And a happy New Year!
The Russian traditions for this time of year differ somewhat from the Western ones. Santa Claus is called Father Frost (Ded Moroz), he has a daughter but not a wife, and he comes on New Year's Eve instead of Christmas Eve. He also traditionally would use a troika of horses instead of reindeer. But other than that, there are many similarities, and these days, the two different traditions are gradually merging.
Here are some great Russian animated "New Year's cards" that I've come across recently.
My favourite one comes from the first Moldovan 3D animation project that I talked about recently. These guys really know what they're doing! I love the seamless combination of evocative 3D character models with beautiful painted backgrounds.
The blog post about how this cartoon came to be is here
(ok, Moldova is not Russia. But it was united with Russia from 1812-1991, they speak Russian, and most of the project's fanbase is Russian, judging by the user comments on the Moldovan website)
Here's one from Toonbox Studio (formed from the koms.ru collective), directed by Andrey Bakhurin ( original post):
Here's an English-language one from Tatiana Moshkova ( original post):
Here's one from director Mikhail Tumelya (tumelya), a colleague of Aleksandr Petrov ( original post):
And here's a rather darker one from Mr. Freeman. The director is anonymous. (if English subtitles are not showing up, click on the triangle in the lower-right corner of the video and turn on CC)
Here are some great Russian animated "New Year's cards" that I've come across recently.
My favourite one comes from the first Moldovan 3D animation project that I talked about recently. These guys really know what they're doing! I love the seamless combination of evocative 3D character models with beautiful painted backgrounds.
The blog post about how this cartoon came to be is here
(ok, Moldova is not Russia. But it was united with Russia from 1812-1991, they speak Russian, and most of the project's fanbase is Russian, judging by the user comments on the Moldovan website)
Here's one from Toonbox Studio (formed from the koms.ru collective), directed by Andrey Bakhurin ( original post):
Click to viewHere's an English-language one from Tatiana Moshkova ( original post):
Here's one from director Mikhail Tumelya (tumelya), a colleague of Aleksandr Petrov ( original post):
And here's a rather darker one from Mr. Freeman. The director is anonymous. (if English subtitles are not showing up, click on the triangle in the lower-right corner of the video and turn on CC)