Fir trees, white flakes that recall the pure snow of the Russian winter and colorful decorations are on full display at the Kinga Sefer book store in the town of Kfar Saba. Figurines of Ded Moroz (Father Frost) dressed in his red coat and his lovely granddaughter Sanguruzka (the Snow Maiden) are at the center, to the wide-eyed delight of the kids. For the last 15 years, the store has held a Novy God fair, where customers could buy fir trees, decorations, calendars and gifts. In Russian, Novy God means New Year, and it seems that at the start of the second decade of the 21st century, the phrase is no longer foreign to any Israeli.
“I hadn’t known this holiday until the last few years. It’s not a holiday I grew up with or was celebrated in my family. I was exposed to Novy God through my daughters, who got to know it through their friends. They liked the holiday and told me they wanted to celebrate Novy God, to take part in this culture and tradition,” Yuval Zipper, a native Israeli who lives in Tel Aviv, told Al-Monitor. He added that he has been celebrating Novy God for a few years now.
The holiday, which observe the end of one year and the start of the next, came to Israel along with a million immigrants who came from the Soviet Union and the Commonwealth of Independent States. Many brought their favorite fir tree decorations with them and were surprised to learn that the holiday was unknown and not celebrated there. Tal Reznik, who immigrated with her family from Ukraine, told Al-Monitor that she experienced “a culture shock” when she told her friends at school that she has a decorated fir tree at home and that she wouldn’t be in school on Jan. 1. “They said to me: ‘What, are you Christian? You’re not Jewish? Why do you celebrate St. Sylvester’s Day?' I didn’t know what they were talking about, who’s Sylvester?”
In the secular Soviet Union, people didn’t celebrate St. Sylvester’s Day — a Christian saint the Soviets hardly heard of — nor did they celebrate Christmas. At the beginning of the 1930s, Soviet leaders borrowed the main symbols of Christmas — a fir tree, gifts and St. Nicholas (Santa Claus), who got a new name — Ded Moroz — for a new holiday without religious significance. Instead of Christmas, Soviet citizens began to celebrate Novy God en masse, along through the years became the most beloved Soviet holiday, the only one without political or Communist Party associations.
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