Seasons Held Christmas Fair
The Seasons magazine Christmas Fair took place on December 26 and 27 at the Hermitage Garden.
Seasons gathered Moscow’s best gift and design shops under one snow-free pavilion. Visitors could buy jacquard tablecloths, fondue dish sets, comfy knitted socks, handmade greeting cards, pillows, sewn products made from exclusive materials, cheerful handbags, hats and slippers made from multicolored felt, designer New Year’s tree ornaments, French-style knickknacks for making your home more comfortable and numerous other one-of-a-kind or limited edition items. With great relish and fervor, guests carried out the main function of the fair – purchasing New Year’s gifts. They were not even hindered by the weather that unexpectedly switched from a winter scene to a springtime flood.
At the holiday food table, shoppers could purchase goose, duck, fresh sour cream and other village culinary treats, sausage and cheese made by French farmers, homemade chocolate truffles and delicious olives. And at the fair itself, they chose from mouth-watering caramel apples, hot chocolate and aromatic mulled wine. They could also warm themselves with a cup of hot coffee in the cozy Tchibo café – which proved a great relief n the freezing weather.
Several master classes on decorating a New Year’s tree were also held at the fair. Offering their own unique approaches were designers Yelena Teplitskaya, Anna Altabayeva, Diana Balashova, the Chudo Tut decorators’ bureau and decorators Max Kartavykh and Sergei Sobakin.
Every hour, directors Arseny Applebaum and Olga Zeiger conducted master classes on home theater for children and staged a Christmas nativity scene with them. On Sunday morning, the Praktika theater staged a first reading of their January premier – a fairy tale by Linor Goralik titled “Agatha Comes Back Home.” The fairy tale was read by actress Yulia Volkova at the Seasons fair.
And everyone collectively did some good deeds – raising money for the Moscow Hospice, supporting the Our Children and Nastyenka foundations and the Center for Humanitarian Programs.
Of course, the Christmas Fair would not have been complete without Snegurochka and a New Year’s tree. The Snegurochka turned out to be highly unusual, with the Fire People theater presenting its version of the legendary figure during their Saturday procession. And the New Year’s tree was truly magical, storybook perfect and traditional – in the best sense of that word. It was a tree by Raffaello, bedecked in red ribbons and white flowers. All of the fair’s guests wanted to have their picture taken next to the tree as a memory of the magical picture of a real Christmas.
As many as 8,000 visitors to the Season’s Christmas Fair bought presents. Spotted among the guests were Igor Ugolnikov, Alyona Yakovleva, Daniil Spivakosky, Timofe of the group Hi Fi and many others.
