It’s fair to say that Russia has, over the centuries, had an interesting relationship with Christmas. Take the atheistic Soviet government, for example, which put a ban on openly celebrating the holiday in 1929; this wasn’t lifted until 1991. Or the initial reluctance for Christmas trees, the idea for which came (as did many other Western notions into Mother Russia) from Germany. Russians considered pine trees a death symbol and didn’t care for one in their house. Until 1817 that is, when the Tsar’s wife (a Prussian princess) plonked one in her private rooms, in defiance of local sensibilities. Gradually, a tree for Christmas caught on, complete with ribbon/bow/lantern decorations, as did the giving of presents and the emergence of Father Frost (or Ded Moroz), a fairytale patriarchal type resembling Father Christmas.
Fast forward to that Grinch-esque suppression of Christmas by the government. In the 1930s, Joseph Stalin decided to bring back a little festive something for the kids. He amped up celebrations for secular New Year, or Noviy God, giving them a determinedly Communist-sanctioned twist. So, no Santa - although Father Frost was fine. No elves or reindeer either; Frost’s Snow Girl sidekick (Snegurochka) took over their duties. Vodka shots replaced eggnog although decorated trees and presents were re-appropriated into the non-religious festivities: Christmas trees were part of the 1920s banning and were now called New Year trees. The main celebratory action took place on December 31 and for many Russians, this is still a major focus of their holiday season.
According to Andrian Chaus, a Muscovite who is currently sous chef at Sydney's Hyatt Regency, things aren't quite so clear-cut with this Russia/Christmas/New Year thing, though. He says that, according to the traditional Julian calendar followed by Russian Orthodox Christians, Christmas in Russia falls on January 7 and that despite the decades of prohibition, “we still celebrated Christmas at home, just not as ‘loudly’ as before”.
The debate over when to celebrate doesn't deter chef Andrian Chaus from staging Russian feasts at this time of year. Source: Adrian Chaus
“By the time I was born, in 1983,” he says, “most Russians celebrated Christmas just like we do now.” The lifting of the ban “was no big deal,” he reckons. He goes on to say that the all-important Russian food traditions were never lost and that a little history lesson is required to really understand his motherland’s indigenous festive rituals.
Christianity, and Russia’s original Christmas traditions, developed from the baptism of Vladimir The Great in 988. Christmas Eve is called sochelnik after sochevo, a ritual dish made from barley, rye, buckwheat, peas and lentils, all mixed with honey. Also called kutya (or kutia), it’s sometimes eaten from a shared bowl to symbolise unity. The feast that follows is epic, involving 12 dishes that hark to the number of apostles. These dishes vary among households but can include blinis, vinegret (a cooked root veg and pickled vegetable salad), jellied meats, potato-stuffed dumplings, fried carp, ginger pies, suckling pig stuffed with kasha (buckwheat groats), home-made sausage and goose or duck with apples. According to tradition, the table should be covered in hay, to reference the manger, and the meal shouldn’t start until the first star appears in the sky. People then exchange gifts of cookies and wish each other well. It’s worth noting that Christmas Eve (January 6) ends Lent, a 40-day fast from meat.
Chaus says his favourite dishes to serve at Christmas are roast duck or goose, stuffed with apple, raisins and honey. And hare in sour cream. He says there’s always vzar, a drink made by boiling dried fruit and honey in water that’s ordinarily served at the birth of a child.
Known by its various names (kutia, kutya and sochelnik), this dish is part of the Christmas culinary tradition in Russia. (Alan Benson)
Russian spiced biscuits (pryaniki) are popular around Christmas time. (John Laurie)
Jaimee Edwards, the fermenter at Sydney’s celebrated cafe Cornersmith, has Russian heritage on her mother’s side. She says her transplanted family kept all the Russian traditions alive in Australia, while their Soviet relatives in the USSR were making secular New Year the focus. For her, Christmas à la russe was always about the centrepiece of roast goose stuffed with prunes and red cabbage, served with boiled potatoes, caviar and sour cream. Before this came the zakusi ("morsels" or appetisers), such as baklazhannaya ikra (a.k.a. ‘poor man’s caviar’, a finely chopped spread of roast eggplant and capsicum). Home-pickled herrings and pickled vegetables made “the old-fashioned way, through fermentation,” were also a feature and she reckons this is where her love for fermenting started. “Because Christmas in Australia is hot,” she says, “my grandmother would make cold kvass” (fermented, non-alcoholic rye bread ‘beer’). Salmon in aspic with plenty of dill is another family favourite, a typically Russian response to scorching Aussie summers.
In contrast, Russia’s frigidity at this time of year enables households to prepare and store prodigious amounts of food for consumption over the holiday period. “We basically start feasting on December 31st,” Chaus says, “and don’t stop until January 13, the day before Orthodox New Year. Everyone invites you to their house where there is constant eating and you might end up staying a few days.”
For Jaimee Edwards, kvass was a familiar presence at the family table. Source: Murdoch Books / Rob Palmer
It’s not unusual, he says for a family to have “around 10-20 kg of Olivier salad (potato, vegetables and chicken in mayo) alone, on hand”. Nothing spoils as temps are firmly in the below-zero realm, with food overflow commonly stored on balconies. No one, he says, runs out of food. Ever.
