Russians and all former citizens of the Soviet Union, for which Nova year was the lightest, most joyous, the most sincere, most non-state and the most favorite holiday, and seemed to think that it has always existed everywhere. Just because the New Year as happiness - it is, it can not be. However, as with any holiday, like any events and phenomena, the new year has its own history, has its own characteristics depending on age and country.

New Year: different times, different cultures

It is logical to assume that the New Year has a very ancient history. And not only the New Year, which is celebrated in a big way in our homes from December 31 to January 1, and then some more respite until January 13. Celebrating the end of the old year as the cycle time and the start of a new year is observed in the history of all at once, where as soon as the calendar as a system reference time. For the first time the New Year as a separate holiday is embodied in the ancient civilizations of the East - in Mesopotamia (between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates) and ancient Egypt, at the end of the third - the beginning of the second millennium BC. The original calendars were based on other principles than conventional modern Gregorian calendar, it is guided by the astronomical and climate change.

In Mesopotamia New Year is celebrated for nearly two weeks in late March, when there was an increase in water level in the Tigris and Euphrates, which meant a successful agricultural season .  A similar logic of the New Year celebration was reflected in Egypt, but here the flooding of the Nile, means ensuring the crop for the season ahead, I am in the middle of autumn, so the New Year is celebrated just then .  With climate the New Year has long been associated, and much later: for example, in the Middle Ages the European nations long remained pagan traditions and people of Celtic origin celebrated the New Year in the autumn, at the end of the summer, and the British until the end of the XVI century, said goodbye to the old year only in March .  But by then fifteen hundred years there was a tradition of change, the other on January 1 .  This custom, like many other customs, undertakings, procedures and innovations, is still in effect, on the conscience of the ancient Romans .  Rather, on the conscience of the most famous Roman, Gaius Julius Caesar, who in the middle of the first century BC, had a reform of the calendar and began to count down the new year from January 1 - before the Romans, like many other nations, we celebrated the New Year in March, with the beginning Spring, violently celebrating and giving each other gifts .

New Year's Eve and Russia - along merrier

We were no exception and the inhabitants of Russia - even after the adoption of Christianity up to the XIV century, the New Year was celebrated on March 22, the vernal equinox .  It was from that time remain in our cultural holiday of Maslenitsa: in fact, in those days, Carnival was an analogue of this New Year, when after the winter wires, that is, the old year to meet spring, that is, new life, new year .  Popular beliefs too have changed even in Christianity, and only in 1348 the council of the Orthodox Church, it was decided that in Russia need to celebrate the New Year according to the Christian chronology, which then are traditionally regarded the change of one year another 1 September .  However, the official transfer date not much has changed in the folk tradition: Pancake continued to celebrate as the New Year and until 1492, when Grand Prince Ivan III formally approved the decision of the cathedral in 1348 as the action for all, not only for the clergy, and to the end of the XVII Century .

The turn of XVII-XVIII centuries in Russia, as we know, was marked by fundamental changes in many spheres of life, including the question of the celebration of the New Year .  "Thank you" have to say, of course, the king-reformer Peter I .  It was he who, inspired by his trip to Europe, determined to switch their state in Europe, the Gregorian calendar (the Russian Orthodox Church enjoyed and continues to use the Julian calendar) .  Completely change the calendar king did not dare, but calendar change, not counting the number of years from the creation of the world, and the birth of Christ, but do not celebrate New Year September 1 and January 1 in Europe, he managed .  So count the history of the New Year as a holiday in Russia is carried out from January 1, 1700, when Peter the personal decree ordered the people to have fun, to decorate houses and streets and in every possible way (I mean this Russian way) celebrate .  What we have so far successfully every year and do .

Alexander Babitsky

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