Russians celebrate New Year as their main festival of the year. Families get together for their meal at around 8pm. Presents are opened that evening, but if children are too little they open them on January 1st.
One of the favourite passions of Russians is fireworks. At midnight Dan and I went outside to hunt down some fireworks. The whole city was echoing with them. Individuals buy their own fireworks and set them off where ever they please. There is no organised display. We found ourselves a good show up at Karla Marksa square. But at other moments we were turning our heads in all directions. We came home at 1am and the fireworks were still going strong. They went to around 3:30 in the morning.
С новым годом! S noviym godom. (Russian for Happy New Year).
5 comments:
Are the fireworks cheap to buy?
Hmmm, not very, but you can't buy them in Australia, so I wouldn't no what to compare them to. A small set is about $20. But that would add up to a couple hundred bucks for a semi decent display.
Ok, so of course here in China fireworks are super common to the point of being annoying. We see and hear them going off everyday...EVERYDAY!!! Actually, I should say, EVERYNIGHT!!! You know, about the time everyone else is either sleeping or trying to put their kids to bed? Grrr...
There ARE organised displays of fireworks!!! They are usually done (at least here in Krasnoyarsk) at the opening of the ice-sculptures parks, and the Christmas (New Year's) trees parks, or ёлка (literally - "pine-tree" in Russian). Also, at different NewYears (Old Style New Year's) parties near nightclubs and on corporate celebrations. The municipal authorities usually do that at the opening of ёлка, which is usually on 28-30 December. Incidentally, usually every city district (район) usually has their own ёлка, and there is an unofficial competition, whose ёлка is the best, especially now, when they are sponsored by different enterprises togethere with the city/district authorities.
Besides, there is such thing as the день города (the city holiday, usually marking the birthday of the city), and here in Krasnoyarsk we have a carnival/ masked march and decorated platforms in the central street, concerts and displays, and so on, which is usually crowned at the end of the day with a huge fireworks display. And these are just the biggest organised fireworks displays - there may be smaller ones on other holidays (especially the Victory Day on 09 May, which is usually a military салют firework).
Good point Kostya. I forgot about the day of the city. I suppose, there are just so many fireworks going off all year, that the organised ones get drowned in the over exposure of fireworks.
There probably was something in central park around new year, but I would not have known about that,
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