the production of New Year’s tree decorations. Now the balls depicted Lenin, Stalin, planes, tanks and red stars. January 1 has become a day off since 1947.

The Presidential Library’s collections contains illustrative material dedicated to the New Year day such as postcards, drawings, photographs. Among them are images of winter Petersburg, snow-covered Rostral columns, the Bronze Horseman, the majestic buildings of the Senate and the Synod buildings, where the Presidential Library is located today.