HV. On the night of the sixth on January 7 Russian Orthodox celebrate Christmas. As you know, in our country church in the early 20th century was not moved from the Julian calendar to the new Gregorian so that the calendar is 13 days different from the calendar used by other Christians. Christmas as a holiday in Russia is very different from its counterpart in the rest of the Christian world.Initially, the Christmas holidays were linked with many folk customs, but they are forgotten after a 1918 celebration of Christmas was banned.Only in 1935 the Soviet government allowed to set and re-dressing the Christmas tree — though not Christmas and the New Year. And the star on top of it were Soviet-style five-pointed, rather than the seven-pointed as before, when they were supposed to symbolize the very star that, according to the Gospel, has led to the newly born Christ Child Magi.Roughly the same thing happened with the holidays — New Year and Christmas. If, before the 1918 Christmas is celebrated all over the place, and the New Year was much less important holiday, then under Soviet rule, they switched places. USSR was the only country in the world where the New Year absorbed the attributes of Christmas, while remaining completely Soviet holiday. And after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the reverse transformation did not happen — the New Year and has remained a traditional family holiday, while celebrating Christmas early only part of the population, predominantly Orthodox Christians.In recent years, however, more and more people attend Christmas celebrations in the church, remembering the religious meaning of the holiday. Today, the majority of believers in Russia celebrates Christmas on January 7 according to the old Julian calendar.Day zapovenikaFirst Day of reserves and national parks began celebrated in 1997 on the initiative of the Center for Wildlife Conservation and the World Wildlife Fund.January 11 this is not accidental. On this day in 1916 in Russia was formed the first national park — Barguzinsky.Today, there are 100 nature reserves and 35 national parks, they take about 3% of the area of Russia.
