Society and culture: Festival “History of New Year’s Toy” in Moscow

December 16, 2014 the Central Museum of the Great Patriotic War on Poklonnaya Hill in Moscow holds a family festival "History of New Year's Toy", dedicated to the celebration of the New Year and the opening of the thematic exhibition of the same name.

As part of the festival "History of New Year's Toy" Central Museum of the Great Patriotic War and the "Moscow Museum of Toys" present a joint Internet project of a well-known collector, historian of Soviet toys, restorer, artist and teacher Sergei Gennadyevich Romanov and Puppet Museum exhibition "A Doll's House of Olga Okudzhava". This exhibition allows the viewer through the expressiveness and originality of artistic forms submitting vintage Christmas toy as a bright layer of cultural heritage and show it to the exclusive, symbolic role in the tradition of New Year celebrations in Russia.

The exhibition features about 500 unique items created in the period from 30ts to 80s years of the XX century. Numerous and rare and its significance substantive number allows seeing how the "evolution" of Christmas toys under the influence of important historical events from the glass balls to popular Soviet toys with characteristic symbols has existed.

New Year exhibition is held at the Museum for the eighth time. The exhibition presents unique items from private collections, family archives, Christmas decorations and New Year ornaments of war years, envelopes and letters from the front, greeting cards, invitations, and children's books, as well as everyday objects of 1940s and other artifacts from the museum.

A memorable event of the war years for Moscow kids was "Tree of Victory". The decision on its holding was taken when our troops had already liberated the occupied countries of Eastern Europe. This celebration, held in the garden of "Hermitage" in Moscow from December 26 1944 to January 20, 1945, marked a coming victorious end to the war with Nazi Germany. For nearly a month this Christmas tree was visited by about 150 thousand children, many of whom at that time just returned from evacuation.