BONJOUR L'ESTONIE

AIDS in Estonia in 2005 : more than 600 new HIV positive

Sad statistics, according to which, more than 600 new HIV positive cases have been registered in Estonia this year.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), one per cent of the 15-49 year old citizens are HIV positive in Estonia. The infection is not that frequent in any other country north of Africa as it is in Estonia.

Human sufferings that are caused by the disease to the virus carriers and those close to them cannot be measured with money. Yet, the HIV epidemic has heavy economic consequences also for the country and society : in the coming years, Estonia has to be ready for the treatment of thousands of people infected by HIV, who have reached the phase were they will be in need of expensive medications.

The HIV treatment for one person costs nearly 100,000 kroons a year. If 250 people were treated this year, then by 2009 their amount will grow to 4,000. With the current prices, this means that 400 million kroons has to be spent for the HIV treatment after four years.

It is clear that the society has to help the sick. But the HIV carriers' treatment cannot be financed from the health insurance fund, but directly from the state budget. Otherwise, the HIV epidemic would mean longer queues for treatment and worse medical help.

Baltic states to introduce new travel rules for Russia

MOSCOW (RIA Novosti) - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania will introduce new travel rules for Russian nationals starting next year, Russia's Foreign Ministry said Saturday.

According to the ministry, Estonia will relax its visa regulations for Russians and other non-EU nationals. From January 1, 2006, those applying for tourist visas valid under five days will not have to submit a formal invitation from an Estonian resident.

Russian visitors to Latvia will next year have to declare cash in amounts exceeding 10,000 euros.

Russians traveling through Lithuania to or from the Russian Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad will be requested to orally declare their luggage when they cross the Lithuanian border.

According to the ministry, Lithuanian customs authorities assured the new rules would not further complicate the transit, which has been a point of contention between Moscow and Vilnius since the European Union's expansion last year.

Estonia braces for Russian rush for New Year

TALLINN (AFP) - Estonia is bracing for an influx of Russian tourists, expected in their thousands to usher in the new year at the capital of the former Soviet republic in a climate of nostalgia and a warm Baltic welcome.

"We're fully sold out for New Year's Eve," said Jaanika Peeba, marketing manager for the Grand Hotel Tallinn. "We've been sold out for the end of the year since the autumn -- and its's all customers from Russia."

Tourism officials have predicted that up to 20,000 Russians will pour into Tallinn for festivities starting this weekend to mark the new year and Russian Christmas, which culminates on January 7. That's twice as many people as there are hotel beds in the picturesque coastal city with a medieval old town.

To cater to their clientele from their giant eastern neighbour, hotels in Tallinn will see in the new year twice : first, when the clock ticks past midnight in Moscow and then an hour later when the same happens in the Baltics.

There will be Russian-language New Year's parties in most of the big hotels and restaurants in the Estonian capital to make the visitors feel even more at home in Tallinn, once a jewel in the crown of the so-called Soviet West.

"Russian tourists like it here for the New Year," says Kersti Kont of the Estonian Association of Travel Agents.

"For them, it's like being abroad and being at home at the same time. People here can speak Russian, and many Russian visitors have fond memories of their travels to Estonia in Soviet times, when they experienced life here which was different to life in Russia."

This season, the city of Tallinn expects a 25-percent increase in numbers of tourists from Russia, following a campaign to attract Russian visitors and their rubles to .....

An in-depth look at the Russian press, December 30

Politichesky Zhurnal

Russia has no development strategy - experts

Prominent Russian political scientists speak about the outgoing year and make forecasts for 2006.

Andrei Ryabov, Scholar-in-Residence, Moscow Carnegie Center : "It was a year of success for Putin's foreign policy aimed at strengthening other states' dependence on Russian energy resources. But this trend cannot last.

