For Soviet people New Year was a special and very important holiday, people used to start preparations long before it came. Let us remember how it was happening.
Since 1918 to 1935 New Year was not an official public holiday in the USSR, however most of Soviet families celebrated this holiday the way they celebrated Christmas. Thus in the first decades of the Soviet Union existence New Year was actually “a family holiday”.
The first official celebration of New Year happened only in 1936. Soviet children got the big holiday at last, and they had Christmas trees at schools, palaces of pioneers, kindergartenы etc. However January 1st remained to be a workday.
1941. The House of the Unions.
1942, a group of reconnaissance officers of the Western Front is celebrating New Year. There is probably alcohol, not tea inside the samovar.
Family celebration, 1954.
New Year’s performance in the early 1950s.
In fact traditions of New Year’s celebration in the USSR started to form only after the war. It’s when they began making Christmas toys: cheap and plain in the beginning (from paper, cotton), later – beautiful and bright from glass.
Those toys could not avoid Soviet symbolism, of course. They were often decorated with red stars, images of pioneers, airships etc.
They started preparations long in advance. It was not so easy to buy food, for example, lines in the shops were very long.
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