New Year trees in the Kremlin during Soviet times. The history of the Kremlin Christmas tree Who was at the Soviet Kremlin Christmas tree

By good tradition, the main Christmas tree of the country, which any child dreams of getting, is still the Kremlin one.

Among the many newfangled New Year's entertainment The Kremlin Christmas tree is still the most popular. As before, the main New Year's celebration children of all ages are happy to visit the Kremlin.

The Kremlin Christmas tree is still the most important, the most colorful, and the most beloved by children. new year event... It is attended by the largest number of viewers, and takes part in the creation of its program the largest number Human.

Every winter, the Kremlin hosts almost 50 New Year's performances, to which about five thousand children come every day.

The main Christmas tree in Russia has its own long-standing scenario. An elegant beauty meets little guests in the Armorial Hall of the Kremlin Palace. In the Parquet hall of the palace, a fun entertainment, in which all guests take part, regardless of age. Fun contests, a round dance around the Christmas tree, attractions create a holiday feeling for children, charge them with fun and joyful anticipation of the performance that is about to begin in the auditorium.

Music, illumination, colorful scenery and costumes - but the main thing, of course, the heroes of the performance, together with Santa Claus and his granddaughter, Snegurochka, create a feeling of a fairy tale in the viewer. However, it is impossible to predict the plot of the play in advance. Every year a new one is invented original script, the plot of which is not revealed until the last moment. After all, what is the New Year without surprises?

And, of course, the most awaited surprise by children of the Kremlin Christmas tree - sweet gift, which they take away along with the unforgettable impressions of the show they just saw.

The organizers of the holiday are traditionally: the Administrative Department of the President of the Russian Federation, the Moscow Government, the Moscow Federation of Trade Unions.

From the history of the Kremlin Yolka

The first children's Christmas tree took place back in 1936 and took place in the Column Hall of the House of Unions. In 1954, the doors of the Grand Kremlin Palace were opened for the main children's holiday, after which it became a real tradition to gather children here on New Year's Eve. Later, the most popular children's performance was moved to the Kremlin Palace of Congresses.

The rules and traditions have changed significantly since then: in Soviet times, the obligatory characters of the performance were the legendary heroes of the revolution, an important part of the script was reading out brief statements from the course of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, and the tree was lit at the signal of a gunfire from the cruiser Aurora - part of the decoration of the New Year's performance of those years.

And in 1964, young scriptwriters-reformers Ouspensky, Kurlyandsky and Hait presented their script for the New Year's performance, the heroes of which were Baba Yaga, Koschey the Immortal and Ded Moroz with the Snow Maiden.

The children liked the new characters much more than the Red Army men with guns. Since then, the best scriptwriters and theatrical figures of the country have been invited to develop scenarios for the Kremlin Christmas tree. The costumes, special effects and music for the New Year's performances are improved every year. This is an extremely important task, because the Kremlin Christmas tree is rightfully considered the most important Christmas tree in Russia.

For many children, visiting these performances has long become a good tradition. Let it go on!

First, the tree, as an attribute of a religious relic - Christmas, was included in the list of class alien elements. At the same time, for the time being, severe persecution of new year celebrations did not have. Soviet books for children even talked about how personally Vladimir Ilyich Lenin attended New Year's parties.

However, in 1928, at the height of the anti-religious campaign, the trees and New Year's celebrations were over. It seemed like forever.

But in 1935 everything changed miraculously. Candidate member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) Pavel Postyshev appeared in the newspaper "Pravda" with an article in which he actually rehabilitated the New Year and called for organizing merry New Year's holidays for children.

What our people have been famous for in all epochs is their swift reaction to higher orders. Already on December 30, 1935, in Kharkov, where Postyshev had recently worked as the first secretary of the regional party committee, the first New Year's carnival ball in the USSR was held. About 1200 schoolchildren took part in it.

From that moment on, both children's and adult New Year's celebrations received a permanent residence permit in the Land of the Soviets.