"The domestic policy is noted for a growing gap between the exhausted stabilization agenda and the need for a development strategy. The country does not have a development strategy in the social area ; nothing practical has been offered except for a plan to increase investment and solve the problems of health care and education in a way that some countries have discarded. In a word, the ongoing reforms are not adjusted to modernization tasks.

"Next year's main irritants may be unwise government decisions in the area of social reforms. The administration's striving to minimize risks and control everything may be a potentially destabilizing factor."

Maxim Dianov, director of the Regional Problems Institute: "Putin is man of the year 2005 and 2006. There is nobody else. In controlling the political and economic situation, the president has to tackle all problems. Mikhail Prusak, the governor of the Novgorod region, once said he had to telephone the federal authorities to get permission to cut grass in his region.

"Since Putin has assumed responsibility for absolutely everything in the country, the blame will gradually shift from the "bad court" to the "bad tsar."

Igor Bunin, head of the Center for Political Technologies: "The president's successor will be determined and the government will be changed next year. Dmitry Medvedev will be the new prime minister and the designated successor of the president."

Vyacheslav Nikonov, president of the Policy foundation : "Russia looked quite good in comparison to a flooded New Orleans, burning suburbs of French cities, and clashes with Arabs on Australian beaches."

Kommersant

Kremlin set to implement new industrial policy

At long last, the Russian business community has received a coherent industrial policy from the state this year. The government is moving to overhaul the economy in line with administrative reform patterns. Each sector has established large state-run holding companies. And it looks like the country's oil, gas and machine-building sectors will be subjected to all-out nationalization next year.

Yuganskneftegaz, the main Yukos production unit, was auctioned off in late December 2004. At that time, experts believed this to be a mere coincidence. In their opinion, that auction was an inevitable consequence of the Kremlin's war against disgraced oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky. They were wrong because it heralded the beginning of the most ambitious industrial nationalization program since the October 1917 Bolshevik revolution. Two state-controlled holding companies were set up on the basis of Rosneft and Gazprom.

Interros tried to sell Silovye Mashiny (Power Machines), a major sectoral entity, to Siemens of Germany. However, the Russian government established a .......

'Back to the future' for oil

IVANGOROD  (MarketWatch) -- Perched on the banks of the Narva river sit two ancient castles, one is clearly European in style and the other distinctly Slavic. These enormous structures clearly define the border between the European Union and Russia -- and the bridge that joins the two is the new gateway for resources to travel west from Russia and China.

Natural resources are certainly not new to this area of Russia and Estonia. In fact, an energy resource that is gaining interest in the U.S. and elsewhere has long been in use in this part of Estonia and developed by the Russians.

As you travel in the Northeastern region of Estonia, a tiny Baltic Republic, (which is also a new member of the European Union and North Atlantic Treaty Organization), you can see many signs of a bustling transport economy that is on the rise. Transit is the lifeblood of the economy in Estonia and rail transit accounts for 77% of all of transport gross domestic product in the nation.

For hundreds of years Estonia has been a gateway to the rest of Europe and often invaders, from Germans to Swedes, and finally Russians have sought out to occupy Estonia for one primary reason, its location. One other reason Estonia was occupied was a little bit more below the surface.

Digging a little deeper

Oil shale is a mystery to most of the world even many geological experts and petro chemists have little practical working knowledge of it. Oil shale after all has really only been used with great effectiveness in one country; that's right, Estonia.

Rüütel : Baltic is not an enemy of Russia

* On December 30, Estonian President Arnold Rüütel in an interview to Postimees stated that it is a mistake to think that all Baltic countries are Russia’s enemies. He expressed hope that more Russians will understand it in 2006.

Speaking about legacy of the past in Russia-Estonia relations, Rüütel noted that this burden could be lifted only by everyday labor that must be started today. “It can be done only by practical steps, like constructing of a new border bridge over the river of Narova, simplification of self-government of border nations, strengthening of cooperation in culture in science,” said Rüütel.

