We are celebrating New Year Twice a year! New Year according to two calendars: the new one - Gregorian - and the old one - Julian. Old New Year - New Year according to the Julian calendar (“according to the old style”). Occurs on the night of January 13-14.

Why not? Unlike the New Year, this holiday is warm and relaxed. It prolongs the Christmas fun.

And, of course, Old New Year is the time to make dumplings and tell fortunes!

They tell fortunes on the night of January 13-14, not for life, but only for a year: what will fall into New Year's dumplings- so be it.

Dumplings with a surprise - very interesting dish. They are usually prepared for the Old New Year - this has already become a kind of Russian tradition associated with. After all, such dumplings are prepared primarily to tell fortunes about what awaits in the coming year.

Dumplings for the Old New Year with a surprise - the meaning of the surprise filling.

Orange - for pleasure

Peanuts - for a love affair

White thread - for a long journey

Ticket - for travel

Cherry - good luck

Peas - home peace

Walnut – health

Buckwheat – favorable and profitable news

Mushrooms - for a long and happy life

Big money - big win

Grain - to wealth;

Raisins - to great temptation;

The cabbage came across - the wife fell in love with her husband

Precious stone - to a new status

Caramel - for love;

Potatoes - for a promotion at work

Cranberry - for unexpected changes in life

Ring - for the wedding

Red pepper - unfortunately

Dried apricots - to joy

Bay leaf - to fame (career growth);

Honey - health

Coin - a prosperous year in material terms;

Carrots - for new acquaintances;

Torment - to suffer;

Meat - for well-being

White thread - long road(long and long journey);

Green thread - the road abroad

Thread with knots - for a difficult year

Black thread - a short and not very long trip;

Cucumber - for a strong man

Olive - for longevity.

Nut - immediately to two fans (admirers);

Pepper - thrill

Ground allspice – for “spicy” i.e. An eventful life, serious changes;

Button - for a new thing;

Millet - futile efforts

Rice - prosperity in the home

Sugar - sweet life(easy, favorable year);

Seeds - to new fruitful plans

Salt - to quarrels and failures (tears);

Capsicum peppers - for sexual pleasures

Cheese - to win

Cottage cheese - to new friends

Dough, or fish scales - to replenish the family;

Dill - to good health;

Beans - to replenish the family

Hazelnuts - for successful acquisitions

Bread - the year will be full and good;

Chain - strengthening family ties

A teapot in a dumpling is for gifts.

Tea bags - for super promotion

Black peppercorns - to friends (to new friendly relations);

Garlic - for a marriage of convenience

Apple - for a well-deserved reward

To believe or not to believe the meaning of surprises in dumplings for the Old New Year is an individual matter. Actually, how to decide whether to eat dumplings for the Old New Year or not. It is quite possible that you have your own surprises and interpretations of these surprises.

Based on materials from the Magnitiza website

Why not? Unlike the New Year, this holiday is warm and unfussy. It prolongs the Christmas charm and allows those who are fasting to enjoy holiday dishes. In addition, it has a second practical component - through the TV box, and you can see all the missed New Year's programs and concerts with a sober head. If you celebrated the New Year with friends, this holiday can be dedicated to your family. And vice versa. In a word, a second chance so beloved by the Russian people. And of course, Old New Year is the time to make dumplings and tell fortunes!
In Russian tradition, on the evening of January 13, it was customary to set the table generously and abundantly. Unlike Christmas, exclusively family holiday, it was customary to visit each other, sing carols and treat themselves in every house. People made every effort to outdo their neighbors. Served on the table jellied fish, partridges, homemade sausage, pancakes, stuffed bird, pies, baked pork. “Rich” kutia became one of the main dishes. They did not spare nuts, dried apricots and raisins for her.

