HAPPY NEW YEAR
01
Revellers welcome
the New Year with
fireworks in Red
Square
02
Party Hawaiin style in
the Aloha Bar
03
The famous
Olivier salad
03
01
02
“Some like the
family element,
but don’t be
thinking Russians
don’t know
how to party”
0 3 1
GO THE FULL MONTY
One Russian New Year tradition
that has never gone away is the
banya
(sauna). Doing it properly
involves whipping each other with
birch twigs and smearing honey on your skin before
rolling in the snow to cool off. It’s often prescribed as
a post-party detox and people rent private banyas for
NYE. The plot of the ever-popular film
The Irony of Fate
famously revolves around the consequences of
a drunken New Year’s Eve banya session. Try a visit to
the 200-year-old Sanduny Banya
(sanduny.ru)
.
(
beefreef.ru
) features an Olivier that’s enhanced with
salmon and crab meat.
Various venues riff affectionately off other Soviet
traditions too. Club Che
(clubche.ru)
themes its party
around the 1975 film
Ironiya sudby, ili S legkim parom!
(The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath!) which is still
broadcast without fail every New Year’s Day.
Meanwhile, several clubs, including Kerosinka
(kerosinka-restoran.ru)
, stage a visit from Grandfather
Frost, the Russian Father Christmas. Ded Moroz, as he is
known, is traditionally accompanied by his
granddaughter, Snegurochka – although in Moscow clubs,
his consort is more likely to be a scantily clad dancer than
the SnowMaiden of legend. It’s a sign, perhaps, of how
times in the Russian capital are still a changin’.
R E G U L A R S
