How did the image of ‘Father Frost’ change in Russia?

The symbol of the New Year, Ded Moroz, was completely different in Slavic mythology. He was a deity who could freeze a person or a harvest to death and they tried to appease him with offerings.

Ded Moroz only began to be associated with the onset of Christmas and New Year in the second half of the 19th century. On some old postcards, you can see an old bearded old man in a red coat and with a Christmas tree.
But, Ded Moroz only became the central and positive character in the 1930s, when the USSR made the main winter holiday New Year's Eve, not Christmas.

A kind old man together with his granddaughter ‘Snegurochka’ (‘Snow Maiden’) now visits children on New Year's Eve and brings them presents.
Ded Moroz on postcards was depicted not only together with New Year presents and children, but also side by side with the achievements of Soviet industry and science.

Nowadays, different regions of Russia have their own symbolic New Year wizards.
The official residence of the Russian Ded Moroz, meanwhile, is in Veliky Ustyug in the Russian North.

📸 Archive photo, MAMM/MDF/russiainphoto.ru, Davod Sholomovich, Evgeny Biyatov/Sputnik, Boris Klipinitzer, Nikolai Zhiganov/TASS, Pavel Kuzmichev

🤓 Russia Beyond

How the Soviet home front lived & worked during World War II

People in the rear worked tirelessly to ensure that the Red Army did not need anything.

At the same time, they used every free minute to enjoy their usual life: go to the theater or a concert, visit the zoo or listen to the opera.

💥 Russia Beyond