On January 1, 1937, a carnival ball of excellent students was held at the Moscow House of Unions, which opened the tradition of the country's main Christmas tree.

Interestingly, even at the highest level, the term "the country's main Christmas tree" was rather arbitrary. When Lazar Kaganovich asked the leader of the USSR Joseph Stalin where to put the main Christmas tree of the country, the leader of the peoples uttered:

We have all the main trees!

Nevertheless, the "Kremlin New Year tree" unofficially had the highest status. It should be noted that initially, as mentioned above, it was held in the House of Unions, located at the current building of the State Duma.

A holiday of political significance

The first Soviet New Year trees were rather politicized. The performances in one way or another touched on the topic of class struggle, and children came to them in the costumes of the Red Army or shock labor. The achievements of the hero pilots, the conquerors of the Arctic were also sung - in a word, it was popularly explained to the boys and girls why it was so “good to live in a Soviet country”.

Time affected not only the scripts of New Year's performances, but also the fate of the "father" of the Soviet New Year Pavel Postysheva... In 1938, the internal party struggle led to the fact that he was removed from all posts and arrested, and in February 1939 he was shot in Butyrka prison.

New Year's celebrations nevertheless continued. Even in wartime, despite all the difficulties, children's New Year's parties were held. And in 1945, the festive scale of the New Year tree in the House of Unions symbolized the approach of Victory. On the main staircase, young guests were greeted by mummers who played musical instruments. The guys especially liked the hare orchestra. "Hares" played carrots instead of pipes. In the lobby there were amusement rides: a swing, a Ferris wheel, a carousel. Puppet jazz played in front of the "magic room" under the direction of the conductor Gutalina Gutalinovich.

Snow Maiden is a Stalinist and New Year is a communist

December 23, 1947, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR declared January 1 "a holiday and a non-working day." Thus, the New Year in the USSR received not only recognition, but also an official status.

The main Christmas tree of the country was held in the House of Unions until 1954, when for the first time a New Year's party for children was admitted directly to the Kremlin, or rather, to the St. George Hall of the Grand Kremlin Palace.

The script for the festive performance was written by famous Lev Kassil and Sergey Mikhalkov... At the same time, the ideological component did not go anywhere - so, until Stalin's death, Santa Claus and Snow Maiden did not forget to poetic form to praise the "leader of the peoples".

And even after the change of the Soviet leadership, the topic of achievements and "individual shortcomings" resolutely did not want to leave the New Year trees.

In 1961, with the opening of the Kremlin Palace of Congresses, the country's main Christmas tree moved there. But even here, at first, everything remained the same. So, after the announcement Nikita Khrushchev the plan for building communism in the USSR by 1980, the artist informed the children:

I am the first year of twenty

You should go to communism with me!

Ideology was defeated by the creators of the Wolf and Cheburashka

A radical turning point in the situation occurred in 1964, when young authors were involved in the development of the script for the Kremlin New Year tree. Alexander Kurlyandsky and Edward Uspensky- future "fathers", respectively, "Well, wait a minute" and "Crocodile Gena".

Instead of the traditional cruiser Aurora, Kukuruza, and other similar topical plots for that time, they proposed the pioneer's journey to the Land of Fairy Tales.

How do you compare the shock of Soviet officials from such a scenario? Well, imagine the reaction of the current officials, if they find out that the main character children's matinee will become Mikhail Khodorkovsky?

Nevertheless, Kurlyandsky and Uspensky managed to put the script into practice, and from that moment on, the country's main Christmas tree, like all others, began to evolve towards a magical children's holiday that was not mixed with any ideology.

The Kremlin Christmas tree was the most, as they say, "status" - in the days of winter new year holidays the show was shown on television.

Scarecrow about the Christmas tree

The best students of Moscow and other cities of the country were awarded with tickets to the Kremlin Christmas tree. It was believed that at the Kremlin Christmas tree there were not only the best performances, but also the best gifts.