The belief says that how you celebrate the New Year is how you will spend it. And whatever comes across in the New Year’s dumplings, so be it. They tell fortunes on the night of January 13-14, not for life, but only for a year. To believe or not to believe dumplings is up to the owner. The main thing: do not forget to thoroughly rinse the “fillings”, and also warn guests that the dumplings contain surprises, in order to avoid broken teeth and swallowed buttons.

Subtleties of cooking dumplings

The main fillings for dumplings are cottage cheese and potatoes with fried onions. But in fact, they can be filled in so many different ways that it won’t even come to mind: from mushrooms to oranges. With cheese, cherries, peas, fish, tomatoes, raisins, dried apricots, shrimp in the Japanese version. Eggs are not added to the dough for dumplings. An exception is made only for sweets. fruit fillings, and then only yolks are taken.

If you are going big company and intend to stick a lot of dumplings, place them on a towel sprinkled with flour and cover so that they do not dry out. When dumplings are thrown into the pan, make sure that they float freely and do not stick to each other. Otherwise, the dumplings will tear, the filling will spill out and settle at the bottom of the vessel. Do not cover the pan with a lid either - you risk boiling down “your destiny” and not seeing any surprises.
Serve the finished dumplings hot - it tastes better. And if it’s cooled down, sprinkle it warm milk and heat over low heat.


Fillings meanings

And now the most important thing - the symbols of various Old New Year's dumplings fillings:

Orange - for pleasure
Peanuts - for a love affair
Cherry - good luck
Peas - home peace
Walnut – health
Buckwheat – favorable and profitable news
Mushrooms - for a long and happy life
Big money - big win
Grain - to wealth
Raisins - to great temptation
If you get cabbage, it means money, and in the old days they used to say, “When you get cabbage, the wife clings to her husband.”
Caramel - for love
Potatoes - for a promotion at work
Cranberry - for unexpected changes in life
Ring - for the wedding
Red pepper - unfortunately
Dried apricots - to joy
Bay leaf - to fame (career growth)
Honey - health
Coin - a prosperous year in material terms
Carrots - for new acquaintances
Torment - to suffer
Meat - for well-being
White thread - long journey (long and long journey)
Green thread - the road abroad
Thread with knots - for a difficult year
Black thread - a short and not very long trip
Cucumber - for a strong man, good sex
Nut - immediately to two fans (admirers)
Pepper - a thrill
Ground allspice – to “spicy”, i.e. an eventful life, major changes
Button - for a new thing
Millet - futile efforts
Rice - prosperity in the home
Sugar - sweet life (easy, favorable year)
Seeds - to new fruitful plans
Salt - to quarrels and failures (tears)
Capsicum peppers - for sexual pleasures
Cheese - to win
Cottage cheese - to new friends
Dough, beans, or fish scales - for a new addition to the family
Dill - to good health
Hazelnuts - for successful acquisitions
Bread - the year will be full and good
Chain - strengthening family ties
Black peppercorns - to friends (to new friendly relations)
Garlic - for a marriage of convenience
Apple - for a well-deserved reward
What else to tell fortunes

In addition to dumplings on New Year's Eve Ancient Rus' guessed with porridge. There's nothing stopping us from doing it today. After removing the foam, our great-grandmothers looked at the porridge - if it was dark and full, there would be happiness, a harvest, and a talented daughter. If the porridge is small and white, there will be trouble. Good porridge They ate it for breakfast, but the bad ones were thrown into the river.

It is interesting that the Old New Year is celebrated not only in Russia, but also in other countries. Naturally, this tradition is still preserved in the territory former USSR- in neighboring countries. In Ukraine, Armenia, Moldova and Belarus they continue to celebrate the New Year twice. The same thing is happening in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Georgia.
In addition, there is a tradition of celebrating the old New Year in Serbia and Montenegro, since Serbian Orthodox Church, like the Russian one, continues to live according to the Julian calendar. Serbs call this holiday Serbian New Year. The Old New Year is celebrated in Macedonia and Switzerland. Or rather, in some of its German-speaking cantons. Like us, these are traces of popular rejection of the transition to the Gregorian calendar (this transition in Protestant Switzerland took place in the 17th-18th centuries).

