Epress.am News from Armenia
We have to try to find the optimum with which it’s possible to reshape old values that at the same time can be combined with today’s values, said ethnographer Hranush Kharatyan, speaking to journalists in Yerevan today on the culture and ideas behind the New Year holiday in Armenia.
According to her, food served on New Year’s has a connection to the holiday for Armenians: traditionally, dishes with grains and legumes were given importance on the table — beans, chickpeas and the like — because they were the main symbols of life’s continuity and were tied to the cycle of life, while in the past, having meat on the table wasn’t allowed.
Kharatyan noted that at night, often at midnight, during the “border-crossing” period, in the past, people would run to their water sources, welcoming it, congratulating it — there were even special song lyrics connected with this custom. The ethnographer advised today too to open the water taps and empty old water containers, filling them with new water, so that there are as few empty containers as possible.
On the matter of the Christmas tree, Kharatyan said that as a decorated fir tree, its history around the world is only 300–400 years old.
“Parallel with the spread of the Christmas tree in Europe at the end of the 19th century was its entry into Western Armenians’ homes. But the decorated tree was among Armenians for a long time. They mainly hung charms from this tree,” she said.
As for Santa Claus (in Armenian, literally Grandfather Winter), well, according to Kharatyan, as an expression of Christian culture, it is the image of a saint. Santa Claus, or St. Nick, began to develop in Catholic culture, having different manifestations in different countries (Ded Moroz, for instance), but principally having considerable similarities in his external appearance.
“Santa Claus, in his main incarnation, comes from the north, brings presents and sometimes he is guided by the beauty, the Snow Maiden. And it has had quite a large reach even outside of the world of Indo-European culture. I believe that Armenian New Year didn’t have a Santa Claus. Santa Claus is a newly created phenomenon and in the New Year rituals, but one that has been very successfully adopted and he can acquire new characteristics among Armenians too,” she said.