For Russians New Years is much more important that Christmas, which is a purely religious holiday and since the Russian Orthodox Church runs on the old calendar, takes place on January 7th. But New Years does share some of the same traditions that Americans and most of Western Europe associate with December 25th. As a holiday it combines Christmas traditions that were originally outlawed under Communism, celebratory techniques often used to welcome the New Year, and some things that are just Russian together to make something that at first glance would appear to an American like Christmas, New Years, and the Fourth of July all rolled into one, no make it a couple, of days. 

Some traditions you might recognize are the pine tree, in this case called a New Years Tree, and Santa Clause. The New Years Tree is pretty much the same as the Christmas tree; some people get real trees some people use fake trees. People often decorate them with lights, ornaments, small toys, and tinsel. And presents are often placed under them. 

In Russia, Santa Clause is a bit different. He goes by Ded Moroz and while he looks similar to other holiday gift givers, older, white beard, often depicted in red, he has a unique helper, his granddaughter, Snegurochka. According to my brief research on the subject she is indeed a uniquely Russian holiday character. There is more than one story of how she came into being, but one of the versions is oddly similar to Frosty the Snow Man. She is very popular today as a part of New Years Celebrations (especially with little girls) and is always depicted with Ded Moroz. 

Also similar to our holiday traditions, many kindergartens put on performances for parents, but in the ones here the little girls dress as Snegurochka and the little boys as bears or rabbits. It is usual to show some dances and recite poems. Andrey's Mom still has a photos of him dressed as a bear for his holiday show. 

Now for what is a bit different. There are no stockings, candy canes, or Santa and elves at the mall in the Russian holidays, but many parents do schedule an actual visit from Ded Moroz and Snegurochka. In the days leading up to the 31st parents will schedule some actors to come to their house dressed as Ded Moroz and Snegurochka. The holiday characters bid a Happy New Year to the family and Ded Moroz has his sack of gifts, but before the children receive theirs they must recite a poem they have practiced for the occasion. 

On New Years Eve it is traditional to have a big dinner with ones family, in front of the TV. The menu, of course, changes from family to family, but for most people it will include caviar sandwiches, champagne, clementines or tangerines, and olivier salad, a Russian potato salad. For the adults at the table, like New Years celebrations around the world, the dinner involves a fair amount of drinking. And of course as a Russian celebration it would not be complete without toasts. At the dinner people say goodbye to the year that is coming to a close. 

When midnight strikes, it is time to welcome the New Year and wish luck and new opportunities to friends and family with a glass of champagne and sometimes a sparkler in hand. The President always makes a televised speech and then many people head outside to set off fireworks. I am told that at this point it will sound like a war is taking place. After the pyrotechnics the party continues on until morning with more drinking, eating, toasts, and the television as a constant background. It is not that common anymore, but some people do dress up in costumes and go outside to continue the party, happily greeting everyone they meet.

On New Years Day the celebrating continues. On this day it is traditionally to eat pelmini, Russian dumplings with meat inside and to continue drinking. Since New Years Day is the start of a 12-day holiday for most of the country people may continue the party for a few days, visiting friends and relatives to welcome the New Year together.

Here in Omsk our holiday festivities will also include the ice sculptures and lights the city puts up in a park downtown. I am not sure if this is a very old custom, but it seems to be popular now. In Moscow they have a full-blown Winter Festival from December 25th-January 5th, which I am sure is more elaborate. Our little winter wonderland will open on December 26th. We went down there today and it is starting to look pretty impressive with huge ice sculptures, a giant New Years tree, and lights being strung everywhere. Here is a preview of one of the sculptures, more photos to come after the park officially opens.

Normally, I am not a big fan of cakes. To me the cake tends to be too dry and the icing too sweet. But from my very first taste this traditional Siberian cake had me hooked. It is just slightly sweet and because each thin layer of cake is covered with the cream it is not dry at all.

I first experienced with this cake during my first trip to Russia. We went over to the apartment of one of Andrey's best friends and his wife had made cheremuhovo cake for dessert. It was like nothing I had had before, but so delicious. Andrey and I were so enamored with the cake that we immediately went about securing a stash of the key ingredient, cheremuhovo flour, to take back to New York with us. It has become our special occasion cake, we bake it for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and anytime we are having people over to celebrate. And I have not served it to anyone who has not been very impressed. 

Now you are probably wondering what cheremuhovo is. Cheremuhovo, черемуховый in Russian, directly translates to bird-cherry tree and you can find it in a botany book. They are small berries with tiny seeds inside that to my knowledge do not grow in America. These berries are ground into a flour which retains a little crunch from the seeds and is part of what makes the cake so unique. 

Makes an 8 layer cake


Ingredients:

Cake:
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
2 cups sour cream or kefir
2 tsp baking soda
2 pakets cheremuhovo
2 cups white flour

Cream:
3 cups sour cream
1 1/2 cups sugar

Directions:

1. Preheate the oven to 350 F or 180 C and butter four cake pans.

2. Beat eggs and sugar together.

3. Add sour cream and mix.

4. Add baking soda and cheremuhovo flour and mix thoroughly, scraping the sides down as you go.

5. Add the flour in 4 parts mixing completely.

6.Now the tricky part, divide the batter into fourths. After several failed math equations, I have determined that it is about 350ml of batter per cake pan.*

7. Bake the cakes for 20-25 minutes, remove from the oven and let cool for about 10 minutes in the pan.

8. Carefully remove the cakes from their pans and place on a cooling rack.

9. Once the cakes are completely cool use a bread knife to slice each cake in half, so you have 8 cakes.

10. Make your cream by wisking the sour cream and sugar together. 

11. Place the first cake layer on a plate and cover it generously** with cream and place the next layer over it. Keep doing this until you are done. They cream will run off the edges of the cake, don't worry about it at the end you can run around the outside of the whole cake with a spatula and smooth it out. 