Dedicated to the Old New Year - this purely Russian phenomenon.

Did Lenin think, when introducing the global Gregorian calendar instead of the Julian calendar in Russia, that the Russians would not receive new holiday instead of the old one, and a holiday that lasts for half a month! Many people themselves do not understand why Christmas is now January 7, and not December 25, why the New Year holiday falls during the period of Lent, and why the Old New Year is needed in general. Traditions have been lost or mixed with modernity, what and how was celebrated even 100 years ago, few people know for sure, so let's relax. On New Year's Eve, I would recommend that even the most ardent business woman turn into a housewife and please her family with some surprise dish. For example, homemade dumplings with surprises.

My blog is about success, but there is no successful woman without a cozy home, fragrant food and the smell of the holiday.

January 14 (according to the old style it was the 1st) was always Vasiliev's Day, which was considered in Rus' a holiday of agriculture, and was of decisive importance for the entire next year. Then they didn’t invite the atheistic Father Frost, invented in the USSR, but simply counted after the Nativity of Christ. harvested, wondered what the next harvest would be and next year for family. To do this, they cooked porridge from all the cereals available in the house, slaughtered a pig and... made dumplings. With surprises.

My grandfather’s name was Vasily, and his birthday was precisely January 14 (and in the old birth certificate - January 1, 1902, after 1924 the certificate was changed and issued with the date January 14, 1902). I don't remember in Soviet time whether the Old New Year was a day off, but I remember well that we were going to my grandparents’ place “for dumplings” on that day. And I remember well how once in childhood I got dumplings with black pepper. We didn’t really experiment with surprises back then and didn’t try to make a lot of exotic fillers. Usually they prepared one with pepper, the second with a coin. The rest of the dumplings were ordinary, with potatoes, cottage cheese, cabbage.

When I got older, we started experimenting with fillings, coming up with something new and exotic. Before I tell you what recipe my family uses to make dumplings, let’s talk about the fillings.

Fillings for dumplings with surprises. Meanings.

When the Internet appeared, I realized that experimenting with fillings for dumplings is not a whim or a conjecture, various “fun” surprise fillings have existed for a long time, they put threads, decorations, salt, and much more in dumplings. And each of these fillings means something.

Now, if you show your imagination and...

No, that's too much. Although it can exist as a visualization. But I will still write about the real fillings.

For example:

• Dumplings with cabbage mean money (that’s essentially it).
• Dumpling with cucumber - for good sex (this is apparently in shape).
• With red pepper - to chagrin, tears.
• But with black - on the contrary, to thrills, spicy.

There are whole lists in which, of course, there is much more fantasy than real background, but... I’ll share it for experimenters. I don’t think that in Rus' they made dumplings with oranges or caramels, although similar interpretations can sometimes be found online, but I won’t put such nonsense on the list. I will write only traditional, although not quite standard, options for surprise fillings.

