Have Yourself a Very Russian Christmas
If you're acquainted with me, you probably know 2 things about me: I'm Canadian and I spent a college semester studying at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia. This was the culmination of studying the language through middle school and high school, and spending a month in Moscow in high school.
Russia occupies this weird space both geographically, politically, and culturally. Its Westernmost borders start in Eastern Europe and then it sprawls out to the Pacific Ocean bumping up against China, Mongolia, and Japan. Years of what Russians would call "occupation" by the Golden Horde from Mongolia left lasting influence in national costume, and food. Then Communism tried hard to imagine a new culture free from Westernized Capitalism and materialism, but still Russian by romanticising the Russian serf. Throughout it all, and despite Lenin and Stalin's best effort, Russians clung to their Eastern Christian Orthodox practices. In 2018 the result is a nation that is not quite European, not quite Asian, not quite Middle Eastern, just very confused about its identity in a way that can be exhausting to a foreigner. At a performance of Pikovaya Dama at the Mussorgksy theater in St. Petersburg, one of my classmates leaned forward and hissed, "do you know what everyone's thinking about right now?" I shrugged. "They're all thinking about what it means to be Russian!"
Christmas in Russia is not the big deal it is elsewhere for a few reasons: Orthodoxy finds the crucifixion and resurrection to be way more impressive (and they have a point), and, thanks to the Julian calendar, this year it falls on January 7th. Thus New Year gets more the lion's share of celebration.
Decoration
You have 2 options here: Be camp and decorate to the nines with Russian-esque accouterment or be culturally authentic and thus sparse with ornamentation.
If the first, follow the everyday Russian decorating philosophy: If a little is good, then more must be better and go absolutely nuts with color, gold leaf, matryoshka dolls, lacquer work, balalaikas, Faberge replicas, the works!
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| Not exactly subtle, is it? |
Menu
As much as I love Russia and Russians, their cuisine is not my favorite; I left after 14 weeks unable to stomach the sight of dill. To their credit, I have never seen a potato put to so many uses, and I was impressed by their love of mushrooms. Certain dishes, though, are classics:
- Pelmeni or steamed dumplings
and the thing I most fondly remember from St. Petersburg:
- A Pirog
I suspect that some Russians will protest that I have left out key Christmas or celebratory dishes, like the Vodka. I know; I picked the five dishes that I actually enjoyed while studying there.
Appropriate Gifts
- Ukraine
- Matryoshkas
- Caviar
- A dacha
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| (I would really like this!) |
- A dancing bear
- A lacquer box
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| Whatever you paid for this, you probably should've paid more. |
- Souvenirs from Communism
- An icon
- A shell corporation as a front for a computer hacking scheme (though, if it's from Vlad Putin, you know it's been regifted)
- Gin and Tonic in a can
- Baltika 7
Fond memories of knocking these back
on the St. Petersburg Metro
Music
Russia does not lack for musical composers: Tchaikovsky, Glinka, Mussorgsky, Rachmananov, Stravinsky- those are just my favourites. But I feel like I'd be cheating if I served up The Nutcracker a second time. I think what I want to hear for a Russian Christmas is like this scene from War and Peace
The thing is, this is very hollywood-ized (even thought it's BBC), and I feel Gogol Bordello is the closest sounding thing. He's Ukrainian, though...
And Russian Christmas songs are very churchy, not something to play at a dinner party...
I am truly scraping the barrel here. After a week of searching for Russian folk music for Christmas time, and hating all of it, not just the Christmas music, here's a playlist of classic folk songs to the incessant hammering of the balalaika:
They do amazaing things with a potato.
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