All I want for New Year

Oh baby

Arina Nikishova, 33, travel agency manager, and Sergei Tishkin, 36, architect

For the New Year, we mostly buy presents and New Year decorations. We are very fond of hand-painted Christmas tree ornaments. We’d like to keep them for a long time – so our children might still enjoy them years from now. We don’t spend much on groceries, however, for we usually eat out with our friends for most of the holiday season.

 Our dream for the coming year is to have a baby!

I need a raise

Avaz Takhyrov, 37, blue collar worker

For the New Year, I buy everything my wife and my two kids want: toys, clothes – anything at all, no objections. For our New Year celebration, we will have chocolates, cakes, fruit – no alcohol, though.

I would really like to make more money – the kids are growing up, they ask for more and more every year.

Cutting back

The Kholshchigins: Yulia, 38, Viktor, 55 – financial experts; Lera, 12

For the New Year, we buy various decorations – mostly the type you can refashion and give your friends as presents. We are also now looking for a piglet to roast for the New Year dinner.

The coming year will be very difficult – and we are saying this as financiers. So we don’t have any dreams for the year; we are just preparing to cut back on our spending.

Peace and quiet

Tatyana Myakisheva, 38, pediatric nurse

For the New Year, I buy mostly groceries, and usually at the last minute. The most important thing here is to be careful with the labels: grocery stores often try to get rid of food products with expired ‘best before’ dates.

What’s your dream? I want no troubles next year: I’m sick and tired of shuddering every time at the thought that tomorrow I might be left without money or a job.

Happy for what we have

Fyodor and Alexandra Ivanov, 85 and 83, senior citizens

For the New Year we buy just a few groceries. We don’t need much. A spoonful of salad, a mouthful of fish - and that’s all.

It’s better not to plan anything for the coming year but rather thank fate that we are still independent, that we can go to a store on our own and choose where and how to celebrate New Year. This is happiness, isn’t it?

Peace for the world, and for myself

Yekaterina Preobrazhenskaya, 21, student

For the New Year, I buy presents mostly for myself – dresses, shoes, handbags. I haven’t bought any groceries yet, though, because I don’t know so far where I’ll go for the celebration.

I dream of a prince on a white horse and a million dollars flying into my window! Seriously, I want to find a job that really suits me. And, naturally, peace in the world. And fair elections.

Photo by Alexander Zemlyanichenko Junior/Ogoniok. First published in the Ogoniok magazine.

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