1,2,3! Light Up Your Russian New Year's Tree!

New Year's trees are dotted all over Moscow right now in different shapes and sizes as the city gets ready for the holidays. You can spot such trees in all the major city squares — many natural, some the standard artificial ones and even some made out of logs, plastic containers and sparkling wine bottles.? 




Peter the Great brought the Chrismas tree ?€” "yolka" in Russian ?€” from Europe and it was used in that sense until the Communist Revolution, when it was banned as part of the Bolshevik campaign against religion. The festive tree came back as a "New Year's tree" in the mid-1930s after a letter by top Bolshevik official Pavel Postyshev was printed in the Pravda newspaper, calling for people to "do away with the silly misconception that the New Year's tree is a bourgeois excess."? 





The letter also called for organizing a "New Year's celebration for kids and a good Soviet New Year's tree in all our cities and rural villages!" A trip to a yolka became a New Year's tradition for Soviet children, and the tradition continues today.? 





When turning on the lights on a New Year's tree, Russians traditionally say: "? ?°?·, ?????°, ?‚?€??! ???»???‡???°, ?????€??!" (One, two, three! Light up, New Year's tree!)