Ahead of New Year’s Eve, the biggest holiday in Russia, Sergei, 30, a Russian IT specialist based in Romania, said he would try to watch “The Irony of Fate,” the 1975 romantic comedy that is a New Year’s staple in Russia, in its entirety for the first time.
“It's kind of a weird tradition that came from the U.S.S.R., but there is something cozy about it,” Sergei said.
Sergei is one of the estimated 650,000 Russians who left the country after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Many have not returned to Russia since then, citing fears of prosecution for opposing the war, ruptured family ties or a moral break with a country continuing to wage war on Ukraine.
For these people, the classic Russian New Year’s traditions offer a way to feel connected to home from afar and to share a bit of their culture with their new communities.
The Moscow Times spoke to seven Russian emigres who moved abroad after the invasion of Ukraine about how they celebrated the new year in countries around the world.
