The many happy faces of St Nick
The gift-giver in Russia has been a contentious political character for the last century. When the communists took control of the country in 1917 they retired their Western-style St Nicholas and suppressed Christmas.
By the 1930s, elements of the festival began to revive, although Stalin and his authorities favoured Ded Moroz, or Grandfather Frost, as he’s known, to pass out the goodies. He was an unusual choice. According to myth, he was a god of the underworld in charge of frost. He liked to freeze people and kidnap children, which he spirited away in a sack. Distraught parents used to ply him with presents as ransom to get their kids back.
