How do they celebrate it in families

So, all preparations are over . New Year food is on the table. At about 10 pm people start gathering at the tables, eating and talking what happened during the past year.

At 12 midnight everybody stands up holding a glass of champagne, greet and wish well to each other.

Then a firework starts outside and people rush out to the streets. They greet their neighbors and all other people they meet on the streets - known and unknown. No Russian celebration without a music. Usually somebody would play a Russian traditional instrument (squeeze box, bayan and balalaika) and people sing and dance with this music. Most of the time it will be a folk music-- especially singing and dancing with the squeeze box -- surely it will be a traditional melody.

Quite likely you will hear one or few of the songs that are shown below:

Traditional Song ' Oh,Frost,Frost!'

Traditional Song 'Cossacks on Don'

Traditional Song 'Ah, It is Not Evening Yet'

Recommendation:

Russian traditional Music on Amazon

Don Kosaken Chor (Don Cossacks Choir): Abendglocken (Evening Bells): Traditional Russian Songs Import Edition (1999) Audio CD

Folk Songs of Old Russia The Sveshknikov Choir MP3

Balalaika

Special word about balalaika. It is very old traditional Russian music instrument. It represents the very essence of Russian soul. Go ahead to listen to some examples of its' performance. On Amazon now they let you listen to the music you are interested in, so you can decide if you want to buy it or not.

Below is Russian Traditional music played on balalaika.

Traditional 'Kamarinskaya'

Balalaika Favorites

Some people rush to visit their friends or relatives. Some will go back home ( or it might be in a restaurant) and continue eating the testy food, listening to a music or dancing. They will certainly sing together as this is a part of the Russian celebrations tradition. The celebration will go on all night.

It is traditional in Russia that some of the public transport would work all New Year night. At the time of the USSR this night the public transport was free for everybody.

On the 1st of January you would find the streets empty, because people sleep all day. Many would have to go to work the next day, but many would have long holidays.

The "must" part of Russian Christmas activities is to watch fairy tales moves and animated or read fairy tales books. Russian fairy tales are quite different from fairy tales of most countries and they are more like real life stories, but with some magical twist . Below are some examples of Russian fairy tales.