A special feature of the Christmas tree in the Kremlin Palace of Congresses was its massiveness. The hall, which can accommodate several thousand people, was packed with children to capacity. Another nuance of the country's main Christmas tree is connected with this. In order to avoid the loss of children by their parents, who were not allowed to attend the performance itself, after the end of the Christmas tree boys and girls were led out in formation to the Cathedral Square of the Kremlin, where they walked in a large circle, while the parents standing around grabbed their children.

Naturally, in the children's environment, horror stories arose in this regard, beginning with the words: “One boy was not taken away from Kremlin New Year tree, and…". And then there was a horror movie, depending on the strength of the narrator's imagination.

After the collapse of the USSR, the status of the “main tree of the country” dropped significantly. Numerous bright New Year shows pressed her in the eyes of children and parents.

Nevertheless, the authorities of modern Russia do not want to completely abandon traditions either. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the first New Year tree in the Kremlin Palace of Congresses, now the State Kremlin Palace. For the anniversary was delivered new year show based on Pushkin's fairy tales - "Indescribable Beauty", which involves over 300 artists of theaters, universities, creative teams.

And rightly so - after all, good traditions make this world a better place. And the main Christmas tree of the country over the decades has warmed the hearts of hundreds of thousands of boys and girls with the light of its New Year's lights.

For a Soviet person, this was a special, most long-awaited holiday. They began to prepare for it in the summer. Although the main elements of a home holiday have survived from Soviet times, in those days, preparing for the New Year in the traditional form was almost a heroic act, and many now recall that painstaking work with nostalgia.

For the New Year in the USSR, they were preparing long before its onset: due to the fact that it was difficult to get food, they bought everything they needed in a few months and carefully stored it until the right moment. Now it is difficult to imagine this, but in order to get the main ingredients, for example, Olivier salad, one had to try hard: there was no mayonnaise, green peas, sausages on the free market - they began to stock up from October. It was with great difficulty that the main drink of the holiday, Soviet champagne, was also obtained.

So we also decided to prepare in advance and remember in a nostalgic compilation how it was.

At first, the New Year was not official. public holiday However, most families traditionally celebrated it alongside Christmas, and the holiday was considered a family holiday.

For the first time, the New Year was officially celebrated only at the end of 1936, after an article by a prominent Soviet figure Pavel Postyshev in the Pravda newspaper.

“Why do we have schools, orphanages, nurseries, children's clubs, palaces of pioneers depriving the children of the working people of the Soviet country of this wonderful pleasure? Some, not otherwise than the "left" benders denounced it children's entertainment as a bourgeois venture. Follow this misjudgment of the tree, which is great fun for children, to end. Komsomol members, pioneer workers should arrange for the New Year collective trees for kids. In schools, orphanages, in pioneer palaces, in children's clubs, in children's cinemas and theaters - there should be a Christmas tree everywhere! City councils, chairmen of district executive committees, village councils, and public education authorities should help arrange a Soviet Christmas tree for the children of our great socialist homeland. "

1960 Costumes and Christmas tree decorations reflected the power of the country: divers and cosmonauts at the Kremlin Christmas tree. The first satellite has already been in orbit, and the film "Amphibian Man" has not yet been filmed.

Tickets for the New Year's tree for children were also difficult to get. And you also need a gauze snowflake costume or a bunny outfit. A gift that included caramels, and apples, and walnuts, provided to parents by the trade union. The dream of every child was to get to the main Christmas tree of the country - first to the Column Hall of the House of Unions, and after 1954 - to the Kremlin Christmas tree.

It was only after the war that the traditions of celebrating the New Year in the USSR began to really take shape. Christmas tree decorations began to appear: at first, very modest ones - made of paper, cotton wool and other materials, later - beautiful, bright ones, made of glass, similar to the decorations of pre-revolutionary Christmas trees. By the end of the 1960s, the mass production of Christmas tree toys was in full swing, and you could buy quite a few simple options made of plastic, usually with Soviet symbols.

