The original painting is by Yelena Stepura, a Moscow-based painter. All of y’all can download and use this, with no charges or fees… Russians aren’t Anglo Americans… we’re not greedy nor are we self-centred attention hounds.
Have a most wonderful and joyous holiday… whichever one you celebrate. Raise a glass and cheer!
BMD
Halloween is almost upon us, which means that commercial Xmas is about ready to begin. It begins right after Halloween, but it really doesn’t pick up steam until Black Friday, the day after American Thanksgiving. I call this day “the Black Mass of American Consumerism”. Everything that’s bad about America and Americans gets put on very public display. Every year, one hears about someone trampled to death or mauled by other crazy shoppers. As for me, I avoid malls until after 25 December… I don’t like the hype, the tension, and the angst on display. It’s not the crowds… it’s not the crass commercialisation of a sacred holiday… it’s the joyless and haunted look on the faces of the people. No one really likes Xmas and its ritualised greed, but it seems that most give in to it. Truly… the canned vapid carols and the goofy decorations don’t bother me. It’s the people… their lemming-like acquiescence in something that they don’t truly want to do. Christmas and Xmas are two different things. Welcome the Christ Child into your home… have a family celebration… yes, give a gift or two (or three). Have a JOYOUS day. You don’t have to give in to Xmas. By the way, Santa’s OK (share a cone with Santa, as Kevin Bloody Wilson sang)… he’s no ogre unless you make him one. We’ll all survive the coming holiday blitz. Have a drink and smile.
BMD
On the bright evening of the Nativity of Christ,
From the depths of my soul,
I want to wish you happiness and health,
And to greet each day with a smile.
Happiness, Love, and Health to you…
These illustrations were part of the original post. You may believe this or you can take credence in the lies that issue forth from the usual cast of rightwing suspects… it’s your call… choose wisely
People hunger for social justice, the nations crave equality, and our Earth wants our solidarity and unity in the causes of conserving nature and of achieving peace in the world
Dear comrades and friends, dear compatriots!
For the past week, we’ve lived in the New Year; now, it’s time for the first state and folk holiday in our new year… the Nativity of Christ. The light and sincere joy of Christmas illuminates the whole coming year. This is an encouraging and life-affirming holiday. Christmas is a time of hope and expectation. After all, the events that occurred more than 2,000 years ago in the Bethlehem manger brought in a new era of civilisation. Christmas is a holiday of unity for mankind, families, generations, and peoples, indeed, unity with all living things, a unity that we have to cherish and keep for the future.
Such is the nature of the Russian people that they think not only about peace and prosperity for their families, but also for the other people in the world. We rejoice in the fact that Christmas flashed a light of hope in the world to an ancient land, for Syria is truly the cradle of Christian civilisation. The light of the guiding star led the sages and magi; it foreshadowed the birth of a new world. The apostles and saints preached there; Apostle St Paul showed by his preaching and deeds that labour and the merciful Word are the foundations of right living. We are proud of the fact that Russian strength and diplomacy freed this ancient land from diabolical encroachment. However, that’s Russia’s historical destiny… to come unto our suffering brethren, those who need help and support. The main features of our soul are compassion and sacrifice, even though many of those that we saved and bestowed benefits upon didn’t always faithfully preserve the memory of it.
In 2017 we’ll celebrate the centenary of an event that marked a new era in the struggle for social justice and labour, the world-renowned Great October Socialist Revolution. Since ancient times, people craved justice and the peoples craved friendship and equality. After all, the fields, rivers, mountains, and natural resources, the vast expanses of land and sea, belonged to a narrow circle of people, those who through cunning and treachery appropriated the common domain. It shouldn’t be so that some nations put themselves above the others and deal unjustly with those who are weaker. As F M Dostoevsky put it:
The highest and the most characteristic feature of our nation is a sense of justice and a desire for it.
