The New Year of the Russian Arctic Peoples

The Russian Orthodox Church remains faithful to the Julian calendar and celebrated it on 14 January. The Korjaks of Kamčatka start the year at the winter solstice, on 21 or 22 December. So do the čukči on the Alaskan border. In the Urals, khanty and mansi await the arrival of the crows in spring.

Moscow (AsiaNews) - The Russian Orthodox Church celebrated the "old New Year" on 14 January, proudly sticking to the Julian calendar, while waiting for Baptism on 19 January to conclude the Christmas cycle. Actually, the first official date in Kievan Rus' was 1 March, changed to 1 September only in 1492, according to different provisions of the Orthodox liturgical year. It was not until the 'Westernist' Tsar Peter the Great, in the early 1700s, that people began to celebrate the first of January.

The dates of the New Year, after all, vary widely among peoples at all latitudes, and even in Russia, various ancient traditions do not fail to reappear, especially among the small peoples of the Arctic north. The Korjaki, an ethnic group from the upper part of Kamchatka, begin the year at the winter solstice, on 21 or 22 December, and call the holiday 'Tuygivin' (Fire Day).

As Tatjana Ikavav, a native Korjaka, tells us, 'you can't survive for more than a few hours without fire'; the fire provides warmth, and the fire provides food, cooking fish and meat from reindeer, whale or walrus, along with buns. One throws a piece into the fire and makes a wish. "This year, I asked that all peoples, Russians, Korjaki, čukči, Zveny, Ukrainians and all the others could live in friendship, respecting each other". The bonfire is lit by the village elders, giving thanks to the 'spirit of fire' that purifies the human soul.

In Čukotka, on the border with Alaska, the new year is called 'Pegytti', also celebrated at the winter solstice. As a local woman, Aleksandra Sleptsova, recounts in a conversation with Sibir.Realii, 'according to the elders, the reindeer know when the day begins to lengthen again, they turn 180 degrees and head north. On that day, the star Pegytti, the čukčo name for Altair, of the constellation Aquila, rises. The čukči also light a fire, with a special 'fire table' that has been handed down from generation to generation.

The Khanty and Mansi, two Finno-Ugric groups at the top of the Urals, instead celebrate the New Year in spring, between the end of March and the beginning of April, without a precise date. Everything depends on the flight of the crows, the first migratory birds that arrive in the far north when the snow has not yet melted. The Ugrians of the Ob, the great river that springs from the Urals, believe that the cries of the crows awaken nature, and therefore call the festival 'Vurna Khatl', the 'Day of the Crow'.

An inhabitant of the Khanty-Mansijskaja autonomous region, Galina Andreeva, remembers her grandmother's tales about the times of the big freeze, when food reserves ran out and the trees became like stalactites. On the tundra then came a crow, which, seeing itself alone in the frost, cried out, so that the trees shook off the snow, the animals moved and the men came out of their houses. On the horizon, the sun came out and the flocks of crows arrived and everything came alive again.

With the arrival of Russian Christianity, the beginning of the year was set for 25 March, the Feast of the Annunciation, with a happy correspondence between the crow's cry and the Angel's announcement. Both indicate the birth of life, and crows and ravens are believed to be protectors of mothers and children; it is believed that the first woman to spot a crow will soon also become the first pregnant woman of the year, a bit like the stork in other countries.

Since 2011, the regional government has set a new date, the second Saturday in April, in order to move more towards the warmth and exalt popular traditions. The result, as is the case with double dates in Christian calendars, is that the khanty and mansi double the winter festivities, greeting the rebirth of life by uniting cultures and religions.