What does Putin ask of the Soviet Santa Claus?
Christmas 2021, two months before the attack on Ukraine, Putin began to give both real and false clues about the aggressionAnd he did so surrounded by illuminated fir trees as he approached Ded Moroz—Grandfather Frost—the Soviet equivalent of Santa Claus. Putin thanked him for his more than twenty years as President of Russia and asked for his support for his future plans—including the war he was considering. "My relationship with Ded Moroz has always been very good," Putin repeated, and he allowed himself to recall that he is the only Santa Claus who is part of his childhood memories from the 1950s, handing out sweets on New Year's Eve in the Leningrad neighborhood where he lived.
Scenes similar to those experienced by children in Europe and the United States on the night of December 24, awaiting Santa's visit. Scenes that were part of the Russian Christmas tradition, which Lenin and the Bolsheviks sought to erase after 1917, and which Stalin—initially reluctant—reinstated after 1935, thanks to the sound advice and technical guidance of the Ukrainian communist leader Pavel Postichev. According to Postichev, the aim was to equate the prosperity of Soviet life with that of the West by recapturing the joy of the Christmas atmosphere, but, of course, making the differences clear: no external symbolism, neither "bourgeois" nor religious. Everything very social and civic. Therefore, there was no mention of Saint Nicholas, but rather of Ded Moroz, a character from Russian mythology, who visits children accompanied by his granddaughter Snegurochka, the Snow Maiden, who helps her grandfather distribute the gifts. Snegurochka had become popular decades earlier following a play by Alexander Ostrovsky. The five-pointed communist stars appeared on decorations, signs, and greeting cards, while the equally "bourgeois" seven-pointed stars were omitted.
Prosperity for Russia
And one element definitive enough to mark the difference: Ded Moroz, with his white beard, who in many tales appeared dressed in red, but instead appeared and paraded dressed in bright blue. Stalin accepted Postichev's proposal, and Russia revived the festive Christmas atmosphere by celebrating it only on New Year's Eve. The collapse of the USSR in 1991 did not mean the disappearance of Ded Moroz, who has remained popular despite having to share symbols and important dates: many Russians—both the newly rich and the not-so-rich—have chosen to venerate Saint Nicholas and celebrate Christmas according to the Julian calendar of the Church, on Christmas Day and on the 9th—not the 8th—St. Stephen's Day.
Looking ahead to 2026, Vladimir Putin will once again ask Ded Moroz for prosperity for Russia, and above all, to rescue Ukraine. Prosperity is something Russian society desperately needs, but Ded Moroz's visit is unlikely to bring it. The one who could plug many holes in the Russian economy would be Putin himself if the more than $2 billion he has in tax havens—as evidenced by the Panama accounts and the Pandora Papers—were returned to the public treasury.
A fortune he began accumulating between 1994 and 1997 when he was deputy mayor of St. Petersburg, after having left the KGB. A good friend of his and also an oligarch, Sergei Rolduguin, showed him the way to become rich, very rich. Rolduguin, in fact, has been Putin's true Ded Moroz when it comes to asking for New Year's blessings.
