How to prepare for the New Year in the USSR

Before the holiday begins to prepare letom.Hotya even the basic elements of a holiday home preserved from the Soviet times, in those days, preparing the New Year in the traditional form was almost heroic.

To get the basic ingredients, such as salad, we had to work hard: in the free market did not have mayonnaise, green peas, sausage - stocking began in October.

C great difficulty getting out and drink is the main holiday - Soviet champagne. Editorial Website has decided to recall nostalgic collection as it was.



Initially, the New Year was not an official state holiday, but most families traditionally celebrate it along with Christmas, and the holiday was considered a family.

Christmas trees and Christmas decorations in the USSR

For the first time the New Year is officially celebrated until the end of 1936, after an article a prominent Soviet leader Paul Postysheva in the newspaper "Pravda».

"Why do we have schools, orphanages, nurseries, clubs, palaces of Pioneers are deprived of this wonderful pleasure children of workers of the Soviets? Some, not only as "left" distorters decried it as a bourgeois children's entertainment venture. It is the conviction of the wrong tree, which is great fun for children, to put an end. Komsomol, the pioneer of workers should make a New Year tree for children collective. In schools, children's homes, in the Palace of Pioneers, in the children's clubs, children's films and theaters - all children should be tree! City council, chairmen of regional executive committees, village councils, education authorities should help the Soviet device tree for the children of our great socialist motherland ».



New Year has allowed the state to celebrate, however, remained January 1 working day. Kremlin Christmas tree - the main tree of the entire Union, in 1938.



Column Hall of the House of Unions, in 1941.



The group of scouts of the Western Front in 1942 meets the new.



Father Christmas goes to the rink Gorky Park





Photographer Emmanuel Evzerihin imprinted his family at the Christmas tree, 1954



1955. Students in vocational schools came to the Kremlin New Year's holiday in national costumes. Even the ladder tightly jammed, 1955.



1960. Costumes and Christmas tree decorations reflect the strength of the country: the divers and astronauts to Kremlin Christmas tree. The first satellite has been in orbit, and the film "The Amphibian Man" has not yet been removed.



The crew of the Tu-144 flight from Moscow to Alma-Ata, 1978.



Santa Claus in Kiev "Dynamo". He's trying to protect the basket of a throw world champion A. Belostenny 1983.



Omsk region. Santa Claus in a hurry for the holiday in 1988.



Tickets for the New Year tree for children, too difficult to reach them. And also need a costume snowflakes gauze or bunny outfit. The gift, which included were caramel and apples, and walnuts, provides parents with the trade union. Every kid's dream was to get to the main tree of the country - the first in the Column Hall of the House of Unions, and after 1954 - to the Kremlin Christmas tree.



Only after the war began to really develop the tradition of New Year celebrations in the USSR. Christmas decorations began to appear: first very skromnye- paper, cotton and other materials, and later - beautiful, bright, glass, similar to the pre-revolutionary decorating Christmas trees. By the end of 1960 it has been launched mass production of toys for the Christmas tree, and you could buy a pretty simple variants of plastic, usually with Soviet symbols.

Holiday stol

Occasion prepared in advance. First, you need to purchase products - that is, "get", stand in the hour queues to get in grocery orders sprats, eggs, smoked sausage.



© RIANovosti

Required dishes on the holiday table: Olivier, aspic, jellied fish, carrot and beet salad, herring under a fur coat, pickled cucumbers and tomatoes.

© Kubarev Philipp

Those who have had a familiar dealer at the grocery store, could afford to New Year brandy for 8 rubles 12 kopecks, champagne "Soviet" sweet, tangerines.



Ready-made cakes were also deficient, so basically had the furnace itself.



Or a long time to stand in line, like in this photo.

Dresses and podarkiKazhdoy Soviet woman most certainly needed a new fashionable dress is its could sew their own hands or in the studio, in rare cases - to buy from black marketeers; the store was the last place where you could find something.



Actress Clara Lucko at the Christmas tree, 1968.



Christmas gifts - another obstacle to Soviet citizens in the process of preparing for the New Year. With any product in the country was napryazhenka and with beautiful goods it was even worse, so our parents went to visit, taking champagne, sausage, preferably - "Servelat" canned exotic fruits (pineapple), a box of chocolates. Women on holiday gave the Soviet perfume stores which were in excess, the men - Cologne.



"Nothing paints the woman as hydrogen peroxide" - the joke becomes relevant on the eve of every New Year's celebrations in the Soviet Union. The phrase "beauty salon" did not know even the most fashionista. The hairdressers were recorded in a few weeks, the preparation of hairstyles, makeup and all the "New Year's appearance" demanded from the Soviet women as much time, creativity and independence - sometimes doing hairstyle girlfriend.



The last stage of preparation - wipe (to fix) television, which, as claimed by the postman Pechkin is "the best decoration New Year's table." "Carnival Night", "Irony of Fate", "New Adventures of Masha and Vitya," "Blue Light", "Frost" - Soviet films, transfer and cartoons in the morning, without which no Soviet citizen could not imagine a festive night.

Old Christmas toys

Soviet Christmas cards

USSR still lives

According to the materials forumrostov

via forumrostov.ru/topic/28551-kak-prazdnujut-novii-god-v-raznih-stranah-mira/