Good evening, Dear listeners! Добрый вечер, дорогие слушатели!

 

 Episode 14 - Happy New Year: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Today is already the last day of the year. How do Russians celebrate this holiday?

Usually New Year is a family holiday with tables full of different tasty things and champagne. President of Russia addresses nation before clock strikes 12 and then a lot of fireworks and bottles of champagne burst out into celebrations which now officially lasts almost 10 days.

For children it’s a magical day - they can find their presents under the New Year Tree. Sometimes Дед Мороз / Ded Moroz (Russian Santa Claus, we call him Father Frost) and Снегурочка / Snegurochka (Ded Moroz’s granddaughter) come to houses and give away gifts after children sing them a song or recite poems about winter and New Year.

Let’s learn some phrases which we use to congratulate each other:

• C наступающим НовымГодом! [S nas-too-pa-yu-schim Novym Godom!] Happy coming New Year!
• С Новым Годом! [S Novym Godom!]Happy New Year!
• С наступающим Рождеством ! [S nas-too-pa-yu-schim Rozh-dest-vom! ] Merry coming Christmas! P.S. Russians celebrate Christmas on 6th-7th of January night (Julian calendar)
• C Рождеством [Христовым]! [S Rozh-dest-vom [Khris-to-vym]!] Merry Christmas!
• Со Старым Новым Годом! [So Starym Novym Godom!] Happy Old New Year! Yeah, it sounds strange but we do celebrate it too on 13th of January – New Year by Old Style (Julian calendar). It’s not an official holiday but a good chance to have a small gathering again.

Common phrases which can be said for any holiday (we took it in Episode 4 – Victory day):

• С наступающим праздником! Happy coming holiday!
• С праздником! Happy Holiday!
• Поздравляем! Congratulations! (plural, from a group of people)
• Поздравляю! Congratulations! (singular)

The most famous Russian New Year song is “V lesy rodilas yolochka” (A small fir-tree was born in the forest). Every Russian young and adult knows it. That’s all for today, now let’s sing a song and see you already in New Year 2009!

Удачи! И с наступающим Новым Годом! Пока!

В лесу родилась ёлочка / V lesu rodilas yolochka

(lyrics by Raisa Adamovna Kudashyova, music by Leonid Karlovich Bekman)

Useful links:

• New Year’s Day (wiki)
• Old New Year (wiki)
• The most popular New Year movie: Ирония судьбы (Irony of Fate, wiki)

Quite recently, on 9th of May, Russia was celebrating Victory Day. It took a while for me to prepare and publish this post but I think that it’ll never be late to tell you about this one of the greatest holidays in Russia.

Victory Day - is a national holiday which remembers the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II and honors all the people who died in the war as well as those who spent days and nights in factories making guns and machines to support Soviet Army.

My grandparents were very small at those times but they have seen this War and still remember it. My grandmother told me terrible stories how she and her mother spent several years in concentration camp (death camp) in Ukraine.

Parades, festivals, flowers to the graves and eternal flame, movies, songs (see useful links below), TV programs about veterans - this is the holiday when you get goose bumps and tears just after reading, watching and imagining how it was.

 

 Victory Day: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Let’s learn some phrases which we use to congratulate each other and thank veterans:

• Дорогие ветераны! Большое вам спасибо! Dear veterans! Thank you very much!
• С Днем Победы! Happy Victory Day!
• С Праздником Победы! Happy Victory Holiday!
• Поздравляем [вас] с праздником Победы! We congratulate [you] with Victory Holiday!

Common phrases which can be said for any holiday:

• С праздником! Happy Holiday!
• Поздравляем! Congratulations! (plural, from a group of people)
• Поздравляю! Congratulations! (singular)

Useful links:

• About Victory Day - the article I’ve found, quite detailed and touching;
• you can download the famous Victory Day song (mp3) which I used in podcast from the article in Wikipedia about this song with lyrics both in Russian and English and translation.