Tag Archives: New Year

Happy New Year wishes for 2026

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🎄 Happy New Year wishes for 2026 to all our readers and friends, from Beorn, The Shieldmaiden and Dzerzhinsky

🎄Postcard by Ye. Pashkov-Selivanov drawn in 1959. From Beorn’s family album.

2025 has indeed been an eventful year, saturated with both positive developments in the international balance of power in favour of the anti-imperialist side, and rising tensions in the imperialist countries with tightening of contradictions between the exploiting class and the exploited and a strong drive for war.

Let us wish that 2026 — like 1946, 80 years ago — will be a year of resolutions, when the miscreants are brought to justice and punished according to their crimes against humanity, so that a new future of peaceful development can be ushered in.

Revival of collective memory and knowledge of the power of the Soviet Union is paramount to our struggle. No-one said it better than Russian communist, Oleg Yasynsky (https://t.me/olegyasynsky/1753):

«Humanity is still alive and resisting the monster that is fighting against it only because the Soviet Union once existed, sowing too much hope between the roots and stars of the world.»

If the peoples of the world again manage to take a step closer to the socialist mindset and practice of solidarity and unity, then humanity as a whole can again begin aiming for the stars! Let it be so!

We first sent the greeting to our Telegram channel “Beorn And The Shildmaiden”. In 2025, we have reached 1500 subscribers, though that number is, sadly, not reflective of the number of people who read our materials there. Every little help in spreading the word about our published materials is therefore greatly appreciated! In the past year, the Beehive has been taking a backseat, something we plan to rectify in 2026, with more of the publications from our Telegram channel finding their way to the blog articles.

Soviet New Year Toys – A Fragile Nostalgia

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Happy Old New Year to all of you from us at Beorn And The Shieldmaiden!

A short documentary film from NTV which, in the course of just 10 minutes, manages to tell the story of the Soviet Union, seen through the colourful New Year tree decorations.

The feeling of nostalgia, so accurately conveyed by the film, is very much familiar to all of us who either had such New Year toys, or is still keeping them on the upper shelf, in a wooden box…


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The documentary mentions several classic Soviet films. Here they are:

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“The Winter Fairytale” and “When New Year Trees Light Up” – Soviet New Year animation films to all of you!

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Our warmest congratulations and presents from the New Year eve on our Telegram channel “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”!

Happy New Year of 2025!

We wish our dear BATS readers a very happy New Year!

Let the coming year bring happiness and good fortune, let there be peaceful skies above our heads and normalcy in our world!

🎄Postcard from the New Year of 1962 – 1963 with the scene from the animated film “When New Year Trees Light Up” — from Beorn’s family album.

The Winter Fairytale

A 1945 magically musical New Year animated film from the USSR.

A cold winter has arrived, and the New Year is coming soon. The forest animals gathered to meet him. Ded Moroz (Grandfather Frost), Snegurochka (the Snow Maiden) and the Snowman help them in this. A New Year’s tale with musical scenes around the New Year tree.

Directed by the legendary Ivan Ivanov-Vano, and set to the music of Pyotr Ilyich Chaikovskij. This is the last Soviet colour film that was created using the tri-colour method.


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When New Year Trees Light Up

The cartoon about the magic of the New Year season — when all the dreams manifest themselves, but also about the importance of being true to your word!

The film was created by the animation studio “Soyuzmultfilm” and appeared on the Soviet TV screens on the 31st of December 1950.

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Happy New Year of the 80th Anniversary of the Great Victory!

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We present a selection of posts with drawings and caricatures from a very special edition of the Soviet satirical magazine, “Krokodil”. More can be found at our Telegram channel “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”!

Greetings on the coming Year of the 80th Anniversary of the Victory!

No doubt was left: the New Year of 1945 would finally bring Victory! As attested by the painting by L.Brodat on the cover of the combined issue №47-48 of “Krokodil” from December 1944.

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— Who is coming?
— New Year!
— Password?
— Victory!
— Advance! *

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* The final command — Advance! — is a play on the double meaning of the phrase “Coming New Year”, which translates literally as “Advancing New Year”, when at the same time, in the military context, the first word would also carry the meaning of “to attack” or “to charge”.

In the posts leading up to the New Year, we bring some of the drawings and caricatures from that issue of “Krokodil”. Some of them, as you will see, are surprisingly relevant now, in December of 2024!

At the Fascist Flee(ce) Market

The caricature by Yu.Ganf from the combined issue №47-48 of “Krokodil” from December 1944. It sums up the departing year in humorous detail, accompanied by a longer text with a month-by-month blow, which are translated below!

Let us admire the caricature in all its Bruegelesque detail, starting with the upper left corner.
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Last Year’s Snow Was Falling – Soviet New Year Animation, 1983

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A small New Year present to our readers, first published on our Telegram channel Beorn And The Shieldmaiden yesterday! ☃️

No New Year is complete without this plasticine animated film from 1983, directed by Alexander Tatarsky and voice acting by Stanislav Sadalsky.

The film plays on many Russian folk tales, but with unexpected twists. It reached a cult status after its first appearance on Central TV. The aphoristic remarks of the characters, full of absurd humour, turned into colloquial proverbs.


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Happy New Year from the USSR! Postcards of the Bygone Era

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With the New Year coming up, it is time to look hopefully into the coming year and to send someone you love a post card with the best wishes. For me, few modern cards come close to the personality and warmth eminating from the vintage cards. In my family’s archive there are a number of such cards, that were collected by my grandparents from the time even before my mother was born.

Inspired by the article 15 nostalgic Soviet New Year postcards in Russia Beyond the Headlines and by a Telegram post showing how “In the city of Sovetsky, bus stops were decorated with drawings from old Soviet postcards.”, I started scanning this festive part of the collection.

Each postcard is represented with both the face and reverse sides, in the original, aged, paper colour and with the white balance restored (see the links under each picture for the additional versions). The cards are indexed by the year they were approved from printing, meaning that they were used to congratulate people with the next, coming, year.

1952-1953

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New Year of Peter I and the Roots of Grandfather Frost and Snow Maiden – Their True History

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Some years ago I published an article about the instruction of the Western calendar in Russia by Peter I and the abolishment of the ancient Slavic calendar, counting over 7500 years of history.

While that article is true in all respects, as it is usual with our history, there are even more layers of alterations as one starts delving deeper into a topic. This is also so with the Russian calendar, and the tradition of New year celebration. For those who have not read it, I strongly advise you to read the previous article before continuing with the materials below. There I touch upon the linguistic aspects and two different words for “year” in Russian – “leto” (meaning both “year” and “summer”) and “god” (meaning “year”, with the overt reference to the Dutch word for “God”). In fact the first of the four articles below carries an explanation for why years were counted in summers…

The materials below are comprised of translations of four articles, originally published in “Argumenty i Fakty”, and uncover more details around Peter I reform, then going to the origins of the characters of “(Grand)father Frost” and the “Snow Maiden”. The articles can be read independently, but for a better understanding I would recommend reading them all in order.

Contents:

  1. The Tzar and the Tree. Why Peter I moved New year to January the 1st
  2. Bonfires for the ancestors and the gifts to the terrifying Grandfather. How New Year was celebrated in Russia
  3. Snow-mai-den! The history of the Russian character, which has no analogues
  4. According to Old Style. Why did the New year made do without a Tree

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