30 V2 Monday January 3 2022 | the times
Wo r l d
Stalin may have cancelled Christmas but
Russians still have many opportunities
to mark the turning of the year
B
arely a year turns in
Russia without some
grump in the West
uttering “Bah Humbug!”
and showing off their
knowledge of history by
condemning the holiday as a
vestige of Stalinism.
New year is the high point of the
Russian festive season. Like
millions of others, I spent it at
home with my relatives doing the
traditional things: eating Olivye
salad, drinking sickly-sweet
shampanskoye and watching
superannuated pop stars on TV.
Orthodox Christmas, a much
quieter and purely religious affair,will be marked on Thursday and
Friday, January 6 and 7, because it
follows the Julian calendar.
It is true, of course, that Russia’s
emphasis on new year revelry is
rooted in prejudice. Conifers first
began to be used to celebrate
Christmas in Russia in the early
19th century, an idea imported by
Nicholas I’s Prussian wife,
Alexandra Feodorovna.
Then, at the height of its atheist
fervour in 1929, the Soviet Union
banned Christmas along with other
religious holidays.
Joseph Stalin reintroduced the
festive yolka (spruce) in 1935, but
only as a means of celebrating new
year, a secular holiday featuring
songs of praise to the Communist
Party rather than Jesus. That
tradition stuck, even after the fall
of the Soviet Union in 1991, when
Christmas made a comeback as the
quiet religious event in January.
New year in Russia today, just
like the western Christmas, is
commercial, bloated and fun. It is
attended by much of the same
baggage: overeating, hyperactivechildren, squabbling and a dull
speech by the head of state. Instead
of Father Christmas, his elves and
reindeer, Russia has Ded Moroz
(Father Frost), a figure originating
in folklore who is helped by his
granddaughter Snegurochka (the
Snow Maiden) and a troika of
horses to pull his gifts.
Yet behind all the paraphernalia
— and once again like our
celebrations on December 25 —
new year is truly a time to gather,
to experience a sense of love and
unity, and to express hope for
renewal as the country emerges
from winter into spring.
Families often travel long
distances to be together. One of our
relatives rode 15 hours by bus from
Volgograd. We fondly recalled a
dear member of the oldergeneration lost to Covid-19. My wife
and I leant on the windowsill to
watch fireworks above the snowy
bank beyond the Moscow river; the
same windowsill where I proposed
to her at midnight on New Year’s
Eve in 2011.
All of us were born at least three
decades after the Soviet ban on
Christmas. We know of the terrible
things done to priests and churches,
but sharing New Year’s Eve with
each other is not a vote for Stalin.
Meanwhile, Orthodox Christmas
lies ahead. For the faithful, it is a
beautiful, spare event. One January
6 I attended a service at a tiny
wooden church in the Russian
Arctic, where women in
headscarves sang sweetly into the
rafters. For a moment, I wobbled.
Should I become a believer?
As it happens, sinners still have
Old New Year (January 13-14 by
today’s calendar) to look forward
to: an excuse for a final booze-up
after the week of public holiday
with which January commences.
Parties and expressions of peace
and goodwill should not muffle
reality, of course. A relentless
campaign of Kremlin harassment
against independent journalists and
civil society groups is raising fears
of a return to Soviet levels of
persecution. The most poignant
new year message was a video
address from two dozen people
smeared with the government
designation of “foreign agent”.
“Wow, this year was so tough,”
said one. “But that made us only
stronger,” said the next.
Russia wants to airbrush history,
Edward Lucas, page 22Stalin brought back Christmas trees
as a way to celebrate the new yearTom Parfitt
MOSCOWFROM OUR
CORRESPONDENT
Hallelujah, it’s
raining fish
in east Texas
The American west has seen its fair
share of wild weather in recent weeks
with California battered by heavy rain
and Nevada struck by snowstorms.
However, a town in east Texas can
claim the strangest phenomenon.
Residents in Texarkana reported fish
falling from the sky in a rare example of
“animal rain”. Officials in the city about
180 miles from Dallas said the palm-
sized creatures had probably been
swept up in a waterspout then dropped
back to earth during a storm.
Residents were assured this was
nothing to worry about. “While it’s un-
common, it happens,” an official said.
Some in Texarkana spotted an op-
portunity. “I started to get me a bucket
and pick them up for fishing bait,” Tim
Brigham told the station KSLA 12.
Workers at a tyre fitters had to down
tools and clear the car park of fish.