Festive table

We were preparing for the holiday in advance. First, you need to buy food - that is, "get it", stand in hourly lines, get sprats, caviar, smoked sausage in grocery orders.

Those who had an acquaintance of a seller in a grocery store could afford brandy for 8 rubles 12 kopecks, champagne “Soviet” semi-sweet, tangerines for the New Year.

Or stand in line for a long time, as in this photo.

Outfits and gifts

Every Soviet woman absolutely needed a new one. fashion dress- it could be sewn with your own hands or in a studio, in rare cases - you could buy it from the farmers; the store was the last place to find something.

New Year's gifts are another obstacle for Soviet citizens in the process of preparing for the New Year. There was tension with any goods in the country, and with beautiful goods it was even worse, so our parents went on a visit, grabbing champagne, sausage, preferably Cervelat, canned exotic fruits (pineapples), boxes of chocolates. Women were given Soviet perfumes for the holiday, which were in abundance in stores, and colognes were given to men.

"Nothing makes a woman more beautiful than hydrogen peroxide." - this joke becomes relevant on the eve of everyone New Years celebration in Soviet Union. Even the most fashionable women did not know the phrase "beauty salon" at that time. They signed up for hairdressing salons in a few weeks, preparing hairstyles, make-up and the whole “New Year's look” required from Soviet women maximum time, ingenuity and independence - sometimes friends did their hairstyles.

The last stage of preparation is to wipe (fix) the TV, which, as the postman Pechkin argued, is “ the best decoration New Year's table". "Carnival Night", "Irony of Fate", "New Year's Adventures of Masha and Viti", "Blue Light", "Morozko" - Soviet films, programs and cartoons in the morning, without which no Soviet citizen could imagine a festive night.

They were carefully collected by our grandmothers and kept by our mothers. Because for some Soviet citizens new toys were a luxury, while for others old Christmas balls are associated with good memories and are dear as a memory. Many toys have become the subject of private collections. People are happy to collect and exchange antiques Christmas toys and showcase their collections online.

Bright Side presents a selection of Soviet Christmas tree decorations. They are not as bright and elegant as modern ones. But they cause a warm wave of nostalgia for the times when we believed in Santa Claus and waited for the New Year like a miracle.

Christmas decorations are fraught with special magic. Their fragility, subtlety, golden shine awaken the feeling of fragility and shortness. The world cannot always be brilliant. The holiday doesn't last forever. So these graceful trifles reflect bright light on short term and ... again find themselves in the depths of boxes and cabinets for the whole coming year. Until the new Year...

However, these glass-cardboard toys, unshakable for us, are quite young from a historical point of view. Until recently, the decorations were different. A wonderful Christmas tree, near which amazing events took place in the beloved by all Hoffmann's "Nutcracker", carried other outfits on its branches. "A large Christmas tree was hung with many golden and silver apples. Candied almonds, colorful candies and other wonderful sweets hung from each branch like buds or flowers."

The first Christmas tree decorations were edible. Sweets in silver-golden wrappers, curly gingerbread cookies, waffles, cookies, nuts, apples, tangerines, pears, grapes and even eggs were abundant on the tree branches. Although, if you look into the very depths of the centuries, you can see completely unusual tree... The ancient Germans were the first to decorate conifers. They used spruce for ceremonies, attached burning candles to their branches and laid colored rags on their fluffy paws.

According to one version, the custom of using a Christmas tree as a Christmas tree was born in the first half of the 16th century on the territory of modern France, in Alsace. According to the other, the first "Christmas" tree was cut in his garden by the German reformer Martin Luther, being impressed by the wondrous glow of the heavenly stars, making its way through the spreading fir branches... He lit candles on his fir tree, which have symbolized from that time the stars of the Christmas night.

