Russia Edition
Resolution Map Day leads today's complete edition for Russia.
Daily Edition
Official observances, world days, local context, and everyday celebrations for people who need something worth reading, sharing, or talking about today.
New Year's Resolutions are nearly universal failures in every culture. Now that New Year's Day is a few days behind, if you truly intend to make change, today is when you map realistic goals on a calendar and write daily steps you can take to make goals real. If you won't write it today, you'll have nothing to follow tomorrow.
The Russian Christmas is celebrated on January 7 following the Julian calendar used by the Russian Orthodox Church. The Christmas Eve dinner includes 12 dishes, one for each apostle, and the tradition is to fast until the first star appears in the sky. The meal centers on kutya, a sweet wheat porridge with honey, nuts, and poppy seeds. Christmas is not about presents but about presence, and the tradition is to visit every relative on Christmas Day. Churches hold solemn midnight liturgies, and the patriarch broadcasts his sermon from the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.
Svyatki is the Russian Christmas season, lasting from January 7 to January 19, and it is a time of fortune-telling, caroling, and merrymaking. The tradition is for young women to gather at midnight and tell their fortunes, using candles, mirrors, and rings. The most popular fortune-telling method is to look into a mirror in a dark room and wait for the face of your future husband to appear. The caroling tradition (kolyadki) involves going from house to house, singing songs, and receiving treats. The Svyatki is the one time of year when the normal rules are suspended, and the spirits of the dead are believed to walk among the living.
You witness the okapi and the Congo peafowl in the dense rainforests of the Democratic Republic of Congo. You find that Congolese people primarily keep dogs, cats, and chickens as pets in urban and rural areas. ACADA celebrates the world's pets, and helps assure better care.
