The symbol of the New Year, the kind winter old man with presents, 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.
The Russian ‘Morozko’ folk tale describes an encounter with this old man: the female protagonist withstands his tests of cold and then he bestows her with riches. However, he freezes another character to death.
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.
At that time, the main winter holiday was Christmas, not New Year's Eve, and, in Russia, they tried to create an analog of ‘Grandfather Nicholas’ (‘Nikolai the Worshipper’ or ‘Santa Claus’) like in the West.
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.
In the Palace of Sports of the Central Lenin Stadium, Moscow, 1950s.
Semyon Mishin-Morgenstern/MAMM/MDF/russiainphoto.ru
Ded Moroz, 1960s.
Davod Sholomovich/SputnikDed 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.
With a nuclear icebreaker, with a train on the Baikal-Amur Mainline or on the wings of a new airplane.
Besides New Year's celebrations, Ded Moroz also began to take part in Maslenitsa festivities.
Maslenitsa in Suzdal, 1970s.
Isaak Dynin/TASSAnd to visit plants, factories and collective farms before the New Year, in order to communicate with the workers of the Soviet Union.
Ded Moroz and Snegurochka with miners in the Chelyabinsk Region, 1980s.
Boris Klipinitzer/TASSThe tradition of celebrating the New Year with Ded Moroz and Snegurochka became common across the whole country, even in places where there were no fairy tales and legends about him originally. It was preserved even after the collapse of the USSR.
On the shore of Lake Issyk-Kul, Kyrgyz SSR.
Nikolai Zhiganov/TASSNowadays, different regions of Russia have their own symbolic New Year wizards. For example, in Yakutia, there is Chyskhaan, in Yamal – Yamal Iri, in Tatarstan – Kysh Babai.
Chyskhaan, Yakutia.
Evgeny Biyatov/SputnikThe official residence of the Russian Ded Moroz, meanwhile, is in Veliky Ustyug in the Russian North.
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