• Peanuts - for a love affair
• Banana - for exotic pleasures
• Cherry - good luck
• Pea - to home peace
• Nail - for repairs or purchase of new equipment
• Walnut - to good health
• Buckwheat - to well-being and prosperity in the house
• Mushrooms - for a long and happy life
• Money, coins - to money, of course
• Wood (piece) - for a new home
• Spruce ( spruce branch) - this is your year, everything you wish will succeed
• Acorn - to an unexpected big surprise
• Grain - to abundance
• Raisins - to great temptation
• Strawberries - for unexpected changes in life
• Ring - for the wedding
• Coffee bean - hectic social life
• Dried apricots - to unexpected joy
• Bay leaf - to fame (career growth)
• Carrots - for reproduction (ideas, offspring, etc.)
• Meat – to well-being and stability
• White thread - to a long pleasant road (travel)
• Colored thread - for traveling abroad
• Thread with knots - for a difficult year, with obstacles
• Black thread - for a short and not very long trip
• Cookies - in inexhaustible bread and salt on the table throughout the year
• Button - for new things, in the wardrobe and in everyday life
• Millet - for hard work. which will give good results
• Rice - to prosperity and supplies for the house
• Fish - to a successful “catch” in all areas of life
• Sugar is a sign of the sweet life (easy, favorable year)
• Seeds - to bad gossip
• Paperclip - good news in the workplace
• Salt - to quarrels and failures (tears)
• Capsicum - for sexual pleasures...with a hint...
• Cheese – for winning and “skating in butter”
• Dill - to good sexual health
• Beans - to replenish the “stuff” in the family: it could be a child, or someone will acquire a museum-wife, a new house, new major acquisitions. That is, any addition to the house.
• Hazelnuts - for successful purchases for the house
• Bread - for a hearty, good year
• Chain - to strengthen family ties
• Black peppercorns - to new friends
• Garlic - to life's difficulties
• Skin - for a new fur coat
• Sorrel - to good health
• Apple - for a well-deserved reward
• Sour berries (such as cranberries, currants, bird cherry, mulberry) - to love without reciprocity
• Egg with rice - for offspring

To be honest, I don’t quite understand why you put something in dumplings that has a bad interpretation, but that’s the tradition! Although everyone decides what to follow and what not, what to leave and what to modernize. I personally would choose only the good ones from all the fillings!!!

You can, for example, put something different in each dumpling, not the same as in the others. And each dumpling will be unique in its own way. In this case, a list of all kinds of “surprise” fillings will be very useful to you. Yes, I recommend wrapping inedible surprises and paper in foil, and making everything approximately the same size and shape, otherwise it will be uninteresting to pull out the dumplings!

You can even be original for the New Year. If you haven’t written goals on pieces of paper yet, then you can put pieces of paper with goals and fantasies in dumplings instead of surprises. Just write them on paper not with a pen, but with a pencil, otherwise what you wrote with a pen will blur as a result of cooking. So, take out the dumplings and read the “forecast” for next year. Both tasty and healthy.

How to make dough for dumplings with surprises.

At the request of blog readers, I’m also adding a recipe for dough for dumplings - my favorite dish!

I’ll say right away that this is my grandmother’s recipe; as a child, I only helped her make dumplings, but I remembered the technology. Many are surprised how from such a lean simple test You get big fluffy dumplings. This is a mystery to me too. But no milk is added to the dough. neither an egg, it has only three components: flour, water and vegetable oil.

This recipe is especially good for those who decide to indulge in dumplings during the fasting period. Although, I repeat, my grandmother always prepared dumplings this way.

The flour must be white premium, other flour will stick worse. Vegetable oil can be sunflower or olive, but not corn, flaxseed, or rapeseed. I experimented, but it doesn't work.

Very little water is needed. Actually, for 0.5 kg of flour you need approximately no more than 100-150 g of water. The rest is oil (oil consumption is about 150 grams, not that much. I specifically write small portion, from this amount of dough I get about 30 dumplings, just enough for my son and me for 2 breakfasts. You can count as much as you need for your family, guests, and so on.

Then everything is very simple. Pour the flour sifted through a sieve onto a special large board or table (I like it on the table), make a depression in the flour all the way to the surface of the table and pour oil into it.

In principle, this is the basic amount of oil that we will need, then we’ll just add a little bit.

Then we just start kneading the butter and flour with our hands. After mixing, add a little water (about 1/2 cup), continue mixing the resulting mixture with water. Here it is very important not to overdo it with water; the optimal principle is “less is more.”

Also prepare a plate with flour, in which you will first “wet” your fingers while kneading, and then roll in the dumplings. Add butter, a teaspoon at a time, to the dough obtained after adding water. They added - they interfered, they added - they interfered. The dough should be slippery so that you can feel its softness and elasticity directly with your fingers. It should be such that your fingers do not stick to it.

