How old is the new year

Do you know what the peculiarity of the New Year is? He can "come" not only on the day to which we all have grown accustomed since childhood - January 1, but also in the spring, and even in the autumn. It all depends on the calendar used by one or another people. So in order to find out how many years the new year will have to go on a journey into the distant past.

The first

calendar Scientists around the world are still trying to figure out how many millennia there is on the planet of a reasonable race of people. Some of them believe that the completion of the process of the transition of a monkey into a human is about 40 thousand years ago;others are of the opinion that cyclical change of intelligent civilizations on our planet, existing for a total of millions of years.

In any case, acknowledgment of the creation of such ancient calendars has not yet been found. And the very first known calendars can be attributed to those that were popular in ancient Rome. However, then they were intended mainly to control debtors( from the Latin

calendarium stands for " debt book").And although every nation and even religion "invented" not only their own calendar, but also the date of origin( for example, from the creation of the world - the Jews, from the foundation of Rome - the Romans, from the accession to the throne of the new king - the Parthians, etc.)at the heart of all the calendars lay external events - the motion of various celestial bodies and the existing periodicity. Such "standards" were the Sun, the Moon and even Sirius.

From Julius Caesar to Peter

The variety of calendars created confusion when communicating among different peoples, and in 45 BC.one of the most famous Roman dictators - Julius Caesar - introduced the countdown from January 1, creating the so-called Julian calendar. The usual year consisted of 365 days( except for a leap year, the duration of which was 366 days).And only in 1582 the "modern" calendar( Gregorian) was "born", having corrected the deviation from the solar calculus accumulated for 16 centuries.

The same calendar in Russia "went" a little different way. Before the baptism of Rus, time was counted for four seasons of the year. Since 988, together with Christianity, the Julian calendar from the creation of the world( it was 5508 BC in terms of a modern calendar) was brought to Russia, but our New Year was beginning, along with the spring drop, on March 1.In 1492, Ivan III "moved" the beginning of the year on September 1.The next "intervention" in the calendar was undertaken by Peter I, making corrections to the "starting point" for the Julian calendar and slightly "shifting" the dates. So "born" appeared on January 1, 1700( AD).And only in 1918( already in Soviet Russia) was introduced the Gregorian calendar, which operates in our country today.

We celebrate the New Year

About how the ancient inhabitants of Russia celebrated the new year, there were no references( although, according to some scientists, the history of the Rusians is more than 24 thousand years old).It is only known that the tradition to decorate the New Year tree is clearly more than 2000 years, but then it was not cut and dragged into your house. In this role there were not only sacred fir trees, but also other trees in which good spirits lived by beliefs. It was for them and intended first edible gifts, hung on the branches.

However, the transfer by Peter I of the date of the New Year on 1 January made adjustments in the tradition of celebration. It was then that the first spruce branches appeared in the houses, designed to decorate the dwelling. The felled trees were first put up by the Petersburg Germans, and only in 1852 decorated fir trees were officially and publicly installed in the capital. So, from the end of the XIX century, New Year trees in Russia "came" every year to visit and in the city houses, and in the village.

After the revolution, the New Year was "eliminated" along with other survivals of the bourgeois system. First, the transition to another calendar "moved" the holiday for the time of the Orthodox religious fast( to mark anything during which it was considered a sin), and secondly, after the First World War and the revolution, the population was not at all until fun. Everyone was more worried about how to survive in a new country( and at the same time it is advisable not to die of hunger).

After 17 years, when the USSR a little "got on its feet" as an incentive prize by the leadership of the state was given permission for New Year celebrations for workers of a great country. In 1938, the New Year "stepped into the masses" - the Christmas trees began to be sent under the watchful eye of the representatives of the Communist Party standing in power, using even parachutists for this. Next came the agitation train, special planes flew out, skiers went. Entire detachments of Santa Clauses carried gifts all over the country.

But only in 1947 January 1 was officially declared a non-working holiday. By the time the New Year trees were "overgrown" with a lot of beautiful toys, balls and garlands. Then it became a tradition to send New Year cards and congratulations.

And only technical progress and time have made their own adjustments. Now we usually celebrate the arrival of the New Year at home with the family in front of the TV, replacing postcards with phone calls or SMS.