More than 4,000 light installations were used to decorate Moscow for the New Year, the mayor of the capital Sergei Sobyanin wrote in his blog.

The centre of Moscow was covered with tunnels of Christmas lights, garlands, and New Year trees created by prominent Russian designers.

In Russia, Christmas is celebrated exactly 13 days after Western Christmas, because at the beginning of the 20th century, the Russian Orthodox Church decided to observe the Julian calendar, which lags almost two weeks behind the new Gregorian calendar of most other Christians.