There have been other examples of
“animal rain”. In 2017, a school in Oro-
ville, California, reported dozens of fish
falling from the sky during a storm.
A small town in Australia’s Northern
Territory appears to have the perfect
conditions for the phenomenon.
Animal rain has been reported in Laja-
manu at least three times in 30 years,
including in 2010 when hundreds of
spangled perch were said to have fallen.
In the first century, the Roman phi-
losopher Pliny the Elder documented
rain that included frogs and fish.Keiran SouthernEverest is too
white, black
climbers claim
Keiran Southern Los AngelesA team of black mountain climbers is
attempting to climb Everest to tackle
what one member described as the
sport’s “colonial history”.
The world’s highest peak has been
conquered more than 10,000 times
since Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa
Tenzing Norgay scaled it first in 1953.
Only a few of the successful climbers
have been black, however.
A team of nine aim to add their
names to the list in May. Rosemary
Saal, 28, a teacher from Seattle, is
among those joining the Full Circle Ev-
erest Expedition. She said that a team of
black climbers conquering the moun-
tain would help “change the narrative”.
“I hear ‘black people don’t do that’ all
the time when I talk about my climb-
ing,” she told The Washington Post.
“That only perpetuates the stereotypes.
It’s important to change the narrative.”
The first American to climb Everest
was Jim Whittaker in 1963, two years
before President Johnson signed the
Voting Rights Act into law, prohibiting
racial discrimination at the polls.
Saal added: “It’s hugely significant to
contribute to representation in these
outdoor spaces. There’s been an inten-
tional lack of access for black people.”
The Full Circle group is being spon-
sored by major mountaineering brands.
A team’s attempt to scale Everest can
cost more than $100,000. Saal said that
companies were seeing the value in
being associated with attempts to diver-
sify the activity.
“The expedition is very timely,” she
said. “Many brands and organisations
are beginning to recognise the colonial
history of mountain climbing.”Stranded cable car passengers
wait out night storm for rescue
Twenty-one people were rescued by
helicopter after spending more than 12
hours trapped in frozen cable cars half-
way up a mountain in New Mexico.
Most of the group were employees of
the Sandia Peak Tramway or a moun-
taintop restaurant who were heading
home following a New Year’s Eve party,
when iced-over cables caused two cars
to get stuck.
Guests had all left the Ten 3 restau-
rant high up in the Sandia Mountains in
the early hours of Saturday morning
leaving only 20 workers to be ferried
back down to the ground to go home.
As they began the 15-minute descent
the wintry conditions worsened and a
freak storm blew in, icing up the cables
and forcing the aerial tramway to stop
for safety.
Operators were able to
move one stranded gondola
containing the restaurant staff
to a nearby support tower so
that search and rescue workers
could climb 85ft up from the
ground to deliver blankets and
other supplies. Huddled to-
gether in the carriage, they had
to wait until 12.30pm on Satur-
day before a dramatic rescue
attempt could be made.
Video images showed how
they were lowered from the gon-
dola one by one using ropes.
They were then flown to the base
of the mountain by helicopter.
It took another three hours to rescue
the 21st person, a member of the secur-
ity staff who was trapped in a second
cable car further up the mountain.
Colleen Elvidge, one of the restau-
rant workers, posted photographs on
Facebook on Saturday morning show-
ing the group huddled in blanketsinside the gondola, saying: “Been stuck
in tram since 9pm... rescue happen-
ing soon.”
The rescue effort was streamed live
on Facebook by the Bernalillo county
sheriff’s office, which said: “High
winds and visibility continue to slow
down operations.”
Shortly before 4pm the local fire
department confirmed that all 21 had
been returned safely to base with no in-
juries after a joint operation involvingthe sheriff’s office, state police and
search and rescue teams.
Lieutenant Robert Arguellas, a fire
department spokesman, said that the
stranded group were in good health but
“pretty frustrated”.
Brian Coon, a tramway system
manager, told the local KOB-TV
station that there had been an
unusually fast accumulation of ice on
one of the cables that had made it too
dangerous to keep going.United States
Peter Stubley
cablecarfurthe hin
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winA group spent more than 12 hours in one carriage, huddled in space blankets to
retain heat in icy conditions. They had to be lowered to the ground one by oneROBERTO E ROSALES/ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL VIA ZUMA/SHUTTERSTOCKEl PasoTexasNew MexicoCable car
rescue
AlbuquerqueSanta FeMEXICOUS200 miles