I won't explain it more precisely. Since childhood, my grandmother repeated to me that I can’t feel the dough, my hands are not the right ones, and so on... The installation was driven so rigidly that I lived for more than 20 years with the conviction that the dough is beyond my control, I don’t feel it, I don’t took it. And I tried the most different recipes dough, and all the time it turned out to be some kind of mess.

Memories of youth. It’s not for nothing that I wrote about how you can feel like a housewife. There was a period in my life when I was defending my diploma, there was practically no time to earn money. And at home there was only a bag of flour, a bag of potatoes and some frozen fruits and vegetables left over from the winter. There was no more money or food. And for almost two months I fed my son only dumplings in the morning and evening (during the day he ate kindergarten). Several years have passed. I began to stand in the stove less and less often, I’m a business girl, Christmas tree sticks. 🙂 And one day my son said sadly: “Mom, what kind of dumplings did you make! It was the happiest time of my life! I’ve never eaten so many dumplings before!”

Oh, these! It’s ironic how a difficult period in my life turned out to be so joyful for my son. And it was during that period of many days of practice in making dumplings that I felt it. how to do it correct dough! Constant repetition led to the acquisition of skill. Now I already intuitively feel when the dough is ready and when you still need to work with him.

There are people who roll out a large sheet of dough and use a glass to cut out circles for dumplings... This is, of course, an option, but often conditions do not allow big table, and such rolling out takes more time. I do the same here. like my grandmother, who loved to cook everything quickly, energetically, and saving as much time as possible.

I tear off a small piece from the dough, make a “sausage” out of it, then cut the sausage into small pieces, and roll out each piece. I don’t even use a rolling pin, I do it with an ordinary thick glass (blue in the photo) - it takes up very little space and effort, and you don’t need to make large “rolling” movements. Right there in the photo you can see a cup of water and how much water was used for the dough, less than half a cup.

While I make the dough, the filling ripens along the way. We usually make a variety of fillings: cherries, cottage cheese, strawberries, cabbage, but most of all my son loves dumplings with potatoes, so today our filling looks like this: crushed boiled potatoes mixed with fried finely chopped onion.

On specified quantity For the dough, just boil one large potato and fry one onion.

Yes, I put pepper in at least one of the dumplings and a coin in the other (my child really likes this).

Of course, before putting the coin in the dumpling, it is better to boil it. And place it not alone, but among the filling, so that it is not so noticeable.

What’s remarkable is that Temchik always gets the coins and black pepper... Probably this is because every time before putting on the dumplings I think about how there will be no surprises...

Although life's surprises are a good thing. The main thing is that our surprises do not cause inconvenience to others. Therefore, if you invite guests to dumplings with surprises, warn them to be more careful and take care of their teeth and stomachs. After all, it’s unpleasant if, for example, a ring instead of a finger ends up in your stomach...

Then I put the finished dumplings in the freezer for at least half an hour. I boil water and throw it in boiling water. Cook, stirring, until it floats completely, but the main thing is not to overcook.

Dumplings can be topped with sour cream, homemade mayonnaise sauce, sometimes even just soy sauce I water or sprinkle with herbs if they are not sweet. If the dumplings are sweet, you can add cherry juice or sprinkle with sugar.

So I’ve shared with you my favorite recipe for my son’s favorite dish. But... classics are classics, and you can put something in dumplings that will be connected not just with abstract things. but also with the specific business you are doing. I’m a networker, and I came up with this form of school for my organization (more precisely, an event aimed at uniting team spirit): joint sculpting of dumplings! They sit, sculpt, communicate, fill dumplings with objects that can be used to try to predict new developments in their business. After all, you don’t have to put edible fillings, you can have fun and put something inedible, and here the flight of imagination can be limitless.

Show your imagination! If you are not a networker, figure out what you can put in dumplings for representatives of your profession. In the meantime, I’m offering surprises for networkers.

