Poverty and monotony: how Christmas and New Year were actually celebrated in the USSR. Historical photos

The Christmas season is probably the most anticipated time of year for many Ukrainians. However, while some plan to revive national traditions, there are those who are nostalgic for the Soviet Union.

It's worth noting that in Soviet times, New Year's Eve was a fairly "new" holiday - it was first celebrated in 1947. According to blogger Maksym Mirovych, it was then that January 1 was officially declared a day off. Before that, decorating a Christmas tree, eating on a festive table and celebrating the arrival of the new year were generally considered to be indulgence in the "bourgeois" traditions of the tsarist regime. OBOZ.UA has collected the most striking archival photos that convey the atmosphere of New Year's holidays in the USSR.

Santa Claus for the poor

Famous photographer Derek Hudson captured one of the "festive" moments. In the 1989 photo, a man in a Santa Claus costume is talking to workers in a meat shop in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). The New Year's picture actually conceals poverty: at that time, about a million residents of the city were on the verge of poverty.

According to the publicist, it was quite a challenge to prepare dishes for the New Year's table, because most products were in real short supply. Therefore, the planning of the New Year's menu began several weeks and sometimes even months before December 31.

Smoked sausage was especially prized. According to Mirovych, "because it was almost impossible to stuff paper into it (as in sausage), which made it a pretty good meat product."

"Diverse" selection of gifts

The gifts, which required a long queue, were "striking in their variety." As the photo shows, dozens of women in identical sheepskin coats and men with the famous fur hats, all looking like a "copycat," are choosing equally unique gifts for children – dolls, from large to small sizes, in dresses with puffy skirts. A statue of Santa Claus towering over the crowd announces the approach of the New Year.

Meanwhile, in Moscow, there was a real "boom" in ties, a "branded" New Year's gift for men in Soviet times. Back then, according to the statistics below the photo, every fifth Muscovite wore this accessory. A Moscow department store sold 10,000 ties a day.

The tradition of visiting

According to Mirovych, Soviet citizens liked to celebrate New Year's Eve at someone's house. This was preceded by careful preparation, because it was extremely important to show your best. While men would take their suits out of the closet and iron their shirts, women would have their hair done, so hairdressers were extremely busy on New Year's Eve. The photo shows a Moscow family in front of the New Year's table on January 1, 1979.

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