Grandfathers without a girlfriend

Winter evening. Red Square. Parade - grandfathers march in an organized formation. They have white beards. White thick eyebrows, red hats, red fur coats, bags of gifts. Who came to us to please Muscovites on New Year's holidays? - Santa Clauses! - No, you're wrong, baby! These are Santa Clauses. They walk around the square, advertising ice-cold Coca-Cola, and anyone can take a photo with them.

For several years now there has been an invisible struggle between our Father Frost and the imported Santa Claus, and our compatriot is gradually losing ground, he is being forced out of advertising posters, calendars, postcards, TV screens, streets and squares. At the same time, the appearance of Santa Claus, in our traditional opinion, is strange, and his outfit is dangerous to health. Instead of the long, warm sheepskin coat typical of our Russian colleague, there is a short coat. What about the headdress? Instead of our grandfather's warm sheepskin hat, there is a long knitted cap. And on your feet, on your feet! Glossy boots! No, gentlemen, all this looks like warm clothes for a European, for whom even two degrees below zero is Siberian frost. But such a foreigner cannot be allowed into real Siberia. He will immediately either get meningitis or pneumonia.

Of course, recently our climate has become more and more similar to Central European. A real Kustodiev winter visits Moscow for ten days a year at best. The rest of the time - wet snow with rain, slush underfoot. The lights of the New Year trees displayed in the squares are reflected in the wide puddles. The superiority of imported Santa Claus over our old man looks logical: there is no grandfather, no frost.

But so far the results of the rivalry between our Father Frost and their Santa Claus are as follows: on the one hand, Father Frost still comes to children’s homes. Companies that provide such services do not see the need to change traditional costumes and scripts.

On the other hand, the children themselves wear long, tasseled Santa hats. These are the ones that are sold in all the stores—grandfather’s round hats are nowhere to be seen. It’s clear why - the entire civilized world has long been providing entire workshops operating in China and Hong Kong with these caps, but they have never heard of Santa Claus and the peculiarities of his outfit.

It's more difficult with advertising. Usually, if a product is Russian, then our grandfather most often advertises it. "Where I was - I drank beer!" It’s impossible to imagine the goofy hero of this advertising video dressed in a Santa Claus costume. But the foreign goods - the same Coca-Cola - were farmed out to the grandfather from Lapland.

But stratification, we note, also occurs on social grounds. On the advertising poster that points the way to the wholesale market, you will see a familiar figure in a long sheepskin coat with stars. But on the advertising poster of an elite sanatorium located among quite national forests near Moscow ("New Year's evenings for corporate clients. Christmas week-end for the whole company"), there is a character in a hat with a tassel.

The decline in the popularity of Father Frost had a serious impact on the fate of his granddaughter. Santa Claus is not supposed to have any relatives, and the poor girl was completely out of work. The only people who have recently become seriously interested in it are strip bars. Many establishments offer a special New Year's show. A blond dancer in a Snow Maiden costume comes out and slowly takes off her hat...

- Do you want, Vasya, to see the Snow Maiden for the New Year? - a mother will ask her son next winter.

And the precocious kid, who already knows from his older brother’s stories about the peculiarities of Moscow entertainment, will be embarrassed and blush.