Holiday by request – Newspaper Kommersant No. 215 (7416) dated 11/19/2022

Over 80% of online voting participants in Moscow spoke in favor of holding New Year’s events and festive decoration of the city, the city authorities stated. In the course of a poll that started on November 16, officials asked the townspeople how widely it is worth celebrating the New Year in the capital. Of the approximately 300,000 respondents, more than half chose the option of a holiday without mass festivities. Similar decisions regarding New Year’s events have already been made in more than a third of other Russian regions. According to Kommersant’s information, the federal center recommended that the authorities of the subjects be guided by sociological data. A recent VTsIOM poll shows that most Russians want celebrations, but in a truncated format.

The fact that “Muscovites have made a decision” on the format for celebrating the New Year in Moscow was announced by Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin in his blog. “The position of the townspeople is expressed very clearly and in a consolidated manner,” the mayor said, adding that 29% of the survey participants spoke “in favor of the usual format of celebration,” and 52% favored the option without mass celebrations. “Your decision will be implemented,” Mr. Sobyanin promised those who voted.

On November 16, the city authorities decided to find out from the townspeople how widely it is worth celebrating the New Year in the capital.

During the online voting (on the site “Active Citizen”), they were asked to choose: to celebrate as in “last years”; celebrate, but without mass celebrations; do not decorate the city for the holidays. In this regard, Mr. Sobyanin recalled that during the Great Patriotic War, “every penny counted,” but in Moscow, “to spite the enemies,” they still organized a “holiday for children and adults”: “The worst thing is when people and the country fall into depression forget about traditions, refuse human joys. At the same time, the mayor’s office promised to support the participants in the special military operation and emphasized that “it is not necessary to purchase New Year’s constructions.” By November 18, at the time of the announcement by Sergei Sobyanin about the “decision of the townspeople”, 294 thousand people voted in the Active Citizen.

Mr. Sobyanin explained in his blog that the authorities will refuse fireworks and big street concerts this year: “But at the same time, Moscow will meet the holidays bright and decorated.” At the same time, for the holidays, the mayor invited the townspeople not only to parks and skating rinks, but also to “the sites of the Journey to Christmas festival.”

Note that on Friday, VTsIOM published a survey on the attitude of Russians to the celebration of the New Year. The majority of respondents (70%) said that the regional authorities should not abandon the festive decoration of cities, but should not acquire new illumination and decorations. 81% of Russians believe that Christmas trees and children’s holidays should be preserved this year.

81% of Russians believe that Christmas trees and children’s holidays should be preserved this year. Only 15% were in favor of making them more modest.

55% approve of the installation of festive fir trees on the streets and squares of cities. But with regard to the festive decoration of shops and shopping centers, everything is not so clear: 47% of respondents want to keep this tradition, 37% urge to be more modest. 54% of respondents believe that this year the authorities should abandon fireworks and salutes. In addition, the respondents positively assessed a number of initiatives related to supporting the mobilized and their families, such as Father Frost and Snegurochka visiting the families of SVO participants with small children (94%) and congratulating the wounded in hospitals with the participation of the same characters (87%). The poll was conducted by VTsIOM on November 12–13, commissioned by one of the main think tanks of the Kremlin’s domestic political bloc, the Expert Institute for Social Research.

As reported by Kommersant, in the presidential administration (AP) they also thought about the format of organizing New Year’s festivities in the conditions of the NWO. According to Kommersant’s sources, as a result, the issue was left to the mercy of the regional authorities: they were recommended to focus on sociological data. “Children holidays.- “b”) we save, adults – according to the situation, ”the interlocutor of Kommersant explained in the AP. It should be noted that on October 20, VTsIOM published a poll, according to which 74% of respondents rather supported the decision to abandon the magnificent celebration of the New Year. As a result, in more than a third of the regions, the authorities announced plans to hold celebrations in a truncated format. We are talking about the rejection of concerts, fireworks and festivities in order to help the fighters and their families. Such statements were made, for example, by officials in the Pskov, Samara, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov, Novosibirsk, Amur, Belgorod, Voronezh, Kursk, Lipetsk and Saratov regions.

Alexander Voronov, Andrey Vinokurov