According to the president, one of the prerequisites to overcome of hard historical legacy is the recognition of unfair policy of the Soviet Union by Russia, and recognition of their sovereignty. “The Russian government may realize that the collapse of the Soviet Union was not a tragedy,” said Rüütel.

Estonia to take Russian TV channels off air

* Estonia will take Russian TV broadcasts off air from January 1, 2006, as two distributing cable networks refused to prolong agreements with Russian TV channels.

“Despite long talks the Starman and STV cable networks expressed no intention to sign agreements with representatives of Russian TV channels. As a result, 25 TV channels may disappear from the networks from January 1, 2006, including the First Baltic Channel, RTR Planet, NTV MIR, Ren-TV, TV Center, and others,” the channels said in a statement.

Most Russian-speakers in Tallinn are subscribed to Starman and STV.

An EU record of 60% of Estonian children born outside marriage

* New EU member Estonia leads the enlarged bloc for the number of children born outside of marriage, with around 60 percent of the Baltic state's children born to unmarried parents, officials said Wednesday.

"With the 60-percent rate of children born outside marriage, Estonia is at the top of such statistics in Europe," Estonian Population Minister Paul-Eerik Rummo told AFP.

In the enlarged EU, the average percentage of children born out of wedlock in 2004 was 31.6 percent, according to EU statistics office, Eurostat.

The same year, it was 60 percent in Estonia, a rate beaten in Europe only by non-EU member Iceland, where 63.7 percent of children were born to unwed parents, according to Eurostat.

"On the other hand, the proportion of single mothers has declined, indicating that there are more unregistered partnerships, for which we don't keep statistics," Rummo said.

"Numbers of formal marriages are on the decline in the Western world in general as part of continuing emancipation. In Estonia, we believe the main reason why so .......

Rahvusooper Estonia : Those last days of the year

	Thursday, December 29 19:00 THE NUTCRACKER Ballet by P. Tchaikovsky
	Saturday, December 31 20:00 NEW YEAR´S EVE BALL

Estonian politicians propose moving sea border to block NEGP

TALLINN (Interfax)  -  A number of Estonian politicians, including  former  Prime  Minister  Juhan  Parts,  have  come  up with a proposal  that  Estonia's  territorial  waters in the Gulf of Finland be expanded  in  order  to  obstruct construction of the North European Gas Pipeline.
     "In line with international maritime law (the 1982 UN Convention on the Law  of  the  Sea),  Estonia's maritime borderline could have passed along the  central  line  between  Estonia's  and Finland's coasts," the politicians  said  in  a  statement  published in the Wednesday issue of
Eesti Paevaleht.
     Estonia  and  Finland  exchanged notes in 1993 to seal an agreement that the  two  countries  would  voluntarily remove the borders of their territorial  waters  three miles away from the central line to set up an economic  zone  in  the form of a six-mile wide corridor, the authors of
the statement said.
     "In  fact,  this corridor, or economic zone, has the status of open sea as regards such issues as navigation, the installation of sea cables and pipelines,  or  air  traffic. Such activities do not require special permission," the document says.
     "There were no problems until 2005. But an agreement on the German-Russian  gas  route,  which was made public in ........

Santa and Frostie to talk trade

SANTA Claus and his Russian counterpart Grandfather Frost are to hold a meeting on cross-border trade and travel on Estonia's frontier with Russia, officials said yesterday.

"The event, called Christmas without Borders, will bring together Santa Claus and Grandfather Frost at the Estonia-Russian border crossing in Narva on Wednesday," Liis Plakk, spokeswoman for the Estonian Tax and Customs Department, said.

"This meeting of goodwill is a sign by the Estonian and Russian customs authorities to pledge further cooperation in the new year to simplify border crossings in order to cope with the increasing volume of traffic and trade across the EU's new eastern border," she said.

Estonia, a former Soviet republic, is one of the 10 newest members of the European Union.

