The New Year holidays in Rybinsk started with a huge parade of Ded Morozes. Fancy-dress show has become an urban tradition and a branded event.
It was not easy to recognize in more than fifteen hundred Christmas wizards, hidden under red coats and white beards, not just ordinary dwellers, doctors, teachers, businessmen, industrialists, but also city's well-known persons, like the head of administration Leonid Mojeiko and regional deputy governor Alexander Shilov. In addition, foreigners participated in the procession as well. More than twenty thousand townspeople came to see the fantastic procession, the press service of Rybinsk administration reports. All the way from Cathedral Square to Derunov Square the white-bearded wizards were cheered by Rybinsk residents and guests, who waved flags and said their wishes.
This year, apart from a record number of participants, the 5th anniversary of the New Year's Show was marked with a number of features. Among the white-haired Ded Morozes there were many youngsters – the baby Morozes. Parents were involved in the fairy parade together with their children.
Ded Moroz or Father Frost, the Slavic version of Santa Claus, long ago became the symbol of Russian winter, New Year’s and presents. He is usually accompanied by his granddaughter Snegurochka riding with an evergreen tree in a traditional Russian troika, a sleigh drawn by three horses abreast.
Author: Anna Dorozhkina