Christmas and New Year at Yasnaya Polyana unfolded with grand hospitality. Friends, neighbors, and the yard children gathered to celebrate. On Christmas Day, December 25, a masquerade ball became a beloved Tolstoy family tradition, first organized by Sofya Andreevna in 1865 to delight her husband’s nieces, Lisa and Varya, and it quickly became part of the festive calendar.
Lev Tolstoy remained skeptical of the holiday rituals, arguing that the celebrations often strayed from the Christian spirit. He noted that women dressed for church visits, admired each other, and then, after breaking the fast with wine, they sometimes indulged for the rest of the week. In his view, the birthday child was Jesus, but the season sometimes felt more like a celebration of the devil. — Attribution: Tolstoy’s own reflections, as recorded in contemporary diaries.
Sofya Andreevna recalled that in the early days Tolstoy banned buying toys and decorating a Christmas tree, so an orange tree stood in its place. Yet over time she persuaded him to brighten the festival with New Year’s traditions. By 1870, Tolstoy allowed the Christmas mood to take hold. In her diaries, Sofya Andreevna writes that Lev Nikolaevich would leap into the festivities wearing a goat disguise, like a playful child. — Attribution: Sofya Andreevna Tolstaya.
New Year’s Eve was celebrated within the family circle. Anna Tolstaya-Popova, Tolstoy’s granddaughter, notes that a December 31 dinner featured champagne, while Tolstoy himself preferred tea with almond milk. When the clock struck midnight, the hall filled with warm wishes for the year ahead. — Attribution: Anna Tolstaya-Popova’s recollections.
Tolstoy penned a reflective thought for the season: “We live, therefore we die. To live well means to die well. New Year!” he wrote in 1883, expressing a sober but hopeful view of life and fate. — Attribution: Tolstoy’s diaries.
Alexander Pushkin is remembered with a different aura. A charming legend suggests that as a newborn, he was greeted at midnight by his mother, who whispered that the newborn would become a figure who would live through the new century. — Attribution: Pushkin lore.
As an adult, Pushkin sometimes faced the social maze of New Year festivities. He wrote that gatherings could feel tedious, filled with a rotating cast of actors, students, and social clusters—some evenings left him with a headache from the music and noise. Yet he also described moments of warmth and laughter with friends and family. Pushkin joined a round of celebrations at the Karamzins’ home in 1837 and died soon after from a duel-related wound. — Attribution: Pushkin correspondence and memoirs.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky cherished Christmas trees as a symbol of family joy. Anna Grigorievna, his wife, remembered how he asked for a large, branched tree and decorated it himself, year after year. The couple’s diaries recount gifts for children in 1872: a doll and a tea set for a daughter, a pipe for a son, and a playful sled with toy horses that often drew Fyodor’s attention late into the night. He enjoyed attending church services and singing around the Christmas table, and he joined festive gatherings on New Year’s Eve with extended family. — Attribution: Dostoevskaya and Dostoevsky diaries.
Stories of the season also follow Anton Chekhov, who once joked that certain years brought kisses of Beelzebub rather than pure merriment. Yet he acknowledged the holidays’ unique aroma—each festival carried its own scent, whether Easter, Trinity, or Christmas. As a student, he looked forward to Christmas theater, and his family baked a cake with a coin, a small token of luck. The festive table often featured oranges, a common fruit of the era. In adulthood, Chekhov preferred written congratulations to personal visits, once quipping to his brother that New Year should bring a dream of Beelzebub. — Attribution: Chekhov letters and memoirs.
Anna Akhmatova, facing the years when Christmas and New Year were restricted, kept the season alive through intimate rituals. Lyudmila Tikhvinskaya notes that Akhmatova and her household found ways to celebrate with simple beauty, including paper lanterns and shared creativity. The postwar memories of a 1945 Christmas reveal a cold apartment yet a warm gathering: children met Santa, gifts were exchanged, and Akhmatova’s influence on the celebration remained clear. — Attribution: Tikhvinskaya research and Akhmatova reminiscences.
Korney Chukovsky admitted a lifelong aversion to overt party scenes, often choosing solitude at his desk during the New Year. He recalled a midnight moment when the clock chimed, the ball rolled, and the bells rang—the ritual of a New Year that felt more like a quiet, personal renewal. He remembered spending a morning at the Writers’ House, then an evening with friends, before a late return home to welcome the new year. — Attribution: Chukovsky diaries.
Mikhail Bulgakov embraced a playful, theatrical Christmas. In 1937 he and his wife hosted a gathering that included a full tree, gifts, and a lively masquerade. They staged two scenes from Dead Souls, with costumes and lipstick that brought laughter and a sense of whimsy to the evening. After the performances, the family shared dumplings and dessert, a simple reminder of joy amid the era’s restrictions. — Attribution: Bulgakova diaries.
Yevgenia Ginzburg recalls a Christmas spent in prison during a time of political repression. She described the first New Year’s Eve behind bars as a stark, almost Lucullan feast in miniature. She and fellow inmates read aloud congratulatory verses, and the holiday ended with a quiet, hopeful sleep. Her long years in prison and exile shaped a steadfast memory of the season as a testament to resilience. — Attribution: Ginzburg’s memoirs.