In addition to candles, they began to decorate the fir-tree with fruits, they personified the gifts to the baby Jesus. The first among the fruits were apples, since the spruce was considered a tree of paradise that bears fruit. New customs came in the 17th century. Strictly speaking, it was then that the "ancestors" of modern toys appeared. And even though, according to today's understanding, they were "home-grown", some of them did not lack grace. At first, materials were used those that are always at hand - empty eggshells were covered with a thin layer of chased brass, ordinary spruce cones were gilded. Tin wire was rolled up, twisted in a spiral, then flattened: silver tinsel was obtained. Artificial roses were made of paper, stars and snowflakes were cut out of silver foil. Even from sheets of brass, some craftsmen managed to carve figurines of fairies and elves.

Artificial fruits and sweets made of glass and cotton gradually appeared. It is believed that glass balls, which are indispensable for today's ate, appeared due to a poor harvest of apples. As if not a single apple had survived until Christmas in the local cellars, and the forest beauty would have stood without the traditional fruit. But no! Glassblowers of a small German town took a chance and made a replacement - round balls. So in the middle of the 19th century, in 1848 in the town of Lauscha (Thuringia), the popular in subsequent years were born Christmas balls... They were made of transparent or colored glass, coated on the inside with a layer of lead, and decorated with sparkles on the outside. Almost two decades later (1867) a gas factory was opened in Lauscha and, with the help of gas burners with a flame, very high temperature began to blow out large thin-walled balls. The lead reflective coating was replaced with silver nitrate. Around the same time, glass blowers moved beyond the actual balls.
Birds and animals, pipes and grapes appeared. Finished products were covered with gold and silver dust. Women and children were engaged in coloring. Lausch has remained in history as the world's first major manufacturer Christmas tree decorations.

At the beginning of the 20th century, "glass toy craft" was taken up by Bohemia, which was then part of Germany. And a new address appeared on the "Christmas tree" map - the city of Jablonec. The Japanese, Poles and Americans mastered this business much later. There was a period when the fashion for decorating a Christmas tree suddenly changed. At the turn of the century, glittering tinsel was sent to the shelves. A silver-white Christmas tree was welcomed. Later, figures made of paper, cardboard and straw came into fashion. The factories of Dresden and Leipzig became famous for the manufacture of these toys.

Leipzig was proud of toys made of embossed gilded and silver cardboard, it seemed that they were made of the thinnest metal sheet. Dresden - with an unprecedented variety of "plots" - numerous animals, musical instruments, spinning wheels, steamers and even horse-drawn carriages!

Apparently similar toys were used to decorate the Christmas tree described in the poem by A. N. Pleshcheev.

Toys beckon children's eyes ...
Here is a horse, there is a top,
Here is the railroad
Here is the hunting horn.
And the lanterns, and the stars,
That burn with diamonds
And the nuts are golden
And transparent grapes!
Christmas decorations in Russia

In Russia, the first toys were German. Later they opened their own production - in St. Petersburg and Klin. In addition to glass, papier-mâché was used - paper pulp mixed with glue, plaster or chalk. Then the products were covered with berthollet salt, due to which their surface acquired a shine and became denser. In the middle of the 19th century, numerous artels multiplied, which began to produce garlands and chains made of thin foil in the form of needles, long fine threads from the same foil, later called "rain".

For the manufacture of Christmas tree decorations, cardboard and wood, metal sheets, straw and paper were used. Similar toys were produced by special cardboard workshops. Cotton toys were very popular. A wire frame was lined with cotton wool, while pupae faces were made of papier-mâché or porcelain and painted. Decorated with Christmas trees and wax figures of angels, they, alas, were short-lived, as they melted from the heat.