What to put in surprise dumplings:

Of course, filling the stomachs and emptying the wallets of the population in new year holidays should please networkers with a colossal opportunity to both increase the turnover of products for normalizing weight, restoring digestion, and contribute to the influx of new business partners. Try to “tell fortunes” using dumplings in this way: what awaits you next year.

• Coin - of course, for a financially successful year, for check growth
• Precious stone - to a new status
• Mushrooms - to the growth of structure
• Pomegranate seeds - to a large number clients
• Chain - to a new educational cycle of schools
• Multi-colored threads - to the discovery of new regions.
• Bracelet - to become an even more powerful sponsor
• Element of packaging of the company's products - to increase trade turnover
• Cones - to new methods of work
• Spring - for super-promotion of your site

Suggest what else? Let's dream up some surprises that we can put in the dumplings together.

Push the buttons social networks- this is for money!

Making surprise dumplings together will create the atmosphere of a family holiday. A cozy atmosphere will bring family members and invited guests together. It is better to involve all participants in fortune-telling in making dumplings. So fortune telling will have more power.

Attention! The basic rule for preparing “magic” dumplings is that all stages of cooking must be carried out manually by the hostess of the table or by all the fortune tellers. No blenders, mixers, dough mixers or dough sheeters!

If a family has a tradition of making dumplings and dumplings, then there is probably a proven dough recipe. But, unfortunately, now this custom is very rare. Therefore, below are recipe options and recommendations for preparing dough for dumplings:

Lenten dough Prepared without eggs or milk. Suitable for vegetarian cuisine.
Ingredients for dough for 30 dumplings:

• premium flour - 0.5 kg;
• plain water - 100-150 g;
• vegetable oil - about 150 g;
• 1 tsp salt.

Dry ingredients are poured onto the table in a heap. poured from above required amount water. Now you can carefully begin kneading. First, the dough is kneaded with your finger in a spiral, and then kneaded with your hands. When the mixture becomes a little sticky, it's time to add the oil. Next, the dough must be kneaded with your hands until elastic. It is important not to overdo it, so that it does not become rough during cooking.

Traditional dough prepared using eggs. Ingredients:

• 250 ml water;
• 4 tbsp. premium flour;
• salt;
• 1 egg.

Eggs and salt are added to the water. Then add flour and knead the dough. He needs to be allowed to “rest” in a cool place for about half an hour. After this you need to knead it a little more.

Advice. A familiar dish can become original if after cooking the dumplings are fried over high heat in vegetable oil with the addition of onions. The crispy crust will add some piquancy!

Fillings for dumplings

Guests and family members are invited to the Old New Year not only to tell fortunes, but also to treat themselves delicious dish. Therefore, in addition to the surprise, the dumplings must also contain the main filling. The housewife can choose the following filling options to suit her taste:

• potato;
• potato with the addition of fried onions;
• potato with the addition of stewed sauerkraut;
• cottage cheese (necessarily add a raw egg to hold the minced meat together, salt or sugar - to taste);
• Adyghe cheese (mash the cheese with a fork, add salt to taste and a raw egg, you can add greens).

Each dumpling comes with a small surprise. It may be edible or inedible. Dumplings should be made the same size.

It is better to put the surprise in the center of the dumpling so that no one can guess in advance what kind of prediction awaits him.

Advice. To avoid disagreements or offense at the table, it is better to prepare and print out a list of predictions in advance specifically for your fillings. You can select, for example, only positive predictions.

