Halloween 2022: Russians’ interest in the holiday has fallen, but psychologists approve

“Long ago lost its pagan meaning and turned into a carnival”

On the last night of October, in many parts of the world, people are going to party on the “terrible” holiday with Celtic roots Halloween – with witches, vampires, bats and skulls, which has managed to take root in our country. However, this year the situation with him has changed: the organizers of “evil parties” and sellers of Halloween paraphernalia report a drop in Russian interest in this action. Many attribute this to the fact that in our troubled time, the celebration of Halloween, which is associated, whatever one may say, with death and its images, can further aggravate the depressive state of many people.

According to the data of one of the banking services, in Russia in 2022, the demand for the main attribute of Halloween, pumpkins, fell significantly – by 55% compared to last year. And restaurants reported a 20% decrease in orders for such parties. In the capital’s studio, which is engaged in accompanying the holidays, “MK” confirmed: the number of orders for master classes in making pumpkins and other attributes associated with Halloween, as well as for “painting” faces under vampires and other evil spirits, decreased by a third.

“We celebrated Halloween with my daughter and her friends for three years in a row, both in the classroom and in the yard,” Muscovite Olga, mother of a 12-year-old schoolgirl, told MK. – But this year in the class we don’t even discuss it. By default, we do not. I don’t have the mental strength for Halloween, and neither do the other parents.

These days, before the holiday, a campaign against Halloween has unfolded in society, perhaps even more violent than in years gone by. Some publics on the Web call it “the main holiday of death, glorifying Satan,” which “carries a great danger to children.” Politicians are especially zealous. So Olga Kovitidi, a member of the Federation Council Commission for the Protection of State Sovereignty of the Russian Federation, called it “part of an alien, mass modern anti-spiritual culture that came from the West” and “we were ready for this, we accepted it.”

And indeed, you can still find announcements about the Halloween party on the Web, although there are fewer of them. Such parties are reported by schools and universities, clubs, cafes and city administrations. So, Rybinsk announced that in their city square “there will be a party dedicated to the terribly attractive Halloween holiday!” Faculty of RKT (rocket and space technology) MSTU. N. E. Bauman announced the celebration of Halloween on the night of October 29: “A killer atmosphere, resurrecting music, healing potions at the bar! Put away your labs and blueprints, put on your costumes, and get your candy basket ready!” For example, a small school in the city of Solikamsk (Perm Territory) does not lag behind them: “10th grade invites students in grades 7-11 to relax after the first quarter! We are waiting for you in the assembly hall!

Psychologists, meanwhile, explain that the celebration of Halloween can have a different effect in today’s realities, depending on the psychotype of a person.

“For example, there are people who like to watch horror films, and in this way they splash out negative emotions, relieve their psychological stress, which is important for many now,” psychologist Svetlana Pleshakova told MK. – And Halloween is such a “movement”, action, joke. There have always been holidays in human culture associated with ridiculing the image of death, playing with what scares. Take the same Venetian carnival with its terrible masks and “dances with death.” This is a very useful action that helps to respond to accumulated, suppressed and not accepted feelings in society. And now horror films, bloody thrillers can have the same effect. In that sense, Halloween is an even funnier, more playful form. For such people, participation in the celebration of Halloween can even be beneficial.

But there are people who are already depressed, even a hint of a skeleton, skull, blood contributes to a panic reaction in them. He wants to hide in a corner, watch romantic TV series… It is better for such people to stay away from all these “terrifying” costumes and make-up, not to plunge into this atmosphere. It’s not safe for them. As for children, they have different periods. They grow, change, and at some point they want to live “fear of death” or “fear of ugliness” in this way, and then they may have other tasks, for example, how to realize themselves in this life.

In fact, Halloween in our country, according to opinion polls, celebrates only about three percent of citizens. And they are concentrated in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Some Russian religious scholars call it “an artificial holiday of an occult nature.” However, those Russians who welcome Halloween use it only as an excuse to fool around and joke, not seeing any gloomy deep meaning in this action.