According to Russian official media this year, Christmas and New Year lights and decorations in Moscow are the most impressive in history. Information is not yet available about the expense, though it’s known that two years ago the cost of the Moscow festive decorations was 400 million rubles (about $13 million).
NTV, one of the major Russian TV stations reported:
“This year brightness of the center of the Russian capital easily eclipses the brightness of any European capital. Just the length of garlands is 150 kilometers!”
NTV informed its audience that the best designers from all over the world were invited to participate in the decorating of the Russian capital. They quoted one of the designers Valerio Fensti: “We have tried to present, or rather, to imagine the harmony that can be created with the help of light, which will be the reflection of the culture of this city.”
Another Russian TV station TVC describes several objects of the Moscow decorations in detail, presenting each one as a great achievement in design. Here is one example:
“Nothing can be compared with this largest in the world Christmas Tree Decoration located in the Manezh Square. It contains 23 thousand LED lamps, exhibiting a show of lights which keeps changing. One can look endlessly at this 17 meter big ball, which its five hundred different programs.”
A video shows decorations of some of Moscow central streets and squares.
Not everybody in Russia shares excitement about Moscow flashy decorations. Russian Internet actively reposts 12.25.2015 editorial written by Marina Kirsanov, Chef Editor of the site newdaynews.ru.
Marina Kirsanov writes:
“A terrible, terrible change is happening in the country that is much larger than it looks from the ‘defensive’ circle of the Moscow Ring Road. In the province, which is, in fact, begins directly behind the center of Moscow, people do not think of Syria, Turkey, Obama and Poroshenko. They do not care even for an external threat that is provoked by the Russian power itself… Ordinary people are not so much afraid of a possible war, as of the onset of the moment when, looking into the eyes of a child, they will say: ‘Today, there is nothing to eat.’
“They are afraid and feel that the moment is near. It is not an exaggeration. Residents of Russia do not have enough money. Even for food. Experts predict that very soon more than half of Russians will be below the poverty line. Already, the average monthly salary in most of regions, is hardly enough for two weeks of life…”
Marina Kirsanov thinks that it is absurd and tactless to publish joyful New Year articles that flooded Russian media. She thinks that such comments such as “Moscow has never been so flashily decorated as this year” and “Such beauty Moscow has not seen” are perceived with anger, hurt and bewilderment by those who are saving up for herring for the New Year’s table.
By Kirsanov’s opinion such publications represent not even a feast during the plague. This phenomenon cannot be described in words. It stirs up class hatred. It breeds envy. This attempt to divert people’s attention with tinsels and Christmas tree lights from their ruined fields and granaries is humiliating.
She concludes:
“You know, people are starving. People are afraid. They are insecure and aggressive. People hate their neighbors who are a little bit better off then themselves… This is the main threat.”