In the twentieth century, carved wooden figures also appeared - they also found a place on the hospitable Christmas trees. In some families, the tree was not only decorated, but also its trunk was "ennobled" - it was wrapped in white paper, cloth or pharmaceutical cotton sprinkled with berthollet salt. They also "hid" the crosspiece to which the tree was attached.
Practical advice was published for its readers in 1909 by the magazine "Niva": "The foot of the tree can be arranged as follows: they lay a cross in which the tree is embedded with green moss, dry grass and Christmas tree branches, among which pebbles can be placed here and there; then cardboard or cotton mushrooms as a small family, and if among this green pile you put a plush hare, which can often be found among children's toys, then it will be very beautiful under the tree. "

At the end of the 19th century, a new surprise awaited the tree. The English telegraph operator Ralph Morrison decorated it with a garland of electric bulbs. Here, the championship was "taken" by the Americans - the first electric garland was decorated in 1895 christmas tree in front of the White House.

Rich in various events XX brought new plots for Christmas tree decorations... In the USSR, the crowning Christmas tree " star of bethlehem"was replaced by a red five-pointed one with a hammer and sickle. Parachutists and hockey players appeared, polar bear children of different nationalities, delivering mail to the conquerors of the Arctic. Later, orderlies dogs, airplanes, and astronauts were added to them. The year 1937 was "marked" with balloons with portraits of Lenin and Stalin.

The advent of cardboard mailboxes for new year letters refers to the early 40s. XX century, while glass and wool became an unaffordable luxury. A mailbox, no larger than a matchbox, contained a piece of candy or a small coin. From the crystallized lenses of salt, amazing snowflakes were obtained! The wire frame was dipped in a saturated saline solution, and after a few hours, the toy was removed and dried. During the Great Patriotic War, glass beads were also made at home. Burnt out normal or removed from christmas garland light bulbs were painted or pasted over with colored paper ...

Toys today self made again at the peak of popularity. Some of them demonstrate the skill of professional artists, while others, albeit not so lush and exclusive, bear the warmth of the hearth. A dear, cozy home, where, as in previous Russian houses, adults and children made a holiday, literally, with their own hands ...

It's no secret that many residents of our country associate the New Year with Moscow, or rather with the chimes on the Kremlin's Spasskaya Tower. With the chimes, we make wishes, see off old year and hope that next year will be more successful. Let's see how the New Year was celebrated in Moscow before.

Christmas tree in the St. George Hall of the Kremlin, 1950-60. The most important Christmas tree in Moscow and the country is still in the Kremlin, and the second most important tree has always been in the Column Hall of the House of Unions, next to the current State Duma.

Celebration of the New Year in the form in which we celebrate now, we owe all the same to Stalin. Before the revolution, as in other countries, Christmas was celebrated in Russia with a Christmas tree and gifts, which was immediately banned by the Soviet government, but only in 1935, before the new 1936 it was decided to put up Christmas trees again, make holidays for children, call Santa Claus and the Snow Maiden, but it was all prescribed to do this exclusively for the secular New Year, which we still do.

Now it is difficult to imagine, but this is Arbat Square in 1959. In the background you can see the vestibule of the Arbatskaya Blue Line metro station, which we continue to use now, but we enter it from the left side, through the new building, and not through the original large main entrance ... The fact is that under Brezhnev, a huge complex of the Ministry of Defense was built around this lobby, and the Stalinist lobby still stands in his courtyard, which is very clearly visible on the satellite map.

Outbound trade " Children's world"- another, probably the most New Year's place in Soviet Moscow.

And this is how Detsky Mir itself looked like in the late 1950s on the Lubyanka.

In those years, Muscovites, even the needy, tried to put up a Christmas tree for their children in their home, decorating it with cardboard and glass toys, mushrooms, balls, tinsel, "beads", even multi-colored lamps, they put Santa Claus, Snow Maiden under the tree, children - their favorite toys, etc., and the "crown" was crowned with a star or a spire. They also hung sweets, chocolate medals, tangerines.

