In Bishkek lots of Christmas Trees were being put up and the children at school are putting up what I would call Christmas decorations and doing pictures of a Santa type person, but they do not celebrate Christmas or if they do not till January and yet my colleague was given a load of presents on December 6th and does not know why.
As far as we can tease out, because of the old strong German influence December 6th may be celebrated by some. For most people it is the New Year that they celebrate I guess if you are a strict Muslim though it is not New Year and maybe some Russians will celebrate the Orthodox New Year and there are santa type characters but they have a slightly different function here. I will be working on Christmas Day and will have to hope that the internet has been restored as dongle only works for tiny amounts of time.
Internet not good enough to upload relevant pics, but this link is relevant. Ayaz Ata who is the Kyrgyz figure the children draw.
When I got home tonight the owner was in the restaurant with his family, some of whom have come down from Almaty, and he was showing them the new gun he has bought his eldest son. They went hunting the other night and showed me the results on their camera. Hunting is very popular here, you can hear the guns going off even in the day, though nighttime hunting is more popular. Scary being that close to a gun.
The Germans celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve (so much more atmospheric opening presents and going to church in the evening!)..however, they have St.Nicholas Eve on 6th December, when children put out their shoes/slippers to be filled hopefully with small presents - if they have been good.This is where the 'Santa Claus' name comes from. Maybe this is why your colleague got presents on 6th December?
ReplyDeleteYes that is why we think she got the presents on 6th December as a reference to the old German system but under the Russian orthodox church that date is something like the 18th December.
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