A century ago, people gathered under the banner of hope, wanting happiness, well-being, and equality of all peoples of the earth as their highest values. A new era in the history of mankind changed the face of the world. The struggle of the working people of the world for their rights, inspired by the victory of October, bore fruit in many countries. The colonial world collapsed and people won their freedom and independence; working people in the West and the East, receiving support from the USSR, won many social gains. Under the banner of the Great October, our country won over the world forces of evil… fascism. It achieved unprecedented breakthroughs in science, technology, and space exploration; it built a society based on humanity, where the people were friends, comrades, and brothers. However, victory is never final. We must seek it again and again. Betrayal, treachery, cowardice, greed, blind credulity, hypocrisy, and cowardice are ever-present. As Apostle St Paul said, “By both word and deed”, we must struggle for lofty ideals constantly, every day and every hour.
People of goodwill and pure thought yearn for peace throughout the world. The socialist state, for which we struggle, has the duty to ensure the fundamental rights enshrined for the first time in October 1917 for all peoples. Working people have a right to creative work that brings joy and inspiration. Parents have a right to universal and free education for their children. Everyone everywhere has a right to affordable health care… no one should have to rely on “philanthropists” to provide life and health for both the young and those beat down by the hard path of life.
Yes, a quarter of a century ago, our country guaranteed these rights, and the older generation remembers it. They could tell younger people about Soviet childhood, youth, and formation, about the achievements that brought forth the revolution that took place a century ago, when our people embarked on building a great future. We firmly believe in the ideals of peace and labour, liberty and justice, and equality and fraternity. These ideals are eternal, and therefore indestructible. We believe that mankind will rise, and the polyphony of a genuine ode to joy will sound over the entire planet.
On this festive day, I wish good health and optimism to everyone, fulfilment of your good wishes and aspirations, harmony and well-being to every family, and a happy childhood and joyful youth to our young people. I work for and have confidence in the future of all people, peace and prosperity for all peoples in the world, dedicated to the eternal ideals of goodness and justice.
To the holiday! To the Nativity of Christ!
6 January 2017
Head of the KPRF faction in the RF Gosduma
Chairman of the TsK KPRF
KPRF.ru
KPRF official website
Voices from Russia 
Christmas: A Celebration of Light, Family, Peace, Love, and Joy
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______________________________
To His Holiness Kirill
Patriarch of Moscow and all the Russias
Dear friends and comrades, my brothers and sisters!
From the Pacific Ocean to the icebound White Sea, our entire state is ready to celebrate Christmas… a beloved traditional holiday, the first in the new 2019. I’d like the feeling of joy, togetherness, and love to last for the whole coming year. Traditionally, we celebrate Christmas with the people most dear and close to us… our parents, children, grandchildren, workmates, friends, colleagues, and those with whom we share our joys and trials. However, according to ancient tradition, our thoughts turn these days to those treated badly by life, those who even on these joyful days are cold, hungry, uncomfortable, and anxious, and to those who vigilantly carry out their duty to protect the Motherland, to those who look after our health and safety. Mercy and gratitude figure largely in the Russian national character, in Russian people, in all those who live on our blessed land. Therefore, first of all, I want to give Christmas greetings to our servicemen, border guards, police, rescue workers, doctors, and volunteers, as well as to all those sick, weak, afflicted, orphaned, and homeless.
On this bright holiday, we look back as we gather around the festive table as if starting a new beginning in life. We evaluate our achievements; we blame ourselves for our errors, we make wishes, we give each other gifts, and we make plans for the coming year. On such days, we more than ever feel the unity of the past and the future. We can particularly clearly feel during the Christmas holidays the unity and interdependence of the world, of peoples, of countries, and of continents. Today, it’s more and more obvious that the formula of the “end of history” is fallen. The West actively imposed this on us immediately after the destruction of the USSR, when it seemed to many in the West that they defeated the ideals of social equality. Current events show that it isn’t so, history hasn’t reached a conclusion. The struggle for the interests of the working people, for justice, which is trampled upon by self-lovers, exploiters, and rapists, is only growing. The confrontation between labour and capital, between rich and poor, is growing, becoming ever more acute and spilling over into open protests of the disadvantaged. We give them our sympathy and special support during these Christmas days.