Surprises and their meanings

• White thread - long journey;
• The black thread is a close road;
• Thread with knots - a difficult period ahead;
• Colored thread - travel abroad is possible;
• Ring - for a wedding;
• Cherry - there will be good luck;
• Raisin - conflict with neighbors;
• Orange - you will experience pleasure;
• Banana - exotic pleasures await you;
• Strawberries - get ready for a major revolution in life;
• Currant - love without reciprocity;
• Cranberry - sudden changes are coming;
• Peas - there will be peace in the family;
• Grain - to wealth;
• Buckwheat - good news will come;
• Mushrooms - you will become a long-liver;
• Potatoes – growth at work is possible;
• Honey - improve health;
• Meat - to material well-being;
• Walnut - improve your health;
• Button – update your wardrobe;
• Rice - there will be prosperity;
• Sugar is an easy year in all respects;
• Bay leaf - become famous, your career will take off;
• Salt - to scandals and failures (tears);
• Cheese - win a prize;
• Dough - there will be a new addition to the family;
• Beans - to the emergence of new family members (children, grandchildren, husband, wife);
• Yellow coin - you will experience pleasure;
• White coin - to discord in the family;
• Seeds - plans and ideas will appear;
• Garlic - marriage will be of convenience;
• Red pepper - frequent disappointments are expected;
• Black pepper - quarrel with your best friends;

• Peppercorns - you will make new friends;
• Capsicum - indulge in sexual passion;
• Peanuts - love affairs are expected;
• Nail - repairs to be done;
• Wood - start building a house;
• Spruce - the whole year will be successful;
• Acorn - get a surprise;
• Coffee bean - you will burst into the light;
• Cookies - there will always be prosperity in the house;
• Pisces - success awaits you in all areas of life;
• Paper clip - good news in the workplace;
• Dill - to sexual health;
• Skin - for a new fur coat;
• Sorrel - to good health;
• Egg with rice - there will be offspring;
• Money – win a large sum of money;
• Candy - meet love;
• Flour - you will suffer all year;
• Cottage cheese - you will make new friends;
• Fish scales - for the birth of a child;
• Bread - there will be a money year;
• Chain - strengthen relationships with relatives.

Attention! For safety reasons, please warn guests about the presence of inedible and hard objects in the dumplings.

When the dumplings are ready and the table is set, everyone is invited to the table. The main dish is placed in the center of the table. Each guest personally puts any number of dumplings on his plate. Fortune telling begins!

Dumplings with a surprise: video

A nation that eats dumplings with bread and celebrates the New Year twice a year is invincible! Try to explain to a foreigner what the Old New Year is, have a lot of fun. Who gave us this unusual holiday? In case you forgot, it was grandfather... but not Moroz, but Lenin. Vladimir Ilyich could not even imagine what a gift he was giving to future generations when he adopted the decree “On the introduction of the Western European calendar in the Russian Republic” in 1918. He, naive, believed that Russians would celebrate the change of years like everyone else - according to the Gregorian calendar. And we still celebrate the New Year according to two calendars: the new - Gregorian and the old - Julian.

Why not? Unlike the New Year, this holiday is warm and unfussy. It prolongs the Christmas charm and allows those who are fasting to enjoy festive dishes. In addition, it has a second practical component - through the TV box, and you can see all the missed New Year's programs and concerts with a sober head. If you celebrated the New Year with friends, this holiday can be dedicated to your family. And vice versa. In a word, a second chance so beloved by the Russian people. And of course, Old New Year is the time to make dumplings and tell fortunes!

In Russian tradition, on the evening of January 13, it was customary to set the table generously and abundantly. Unlike Christmas, an exclusively family holiday, it was customary to visit each other, carol and treat each other in every home. People made every effort to outdo their neighbors. Jellied fish, partridges, homemade sausage, pancakes, stuffed poultry, pies, and baked pork were served on the table. “Rich” kutia became one of the main dishes. They did not spare nuts, dried apricots and raisins for her.

Dumplings with surprises

The belief says that how you celebrate the New Year is how you will spend it. And whatever comes across in the New Year's dumplings - so be it. They tell fortunes on the night of January 13-14, not for life, but only for a year. To believe or not to believe dumplings is up to the owner. The main thing: do not forget to thoroughly rinse the “fillings”, and also warn guests that the dumplings contain surprises, in order to avoid broken teeth and swallowed buttons.