Notes:
*If you have 4 cake pans you can eye ball the measurement, but if you only have two I recommend measuring the amount of batter.
**Do not be stingy with the amount of cream you put on each layer, the taste of this cake comes from the cream soaking into each layer, so put more than you think you should and if you run out just make more.

Now this cake is by no means healthy, but it is so delicious that on special occasions I make an exception and make it. Normally I don't consume dairy, so my recipes don't use dairy, but I am not sure there is a way to make this recipe dairy and sugar free without losing its taste. Let me know if you have any ideas.

Lately, I have been thinking a lot about my own look, how it has changed over the past few years, and what I would like it to be in the future. As I think about my own look I can’t help but think about fashion today and all the diversity that exists out there. I am not a fashion historian and I have done little research on the subject, but when I think about fashion’s recent past very particular images pop into my head for the latter half of the 1900’s. And whether these “looks” I recall are right or wrong in terms of history, they are also what the fashion industry recalls with its constant reinventing of past decades. When we look back into the past, with a heavy dose of nostalgia, we are presented with are cohesive “looks”, beautiful, wearable statements of where the world was at that moment in time.

Fashion designers today are constantly redoing the 50’s glamour, 60’s mod, 70’s disco, 80’s material girl, and 90’s grunge. Each decade is remembered as having a “look” and it is that “look” we are told to recreate. I am sure in reality there was more room for interpretation in each of these decades, but there was also a way to be in style and everything else was out. Today everything goes, which is liberating, but to me occasionally frustrating. As the world moves faster, we are all constantly connected by the internet, with a million possibilities and responsibilities before us. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a “look”? Sometime I find myself craving the simplicity of a time when there were a few less options, a nostalgia for the perfect images from the past. Instead we have endless stylish options, which constantly include throw backs to the previous decades. This points to a world that is more individualistic, less conventional, but possibly also less discerning. If style is indicative of the self-image we choose to project to the world, what does it say that currently we are a bit haphazard and constantly romanticizing the past? Why didn’t the 00’s create a “look” and why as we approach the halfway mark of the current decade do we still not see a cohesive style? What is it about the past we are so desperate to reclaim that we keep recreating its “looks?” 

Women today cannot desire the restrictions women faced in the 50’s, yet they happily romanticize the decade’s glamorous silhouettes. Not many women today are stepping up to participate in political protest, but the 60’s also have a strong grasp on the nostalgic world of fashion. What is it that people today expect to gain from keeping one foot in the past when it comes to choosing what to wear? The world of fashion used to be constantly innovating, creating the next big trend that would force women everywhere to throw out or alter last year’s clothes or be out of vogue. Now it seems to do nothing but recycle past ideas and present them to the public again. So, are we the public less demanding? Do we not care enough to expect something new and truly creative? I worry that the ambiguity of our style might be indicative of a larger loss of direction. We the generation of the 00’s do not know what we stand for and therefore we cannot formulate a “look” to call our own. So, we blithely pick through the past to put together a collage rather than address the issue at hand, our world seems a bit out of control.

So, as I look around on the street, in shops, at magazines, trying to define my own “look”, or how to say who I am with what I wear, I find myself constantly feeling guilty. I want beautiful clothes, well made, and with innovative designs and often when I find a piece like this I choose to ignore how it was made or where it came from. When I go shopping for food or cleaning supplies or cosmetics, I am constantly evaluating what chemicals went into making it and how they might hurt me or the earth, did the company test on animals, are they fair trade, and the list goes on. I will put a product back if it does not pass my scrutiny, but when it comes to clothes this is not the case. Of course I have my list of excuses to pacify that nagging feeling, I don’t buy things often; I take very good care of them so they last; I don’t have very much money to allot to clothes; I don’t want to only wear hemp t-shirts. None of these excuses are enough, if I care about the earth and my health the way I claim to I should act on it.

With this in mind I began doing some research that lead to a series of conversations with a respected friend, who was doing her own research for environmental groups. One of the groups, Green Works, wanted to publish an environmentally friendly list of places to shop for the holidays. You can find the entire list here, but I wanted to highlight some of the brands I am excited about and recommended for this list.

First, to fill the void in fashion, there is Reformation, a women’s clothing brand devoted to using dead stock and vintage fabrics to minimize their foot print. They have some really cute clothes and next time I am updating my wardrobe I plan to try them out. Another favorite of mine is the Honest co. which originally was started to create products its founders felt were safe to use with their babies. It has expanded to include a whole range of household and personal cleaning products. I have not had a product from them I did not like and I especially like their shampoo, conditioner, and healing balm. All of the companies on this list are stepping up to give consumers a better option. And by choosing to buy from companies like these we can take one step in the right direction and away from the past.

Moving into the future maybe it isn’t important that our decade have a “look,” maybe at this pivotal moment in time our “look” is our consciousness. We can be dressed in an endless variety of styles that showcase individuality, as long as the people underneath them are making mindful decisions for the welfare of the planet and everyone on it. So, that even if our clothes are looking to the past, we are focused on our future.