As the Christmas season approaches, I remembered some lovely Russian tales of Father Frost (Ded Moroz) and gift giving in Russian and other Slavic nations.
Last year as Christmas approached I read a lovely article in hidden europe magazine about Father Frost and the Russian tradition of gift-giving during the Christmas season.
Father Frost (the Russian name sounds something like Ded Moroz, which is worryingly morbid, but probably sounds much better to a native Russian speaker than to me) is purported to look similar to our Santa, only he has no reindeer and doesn't come secretly through the chimney. Instead, he visits children in person at New Year's Eve parties and brings them gifts. He's accompanied by his granddaughter, the Snow Maiden (Snegurochka), and both of them spend the rest of the year in residence in the Russian town of Veliky Ustyug.
Other ex-Soviet countries follow very similar customs: in Belarus, Dzied Maroz is the equivalent, but interestingly he's a Soviet-era product who's still popular despite attempts to return to older Belarusian traditions. In the ex-Yugoslav states there are small variations on his name and appearance. Meanwhile in Romania and Poland, Ded Moroz equivalents were popular during communist times but after Soviet control was withdrawn, they returned to their own traditions.