Subtleties of cooking dumplings

The main fillings for dumplings are cottage cheese and potatoes with fried onions. But in fact, they can be filled in so many different ways that it won’t even come to mind: from mushrooms to oranges. With cheese, cherries, peas, fish, tomatoes, raisins, dried apricots, shrimp in the Japanese version. Eggs are not added to the dough for dumplings. An exception is made only for sweet fruit fillings, and then only yolks are used.

If you are gathered in a large group and intend to make a lot of dumplings, place them on a towel sprinkled with flour and cover them so that they do not dry out. When dumplings are thrown into the pan, make sure that they float freely and do not stick to each other. Otherwise, the dumplings will tear, the filling will spill out and settle at the bottom of the vessel. Don’t cover the pan with a lid either - you risk boiling “your destiny” and not seeing any surprises.

Serve the finished dumplings hot - it tastes better. And if it has cooled down, sprinkle with warm milk and heat over low heat.

Fillings meanings

And now the most important thing - symbols various old New Year's dumplings fillings:

Orange - for pleasure

Peanuts - for a love affair

Cherry - good luck

Peas - home peace

Walnut – health

Buckwheat – favorable and profitable news

Mushrooms - for a long and happy life

Big money - big win

Grain - to wealth

Raisins - to great temptation

If you get cabbage, it means money, and in the old days they used to say, “When you get cabbage, the wife clings to her husband.”

Caramel - for love

Potatoes - for a promotion at work

Cranberry - for unexpected changes in life

Ring - for the wedding

Red pepper - unfortunately

Dried apricots - to joy

Bay leaf - to fame (career growth)

Honey - health

Coin - a prosperous year in material terms

Carrots - for new acquaintances

Torment - to suffer

Meat - for well-being

White thread - long journey (long and long journey)

Green thread - the road abroad

Thread with knots - for a difficult year

Black thread - a short and not very long trip

Cucumber - for a strong man, good sex

Nut - immediately to two fans (admirers)

Pepper - thrill

Ground allspice – to “spicy”, i.e. an eventful life, major changes

Button - for a new thing

Millet - futile efforts

Rice - prosperity in the home

Sugar - sweet life (easy, favorable year)

Seeds - to new fruitful plans

Salt - to quarrels and failures (tears)

Capsicum peppers - for sexual pleasures

Cheese - to win

Cottage cheese - to new friends

Dough, beans, or fish scales - for a new addition to the family

Dill - to good health

Hazelnuts - for successful acquisitions

Bread - the year will be full and good

Chain - strengthening family ties

Black peppercorns - to friends (to new friendly relations)

Garlic - for a marriage of convenience

Apple - for a well-deserved reward

What else to tell fortunes

In addition to dumplings on New Year's Eve, in Ancient Rus' they used to tell fortunes using porridge. There's nothing stopping us from doing it today. After removing the foam, our great-grandmothers looked at the porridge - if it was dark and full, there would be happiness, a harvest, and a talented daughter. If the porridge is small and white, there will be trouble. Good porridge was eaten for breakfast, but bad porridge was thrown into the river.

How are they

It is interesting that the Old New Year is celebrated not only in Russia, but also in other countries. Naturally, this tradition is still preserved in the territory of the former USSR - in neighboring countries. In Ukraine, Armenia, Moldova and Belarus they continue to celebrate the New Year twice. The same thing is happening in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Georgia.

In addition, there is a tradition of celebrating the old New Year in Serbia and Montenegro, since the Serbian Orthodox Church, like the Russian, continues to live according to the Julian calendar. Serbs call this holiday Serbian New Year. The Old New Year is celebrated in Macedonia and Switzerland. Or rather, in some of its German-speaking cantons. Like us, these are traces of popular rejection of the transition to the Gregorian calendar (this transition in Protestant Switzerland took place in the 17th-18th centuries).