Ded Moroz (Grandpa Frost), the Russian Santa Claus, has two homes, one in Veliky Ustyug, in northwestern Vologda Oblast, and the other in Moscow’s Kuzminki Park, where he spends the New Year’s holidays.
******
Dede has a granddaughter, Snegurochka (the Snow Maiden).
******
Traditionally, Dede travels by sleigh.
******
Ahead of New Year’s, Dede has to morph into as many copies as we need to light up New Year’s Trees across the entire country.
******
Dede reads the letters that children send to him to learn what each one of them would like to have for a New Year’s gift.
******
Dede’s bedroom in his residence at Moscow’s Kuzminki Park.
******
Performances dedicated to Dede are an essential part of New Year’s celebrations at Russian schools and kindergartens.
******
Where his sleigh will not pass, Dede uses other modes of transportation, such as this air cushion vehicle in St Petersburg.
******
Dede in a vintage car in a parade on St Petersburg’s Senate Square.
******
Dede has many foreign colleagues, such as Norway’s Julenissen.
******
Dede sitting in his Moscow residence
______________________________
24 December 2013
RIA-Novosti
http://en.ria.ru/photolents/20131223/184781297/Father-Frost.html
Editor’s Note:
Dede is part of the secular New Year’s celebration… he isn’t religious at all. The hyper-religious can all get down from their high horses and they can all sit in the corner with their long faces, tight-arsed attitude, and general killjoy spirit. Meanwhile, the rest of us normal human beings can pop a cork or two and SMILE. God gave us this life, and it’s GOOD. Everything has its place, and the secular is just as important for us as the religious is. In any case, Dede is for EVERYBODY… New Year is a “Party for Everybody” (as Buranovskiye Babushki sang (click here for this fab song)). It’s a time when ALL of us can bow to one another, wish one another a good year, hug one another, be unashamedly happy, and do it as one. I see much good… and no bad… in that. Those who think otherwise can kiss my ass, and that’s that.
BMD
Voices from Russia 
You must be logged in to post a comment.