Claus and Frost will meet on the Friendship Bridge in Narva, 215km east of the Estonian capital, Tallinn.

Both long-bearded gentlemen, one dressed in red and the other in white, will deliver speeches on .....

Finland quizzes South Korean visitors on their country

By Park Song-wu

"What is the second largest city in South Korea ?’’ This question seems likely to be made for elementary school students. But it is an example of questions that South Koreans, who travel from Russia to Finland, have to answer to Finnish border guards.

"The purpose of this written test is to single out forged passport holders as there are many people who attempt to enter Finland with counterfeit South Korean passports,’’ an official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Seoul told The Korea Times Tuesday.

The Finnish authorities began to administer the test last year, the Chosun Ilbo reported on Tuesday.

"I can’t remember the exact timing of it, but a number of Chinese people were recently arrested in Finland for holding bogus South Korean passports and they were eventually expelled,’’ the official said on a condition of anonymity.

He said that a stolen South Korean passport is traded at more than $3,000 in foreign countries as it .......

The Finno-Ugric battle for language and culture quietly continues

* IF YOU want to embarrass a Finn, and infuriate a Russian, raise your vodka glass to “Suuri Suomi—Uraliin asti!”. That means “Greater Finland—to the Urals and beyond”. It sounds fanciful, even potty. But it used to be real geopolitics. In the dying days of the Tsarist empire, a swathe of Russia bubbled with nationalist agitation among minorities, many with ethnic ties to Finland.

The Finns themselves got away for good. Their ethnic kinsfolk—the Komi, Mari, Udmurts and the like—managed it only briefly. In 1917-18 there was a big country in the middle of Russia called Idel-Ural (literally, “Volga-Ural”) which united the Finno-Ugric (the “Ugric” because of distant cousinship with Hungary) and Turkic peoples in those areas. When it was crushed by the Bolsheviks in late 1918, its refugee foreign minister, Sadrí Maqsudí Arsal, got a warm welcome first in Finland and then Estonia.

In Russian nightmares at least, that spectre now looms again. According to Vladislav Surkov, an adviser to Vladimir Putin, there is a “premeditated system of operations” by Finland, Estonia and the European Union to fan discontent. The more nationalist papers have steamy stories of westerners plotting Russia's destruction. After Mr Putin said recently that foreign-financed groups should be subject to strict scrutiny by the Russian security agencies, a website with close ties to officialdom, news12.ru, said that pro-Mari pressure groups would now be investigated further (the site also accused “Estonian nationalists” of stoking riots in Paris).

Yet the Finno-Ugric axis in world politics seems more like a curiosity than a conspiracy. Although the Finns and Estonians are close (their languages are as similar as Italian and Spanish), ties with Hungary are mainly sentimental. Common linguistic roots are extremely distant. A Finno-Ugric joke tells of migrating tribal forebears finding a signpost on the steppe reading: “To civilisation”. Those that could not read it went north and became Finns. Those that could went to central Europe and became Hungarians. (Finns tell the story the other way round.)

Today the connection looks flimsy. Philologists' labours have identified some 200 words with common roots in all three main Finno-Ugric tongues. Fully 55 of these concern fishing, and a further 15 are about reindeer ; only three are about commerce. An Estonian philologist, Mall Hellam, came up with just one mutually comprehensible sentence: “the living fish swims in water.”*

Hungary's involvement in the Finno-Ugric movement is the most low-key. The country's left-of-centre government has good relations with Russia, and no desire to get involved in what it sees as the squabbles of its Russophobic northern cousins. But the hard-pressed Finno-Ugric minorities in central Russian regions like Mari-El, Komi and Udmurtia are more concerned. To them, Estonia, with its regained statehood, is a miracle, and Finland an enviable superpower. For the minority Finno-Ugric languages of Russia are dying, spoken mainly by old people in the countryside and a handful of intellectuals. There are few books, newspapers, radio or TV programmes and little mother-tongue education.
It is Russian that signifies culture and civilisation ; the local lingo, for many, is useless peasant gobbledegook.

