New Year’s Day in Russia is celebrated the night between December 31st and January 1st. It’s actually the most important holiday for russians. Before the Soviet Party took power, Orthodox Christmas was more significant, but then as the religion in Russia was practically banned, it’s slowly been replaced with the New Year. The traditions remained the same, though – there’s Christmas tree, exchanging gifts and other attributes.
In Russia, we don’t have Santa Claus – we have Ded Moroz (Grandpa Frost). He is an old man, dressing in red and white as all the winter gift givers. He is different from his foreign colleagues by having a granddaughter named Snegurochka (Snow Maiden). They travel around on a traditional russian sleigh called “troika”, which means it is being pulled by three horses. When there’s a party, there should be Ded Moroz and Snegurochka, putting presents under the Christmas or New Year Tree and cheering everybody up.