A Russian Santa Claus? And Ours?...
There are two big families of Santas. The Nicolaus family, and the family From the dawn of time...
In the Nicolaus family, there was, first of all, a certain... Nicolas, born in Patara (present-day Turkey), Bishop of Myra (between 250 and 270). Venerated under the name of Saint Nicholas, patron saint of children... Our northern brothers, who call him Sinterklaas, took him with them to the Americas, to found New Amsterdam. The years passed. New Amsterdam became New York... And Sinterklaas became Santa Claus, aka Father Christmas, by a shift in the calendar... Then, he returned to us in Europe, on this date and under this name, dressed in the process by Coca- cola... Santa Claus, it's difficult to be more consumerist as an icon...
In the From the dawn of time family, it is simply not a question of Christmas, but of the original, astronomical calendar, and the cycle of the seasons, celebrating the winter solstice, in the company of Дед Мороз (Ded Maroz) and of his granddaughter Снегурочка (Sniègurotchka)... Literally Grandfather Frost (Дед being the abbreviation of Дедушка = Grandfather) and his granddaughter Snow... We are indeed in a purely seasonal register... With allegorical characters reminding us of elementary realities...
In fact, Snow in Russian is Снег... Снегурочка, to be really precise, should be said "female personification of snow"... A bit like, it just came to my mind, Matryoshka (Матрешка), you know, the "Russian dolls", should be called "personification of the Mother (Мать)", an allegorical character too, reminding us of an elementary reality... From the dawn of time...
Other Intercultural Notes...
"Si vis pacem..." the article, some kind of manifesto of our association.
You can follow our Facebook. page. But, as prevention is better than cure, to avoid censorship, we are also on Telegram