That would have been Estonia's fate too, had the Soviet Union not collapsed in 1991. Estonians were well on the way to becoming a minority in their own country thanks to the migration of Russian-speakers from elsewhere in the empire; the use of Russian in education was growing fast.

For ardent Finno-Ugric activists, Russian linguistic chauvinism is part of something worse. An appeal from the Foundation for the Salvation of the Erzya Language described the position of its people, who mainly live in the central Russian republic of Mordovia, as “critical and even hopeless” because of the Russocentrism of the education system and public broadcasting. “Imperial aggression” had led to a sharp drop in the ethnic population, it said, accusing the local and federal authorities of “genocide”.

Strong stuff—but it is true that many of Russia's 100-odd minority tongues are dying out. Shor, for example, a language in southern Russia with Turkic and Finnic roots, is spoken by only 10,000 people, mainly elderly. A book of poems by Gennady Kostochakov, one of a handful of Shor academic specialists, is entitled “I am the last Shor poet”. Even that is enviable by some standards. The Votian language, a close relative of Estonian, is spoken by just 20 people in a couple of villages in north-western Russia.

Speaking of tongues

Sitting in a Hungarian restaurant in bustling Tallinn, Andres Heinapuu, a top Estonian Finno-Ugrist (who learnt Votian in five days), gives a depressing description of apathetic, hostile or ignorant officialdom in the Russian provinces. Only in Mari-El did the authorities make an effort to create bilingualism in the early post-Soviet years, and now even that has gone into reverse. The republic's rulers have purged ethnic Mari officials and sharply cut Mari-language media and education.
Mari activists have suffered beatings, and one suspicious death.

Poland to patrol airspace of Baltic 3

WARSAW (Xinhuanet) -- Poland will take over the mission of guarding the airspace of Baltic Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia from Dec. 31, 2005, the Polish News Agency said Sunday.

    Authorized by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Polish Air Force will protect the three countries' airspace and prevent any possible violations, as well as helping malfunctioned civilian or military aircraft in permitted flights.

    According to the Polish Defense Ministry, Poland is to station four MiG-29 fighters in a Lithuanian air base and the fighters will patrol in pairs 24 hours every day.

Copterline : mistake in control system

* The examining board has officially affirmed that the cause of the helicopter accident in August was a mistake in the copter’s control system. Tonu Ader from the examining board says that the main engine’s hydro amplifier got out of order and due to the rotor’s drastic angular change, the helicopter lost controllability.

The helicopter accident on August 10 backfired strongly for Copterline – its number of passengers decreased several times and the company was even considering ending flights. However, the airline has remained, but some workers have been dismissed and the number of flights decreased. The number of passengers has started to increase again and the winter season is going to be profitable for the company because fast speed vessels do not cruise at that time.

Ihahaa-ahahaa, come to Estonia !

* "Youthful” and “dynamic” are two words by which many countries like to advertise themselves. However, the boundary between youthful and childish is very fragile and Enterprise Estonia’s commercial on MTV is childish. Enterprise Estonia lists its strategic purposes : to introduce Estonia as “product of conference tourism, history and national heritage, active holidays, health tourism, nature and hobby tourism.”

Unfortunately, MTV as a commercial channel, its customer base and contents of commercials do not seem to support those purposes. Tourism specialists of Enterprise Estonia should remind themselves that Enterprise Estonia is a public institution.

New Year's Eve ball at The Opera House

* This year the ball will be in Argentine style. It begins with the opening waltz in the Estonia concert hall, performs Estonian National Opera’s symphony orchestra, conductor Arvo Volmer.

