Since 2004, Russians have been partying through the first 10 days of January, after May holidays were moved to winter to give people some respite during their seemingly interminable deep freeze.
While few complain about the extra days off, some economists wonder whether the country can really afford such a long break, especially as ripples from the global financial meltdown are still being felt.
Yet at an outdoor ice rink near Zheleznodorozhny, a town of 100,000 about 20 miles (30 kilometers) east of Moscow, macroeconomics was the furthest thing from anyone’s mind.
“Who cares about the economy? Just look around you,” said retired mechanic Valery Rannykh, 70.
The scene was intoxicatingly tranquil: mothers helping toddlers into skates for the first time; father-vs.-son hockey games; brothers whizzing up and down playing tag.
Among the freeflowing mayhem, Rannykh’s 6-year-old grandson, Dima, skidded around the rink.
“Look out there. He is growing up. People are living their lives. Isn’t it a pretty picture? This is what the holiday means to us — economics be damned,” Rannykh said.
Nearby, businessman Sergei Kotelnikov, 42, was beaming even though the restaurant he co-owns was closed.
“They can’t take this away from us. It is a holiday we earn,” he said.
While many stores and restaurants do stay open, government offices, businesses, banks and factories are shuttered. The stock markets are closed and no newspapers are printed.
Traffic flows smoothly on Moscow’s chronically jammed roads.
New Year’s has been the biggest holiday of the year in Russia since Soviet times, when celebrating Christmas was banned or discouraged under communist rule. Christmas returned to favor with the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, and Jan. 7 — the day Orthodox Christians celebrate the birth of Christ — joined Jan. 1-2 as a national holiday.
The holidays were extended if any of those days fell on a Saturday or Sunday, creating an on-again, off-again schedule that often resulted in people showing up for work just two or three days a week, for weeks. Many people, especially those with the money to travel abroad, took the entire period off anyway, so Russia did not really get running again until the middle of the month.
In 2004, the government officially made the first 10 days of the year a national holiday, transferring some days from May. Many Russians still take off the week between May Day (May 1) and Victory Day (May 9) anyway, a traditional time for family gatherings at the dacha.
“Instead of moving the holiday, all the government did was create an extra holiday period. Periods of holiday do cost the economy,” said analyst Chris Weafer.
He estimated the January holiday costs Russia up to 0.5 percent of its GDP — about $62 billion — putting the country behind as the rest of the world is two weeks into the first quarter. Weafer also cast doubt on many Russians’ assertions that they are extra productive in the last two weeks of the month.
Perhaps they only think they are more productive because they don’t have hangovers. A considerable chunk of the estimated 15 liters of pure alcohol consumed per person annually in Russia is glugged over the holiday, when the relatively poor people in Russia’s provinces, who make up most of its population, have little else to do.
This year, even watching television has been impossible for tens of thousands in towns around Moscow that were without electricity for much of the holiday. Ice storms in late December toppled trees and snapped power lines, and electricity has only just been restored to some areas.
Although the holiday has been blamed for exacerbating alcoholism, it also has accentuated the role of winter sports. The ice rink is a spiritual home in Russia and learning to skate is a rite of passage. For some, relinquishing this holiday would deny them invaluable time to bond as a family.
Others appreciate the value of free time but also recognize the disruption it can cause.
“They should transfer, well, at least half — five or six days — of this holiday to May when it’s possible to make better use of the time, spend it with relatives,” said Nina Chigrakova, 62, a retired businesswoman in the nearby village of Kratovo.
She and her husband Sergei, 64, donned wooden cross-country skis of bygone days, giving them a spin for the first time in 20 years.
“We decided to make use of these 10 days. It looks like they’ll never move them back to May,” she said. The pair glided to a nearby ski track as the low sun cast striking shadows behind them.
The debate over Russia’s winter break rings out every year, with Boris Gryzlov, the speaker of the lower house of parliament and chairman of Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party, its chief proponent.
Gryzlov insists the country has more outdoor sports lovers than drunkards, and that the latter will always consume alcohol, holiday or not. Last year, Gryzlov said the holiday helps the economy by boosting demand for tourism-related infrastructure.
But Weafer, chief strategist at the UralSib investment bank, said more and more money is leaving Russia over New Year’s as a swelling affluent class vacations abroad.