Vechernyaya Moskva newspaper: "Only a few hours remain until the New Year. There is a lot to do: visit a hairdresser, go to a store, and send a congratulatory telegram. In a word, you need to hurry. In the picture you see Muscovites in the center of the capital, on Gorky Street the day before. New Year 1961 ".

Children's World Christmas decoration, 1970-71.

"Children's world" in the 1970s

Christmas tree in the Kremlin Palace of Congresses, 1971

Tin chests from the Kremlin trees to this day are gathering dust in many apartments on the mezzanine. Grandmothers loved to store threads, buttons and other household items in them.

Christmas tree in the Kremlin Palace of Congresses, 1971. Tin chests from the Kremlin Christmas trees are still gathering dust in many apartments on the mezzanine. Grandmothers loved to store threads, buttons and other household items in them.

Every adult whose childhood was in the Soviet years remembers well the famous Kremlin New Year trees. Every child dreamed of visiting the main performance of the country, but only a few had a chance - as a rule, they were either excellent students or children of party and state leaders.

For the first time Kremlin Christmas tree lit up in the Kremlin Palace in 1954, before that winter holiday did not pay due attention, and the Kremlin was closed for mass visits. Festive events were held in the Great Hall of the Palace, and the green beauty was installed in the St. George Hall. Later, when the Palace of Congresses was built, the New Year's celebration began to be held there.

From photographs of that time, it is clear that the first performances had an ideological background: the main characters were workers, peasants, Bolsheviks and Red Guards, and Kremlin New Year tree lit up under the toy salvo of the cruiser "Aurora". The scenario of the children's holiday was carefully thought out, because it was important for the younger generation to show the values ​​of the country. Over time, the traditions of celebrating the New Year at the main Christmas tree of the country have changed significantly.

Ten years later, young directors - Uspensky, Hait and Kurlyandsky - began to participate in the development of the New Year tree program. Thanks to them, Kremlin New Year tree became what we know her today: with Santa Claus, Snow Maiden and other fairy-tale characters. It was from this time that the best theater directors and scriptwriters of the country began to trust the development and staging of the New Year's celebration, keeping the script of the performance in the strictest confidence until the last.

Kremlin New Year tree and today it is very popular among many other New Year's performances. The fairy tale begins on December 25, on this day the Kremlin opens its doors to children and their parents, inviting them to enjoy one of the brightest and most memorable shows. Many special effects, bright theatrical scenery and costumes create a unique festive atmosphere childhood, which adults recall with nostalgia.

The New Year tree in the Kremlin is also often called the Presidential one, since one of the founders and organizers of the event is the Russian Presidential Property Management Department. Opportunity to meet with the head Russian Federation- this is also a kind of small miracle.

Submissions on Kremlin New Year tree will be held daily for two weeks, until January 10, but tickets for the fabulous performance dedicated to the 2013 meeting can be purchased on December 1, or already now leave a request on the official website. The main thing is not to be late, because the show brings together children from all over Russia and about three hundred thousand children are expected to be received during the New Year holidays!

The event is held simultaneously in three halls of the Kremlin Palace of Congresses: theatrical performance takes place in the Auditorium of the Palace, the Christmas tree around which children dance in round dances stands in the Armorial Hall, and in the Parquet Hall guests will find many game rides and fun contests.

New Year is a time of gifts and miracles. Today, like half a century ago, the country's main Christmas tree invites to share the joy and magic of one of the most beloved holidays by everyone, promising a sea of ​​surprises and vivid impressions!

A few words about the main salary children's party in the USSR - New Year. memoir series of notes.

From 6 to 10 years old, I went to several trees each New Year and even visited twice "The main tree of the country" in the Kremlin. By December 31, I had such stocks of sweets (and they gave a gift on every tree) that I could drink tea for three months in the evenings only with them.