The colorful program in the theatre hall consists of two parts: opera parody “Kalevipoeg’s comeback”, performed by the Estonian National Opera’s soloists, symphony orchestra, opera chorus, conductor Erki Pehk and tango-show “Mi Tango en Buenos Aires” performed by the Estonian National Opera’s ballet troupe, singing soloists Laura Lahera (Buenos Aires) and Marko Matvere with music played by Villu Veski/Tiit Kalluste’s Tango-sextet.

Between and after the program dance in the concert hall with ensemble “Modern Fox”, soloist Airi Allvee. Different bars and a restaurant in the Winter Garden are waiting for You.

Tickets until 30 November : 400 – 1000 EEK, after that term 500 – 1200 EEK. Reservations Mon-Fri 10 am – 4 pm tel. +372 6831 260, +372 506 8361, fax +372 6831 246, e-mail : [email protected]

You have the possibility to order catering services in advance. Frens Catering takes orders for rich Argentine-style buffet in Winter Garden Restaurant. The dinner consists of cold and warm buffet and in addition a glass of wine, water and tea or coffe. Price until 30 November 450 EEK, after that term 550 EEK. You are welcome to order : Mon – Fri 9 am – 7 pm tel. 372 697 9200, e-mail [email protected]

Time schedule

20.00 – 20.30 Opening waltz and dance in the concert hall, symphony orchestra

20.45 – 21.30 Opera parody “Kalevipoeg’s comeback” in the theatre hall

21.30 – 22.30 Dance in the concert hall, ensemble Modern Fox

22.40 – 23.15 Tango-show “Mi Tango en Buenos Aires” in the theatre hall

23.15 – 01.15 Dancing into New Year in the concert hall

Homepage :
www.opera.ee

Time of Event :

31.12.2005 20:00

Location of Event :

ESTONIAN NATIONAL OPERA
Estonia pst 4 map
Phone : +372 683 1260
Fax : +372 683 1246
[email protected]
www.opera.ee

The growth of the net sales of enterprises continued

* In the 3rd quarter of 2005 compared to the same quarter of the previous year, the net sales of enterprises increased by 23%.

In the 3rd quarter of 2005, in Estonia there were 34,100 enterprises, which employed about 417,100 persons. The net sales of enterprises totalled 117.6 billion kroons, which is 21.9 billion kroons more than in the 3rd quarter of the previous year. The net sales of wholesale and retail trade enterprises made up 42% of the total net sales, that of manufacturing enterprises and transport, storage and communication enterprises formed 20% and 13%, respectively. Compared to the 3rd quarter of 2004, the net sales increased in all activities except in agriculture, hunting and forestry, where it decreased 2%. The growth of the net sales was the largest in enterprises engaged in other community, social and personal service activities, construction, trade, hotels and restaurants and energy business activities.

The contribution of 27,000 micro enterprises (with 1–9 persons employed) amounted to 23% and 150 large enterprises (with over 249 persons employed) 19% of the net sales.

The growth of the net sales, which had started already in the 2nd quarter of 1999, continued also in the 3rd quarter of 2005.

.....

Twelve new partners signed the Public Understanding Agreement

* Today, at Kadriorg, in a festive ceremony, twelve new partners: the Estonian Medical Association, the Estonian Democratic Party, the Estonian Dental Association, the Estonian Union of Women in Business, the Estonian Women?s Associations Roundtable, the Estonian Consumers Union, the Estonian Union for Health Promotion, the Estonian Non-Formal Adult Education Association, the Council of Rectors of Private Universities, Foundation Estonian Children?s Fund, Sillamäe Economy and Management Institute, Russian Academic Society in Estonia gave their signatures to the Public Understanding Agreement, in the presence of the President of the Republic.

During the signing ceremony, President Rüütel stressed that the process of the Public Understanding is a unique movement in Estonia as both, organisations of the public sector and those of private and third sector, participate in it. This makes it possible to develop a dialogue between the private and public interests, which is not a direct aim of representation democracy, the Head of State concluded.

"The Public Understanding Agreement is a .......

