Christmas

Before the Soviet revolution people of the Russian Empire considered Christmas as one of the most important date to celebrate. It was also one of the favorite holidays of all people (people of different social levels and diferrent ages). Usually on the evening of the 6th of January there was a special visit to the Gods parents (people who witnessed your baptism), usually most of the people had Gods parents and they took supper ("vecherya") for them and went to their place just to spent some time with them. Also people went to the orthodox church for the church service. And the whole family would gather for the supper on the 7th celebrating birth of Jesus Christ.
There would be a Christmas tree and the gifts for the kids. Some special dishes were cooked especially for that day (sweet wheat cereal with raisins and wallnuts for example, called "kutya"). People would sing carols and also drink a lot of vodka.
All that was before the Revolution, after the communists were in charge of the State they tried to get rid of the christian traditions. One of the way was to replace all of the church holidays with the Socialistic ones. So they made an ephasis on celebrating New Years Eve instead of Christmas. Some people stillcelebrated Christmas though but they didnt do it openly. So as time went by people started to consider 31st of January a very important day. They started to call the Christmas tree a New Year tree and the songs were about the coming of the New Year not the Christmas carols. After the collapse of the USSR people started to celebrate Christmas again doing all the things I mentioned in the beggining of the letter.
Even those people who dont go to the church through the whole year go to the orthodox church on Christmas.