The most carbonaceous and complex Christmas tree theatrical performances took place in the recreation center of the Hammer and Sickle plant on Zolotorozhskaya (?) Street. In addition to the performance itself, one could also look at the fish in the aquariums and, in general, the recreation center itself was a very good and intimate place. Probably, he remained with him now, because for a long time the gay club "Chameleon" was located there, and gays are known as picky in aesthetic matters.

I often found myself in the recreation center "Fraser" (seemingly), which was located near the railway station Perovo.

But the worst tree in my memory was a tree on fresh air(that is, in a fifteen-degree frost) in Izmailovsky Park. Just to say that I was very cold there is some reticence. I was naturally numb there from the frost. Who invented this concentration camp for children?

The Christmas tree action was built on approximately one canvas - a gathering of children with round dances and dances about little ducklings to the accordion, some kind of performance and, finally, the distribution of gifts. There was nothing interesting there (I already understood this when I was 6-10 years old), but such was the tradition - the New Year came and we had to go to the Christmas tree.

If it was burdensome for you to walk, then you could always send one of your parents for a gift.

A few words about the pretentious event called "Kremlin tree", which was considered as the main one in the USSR and was the flagship of this branch of the Soviet show business.

It is clear from the name of the event that it took place in the Kremlin. A Soviet citizen did not get inside especially often (both then and now), but it was interesting there!

At the Palace of Congresses, the first thing the children could appreciate was the cleanliness of the toilets there. Perhaps from the public, they were the cleanest in the country.

At the gathering of children, some pioneers stood in a cordon, who (just like the modern guard policemen) were present, but did not know anything and did not decide. They could not help with anything.

An offensive incident happened to me there. Gifts were given out on tickets after the concert, and I left my ticket at outerwear and handed it over to the wardrobe. Therefore, I then had to run out of the wardrobe back for the set. Anyone who decided that it is a joy for children to carry a cardboard sheet half the size of an album sheet with them for two hours is a great connoisseur of children in general and pioneers in particular.

In the reports (and the newspapers wrote about the "main Christmas tree of the country" and the "Vremya" program trumpeted) it was necessarily mentioned that "This year the Kremlin Christmas tree will be visited ..." some regular nomenclature guests - Vietnamese children, children from BAM, some Samantha Smith and other similar figures. I didn’t come across, but the general attitude towards everyone without exception in those corridors and halls was simply imbued with indifference.

At the appointed time, a gang of gathered children ran into the hall, took seats (it seemed like any, the seats were not indicated in the tickets) and watched some of the new cartoons to accelerate. It was there that I first saw and immediately noted for myself “Kitten from Lizyukov Street”.

Here in this hall, only the backdrop with Lenin was draped in accordance with the event.

About half an hour later, the performance itself began. He collected all the worst vices of theaters and it was difficult to watch. But you have to. After all, then your parents and classmates will ask you about your visit to the Kremlin. The plot was monstrous, although serious stage special effects were used - flying over the stage on a cable, noise, light, and so on.

There were a hundred people on the stage, no less.

Having endured this side dish, the children received a red plastic Kremlin tower (a box in the form of it) with sweets and chocolates.

Having dressed (and this is where the pioneers from the cordon came in handy!), Went out into the street and, like suitcases at the airport, moved along an oval loop. And the parents grabbed the children like things from a conveyor belt. Whoever was not snatched on the first lap (just like the suitcase), went to the second and could wind eight circles like that before the parents deign to call out to their child.

Tickets to the Kremlin were distributed through the school, and I don't even remember any special intrigues during the distribution. This tree had more prestige in the eyes of adults than in the eyes of children.

The child could later see the same performance on TV. On the seventh of January of the new year (at the end of the New Year's holidays), television necessarily showed the action. This is apparently for those aesthetes who did not get on it, but wanted to evaluate the level. On TV, she looked even more boring and worse than live, and its broadcast did not cause a stir among children, even at the level of puppet cartoons.

Now the children's Christmas tree culture is completely a thing of the past and today's children in the New Year (thank God!) Now have completely different pleasures. Such that we could not even dream of.