Christmas Customs in Estonia

* Christmas time is still the most important holiday celebrated in Estonia. For Estonians, Christmas is a mixture of the traditional, the modern, the secular, and the religious. Like in other Nordic states, Estonia's celebration of Christmas mostly falls on Christmas Eve, however, Christmas season starts from Advent with people buying Advent calendars or lighting Advent candles. Each year on December 24, the President of Estonia declares Christmas Peace, which is a 350-year-old tradition in Estonia.

Folk traditions
In Estonian folk-tradition, Christmas has a double meaning: on the one hand, it is marking Christ's birth, on the other, it marks the whole period of mid-winter holidays. In Estonia, Christmas with its simple and pagan character of the festivities, the magic and mysticism combined with the sacred and spiritual. In the traditional folk calendar, Christmas tide began with St. Thomas's Day on December 21, and lasted until Epiphany on January 6. On the islands and on the coast, the holiday continued for another day until St. Canute's Day on January 7.
Christmas Holidays were celebrated between December 25 and 27, the most important event being the festive Christmas Eve on December 24.

The Estonian word jõulud (Christmas) is of ancient Scandinavian origin and comes directly from the word Jul and has no real connection with Christianity. It is interesting to note that Scandinavia, along with Estonia, form the only area in present Europe where the birthday of Jesus Christ is still marked by the pre-Christian word of jul - jõulud. Despite this, in some places in South Estonia, talvistepüha (winter holiday) is also used to mark the Christmas holidays and it is considered to be a direct influence from the neighbouring Latvia where Christmas is known as Ziemas svetki (winter fest).

For thousands of years, nations have celebrated winter and summer solstices, which in Estonian folk-tradition are known as Christmas and Midsummer Night (June 23/24). The word näärid, also used to mark winter holidays, is of German origin and was the only official seasonal holiday in the atheistic Soviet Union. To some extent, the words jõulud and näärid, marking the festive events of the turn of the year, had the same meaning.

Jõulud as the winter solstice, when the day is the shortest and the night the longest, is celebrated between December 21 and 25. According to folk-tradition, "the sun was laying in the nest" and the day was celebrated as the Sun's birthday. From that day on, the Sun started to rise and move slowly to the north again.

At the same time, Christmas was the culmination of the late autumn celebrations, which began with the harvest bees and continued with All Souls', St. Martin's and St. Catherine's Day celebrations. The connection with Jesus Christ, compared to the ancient local pagan Christmas traditions, is relatively recent and had not gained prominence until the last few centuries. At the same time, according to the local Christmas traditions, these celebrations, especially Christmas Eve, reflect everything connected with the habits and most necessary needs of the local peasantry.

The Christmas season, in connection with its special tasks and bans for different work, began on St. Thomas's Day (the first day of the winter solstice), following the three to four week preparation period. During winter, the peasantry had enough time to celebrate long holidays. Pigs were slaughtered and ale was brewed in preparation for St. Thomas's Day. Some activities like grindering in the mill, spinning, quilling, and horse-driving were banned because they were noisy and could disturb the good ghosts.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Night were the most sacred times of the season, often characterised by fortune telling. With the help of the stars and the frost, the weather for the coming year was predicted. Christmas food had to remain on the table (as part of the cult of the ancestors) and the fire burning in the fireplace (probably as sun worship) for the whole night. It was believed that both good and bad forces were on the move on Christmas Night and that ancestors would visit the house. The next year's harvest was also predicted.

In terms of Christmas and New Year's Eve traditions, the habit of taking a bath in the sauna is a very old and important tradition. It was a custom to go to the sauna on Christmas Eve after preparing the house for the festive evening celebrations. Going to a steam bath was widespread all over the country and was similar to the same habit on Midsummer's Eve. The sauna was traditionally visited before the Christmas Eve service in the local village church. As the first Christmas surprise, the children were offered festive new clothes and shoes to dress in for the evening church service.