Our great state is now a target for continuous attacks by its traditional opponents and detractors. A siege is coming for our country, when the base of the “approach” is almost along its entire perimeter… not only to intimidate us but also for possible aggression. The goal is to grasp the gigantic resources of Russia, to take our open spaces connecting East and West. They want to make our people forget their dignity and great history. We, as heirs of a mighty state and its glorious past, are particularly concerned about the process of alienation of the fraternal Ukraine from the Russian Federation, which they are trying to strike at the very heart, to knock out the canonical Orthodox Church, which is the support of the people. When the new government banned the activities of the Communist Party of the Ukraine in 2015, when they subjected its headquarters, newspapers, and offices to pogroms, when they defamed its leaders and activists, we warned that the process of destruction wouldn’t stop there. Indeed, such happened. In the Ukraine, not only do we see a revival of Nazi madness, but also a dangerous church schism, conceived far from the Dnieper and implemented with Byzantine cunning and American-English perfidy.
The schismatics don’t heed the words of the Fathers:
They don’t hear the witness of Orthodoxy:
They don’t attend to the sayings of righteous elders:
In these hard times, we wish steadfastness for all Orthodox, not only those in the fraternal Ukraine. We all need to be firm and faithful. We hope that the cup of trials and torment would pass us by. We hope that the lava of bitterness won’t cover the Ukrainian land and that a hopeless “St Bartholomew’s Night” wouldn’t fall on it. We still believe that we can admonish the misguided, sober those intoxicated with anger, to reach out to our disoriented brethren, addressing them with the message of the poem Slavs by Fyodor Tyutchyov:
Finally, we wish our beloved Russia to overcome inertia and embark on creative transformations in the interests of the majority, without imitating others, without the camouflage of showy festivities. It’s very important for us to return to the main achievements of the Soviet period… affordable education for all, truly free healthcare, and high-quality social security. The past year dealt a severe blow to whole generations of our citizens, who now have to work even longer, rolling up their sleeves in order to receive their expected and deserved reward from the state in the form of pensions. It’s become ever clearer to those able to see and hear that the course imposed on our country is a course going nowhere. As promised, we’ll continue to strive to achieve the creation of a socially responsible government focused on the national interests of the country, which would take care of the workers, overcome poverty and corruption, and wouldn’t serve the oligarchic clans who illegally appropriated gigantic resources for themselves. We can and should invest the national wealth in science, education, culture, and sports… in real modernisation, not its ostentatious imitation.
The quality of any policy is determined by the welfare and well-being of our people, by their life expectancy and education, and by its respect for our country and people. To realise our national interests, we need new objectives, another way of thinking, and a new socio-political culture. In this Christmas holiday season, the KPRF and other popular patriotic forces once again affirm that we’d actively struggle with all the situations facing our people, for the creation of social justice, to implant a creative and honest moral-political situation in the country and in the authorities. We must turn away from the course of destruction and return to the path of goodness and creativity. Otherwise, we’d spiral finally into the funnel of the crisis.
My dear compatriots, I greet all of you on the holiday, I hope that together we’d be able to prevent adversity and protect our fellow citizens, as we see in the All-Night Vigil:
I believe that every malice and pride in everyday life, despondency, and negligence in our hearts will come to an end, and love, humanity and brotherly love would strengthen them.
С Праздником! С Рождеством Христовым!
To the feast! To the Nativity of Christ!
6 January 2019
Head of the KPRF faction in the RF Gosduma
Chairman of the TsK KPRF
KPRF.ru
KPRF official website
https://kprf.ru/party-live/cknews/181627.html?fbclid=IwAR2o3HmR-bT1T649Q9O3tAmHFznylGgJTCKsvzMMlvi72ILvS3sdpB7YNK4