Who created the image of the modern Santa Claus. Where did Santa Claus come from? How old is Santa Claus? The history of the appearance of Santa Claus

When talking about the seas, we must cover the entire hydrosphere as a whole, because water is something without which life on Earth is not only impossible, it would not even have arisen on our planet.

Where did the water come from?

Scientists have not yet come to a clear conclusion regarding where water came from on Earth. But the most popular and realistic hypothesis today is that an asteroid made entirely of ice once fell to Earth. This version looks quite scientific, since in the distant past our planet was repeatedly hit by meteorites and asteroids. It is likely that some of them contained water in the form of ice or snow-like substance.

Another group of scientists believes that at first the Earth itself was like a cold meteorite. As the ice melted, seas and oceans began to appear as a result of increased solar activity and changes in the tilt of the earth's axis. And since the Sun heats the planet unevenly, it began in nature.

But there are also those who believe that the Earth, on the contrary, was at first like a hot ball. Then, as the planet's surface began to cool, water came out from under the mantle like sweat. But all these theories still do not answer the question of how many seas there are on Earth.

Our planet is unique. It has the largest mass of all its kind, in addition, it is the only one known to man planets that have life. It was formed more than 5 billion years ago, attracting the moon, which became its first and only satellite. The seas depend on the lunar cycle. This dependence is visible in the example

When asked how many seas there are on Earth, textbooks write numbers from 76 to 83. There is even evidence that there are only 49, or even 100. If you think about it, that’s a lot. But in comparison with the total amount of water on Earth, even with the amount of land - both 76 and 83 seas - it is negligible. The difference in numbers is because everyone interprets this concept differently. Some people consider only the coastal part of the ocean to be seas. But in this case, what to do with the inland seas? And with inter-island ones everything becomes completely unclear. In addition, many seas are now called bays. The reservoir is called this way not by hydrogeographical distinction, but by tradition. For example, everyone knows about the Caspian Sea, although this huge lake with salty bitter water is not a sea.

What types of seas are divided into?

• Interisland. They are often not considered total number seas because they are located between islands and not in the coastal zone of the ocean. These include Javanese and New Guinea.

How many seas are there on the planet that are called open? Not so much. These include Sargasso, Ionian, Tyrrhenian.

Has everything been taken into account?

This classification, of course, helps to systematize the expanses of water, but it complicates the answer to the question of how many seas there are on planet Earth. Scientists do not always agree with this division. As a result, either marginal or open seas, which, in fact, have no shores, are beyond the attention of researchers. The most famous is the Sargasso Sea, which consists entirely of algae.

Garbage seas

IN present moment, in connection with the general deterioration of the ecology of the planet, the question: “How many seas are there on Earth?” requires drastic revision. For example, scientists identify three more, although they consist not of water, but of garbage. Thus, entire floating continents made of plastic and polyethylene roam in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Decomposing under the influence of the sun and water, all this floating garbage releases products into the waters of the world's oceans chemical reactions plastic.

They are disappearing!

But another problem is the disappearance water resources. For example, the once huge Aral Lake has practically disappeared due to economic activity person. Due to the large intake of water from donor rivers, the Aral Lake stopped flowing. As a result, the fauna that inhabited this sea-lake almost completely disappeared.

All of the above shows that the answer to the question of how many seas there are on Earth has yet to be given.

Territory Russian Federation washed by three oceans. All the seas of Russia, the list of which is given in the text of the article, are interesting and special in their own way. All of them are unique and original.

Seas of Russia: list

The largest country on the planet is connected to three oceans through 12 seas, both internal and peripheral. One sea in Russia does not have a direct connection with the World Ocean (except for the connection through it - this is the Caspian Sea, which is drainless.

Total - 13 seas.

Atlantic seas

Seas from the pool Atlantic Ocean are hitting the western shores of Russia. In the north it is the Baltic Sea, in the south it is the Azov and Black Sea.

They are united by the following features:

• they are all internal, that is, deeply continental;
• all of them are the final seas of the Atlantic, that is, to the east of them there are either waters of another ocean or land.

The Russian coastline along the Atlantic seas is about 900 km. Baltic Sea concern the Leningrad and Kaliningrad regions. Black and Sea of ​​Azov wash the shores of the Rostov region, Krasnodar region and Crimea.

Seas of the Arctic Ocean

Some seas of Russia (list given above) belong to the basin Arctic Ocean. There are six of them: five of them are outlying (Chukotskoye, Karaskoye, Laptev, East Siberian, Barentsevo) and one is internal (Beloye).

Almost all of them are covered with ice all year round. Thanks to the Atlantic Current, southwest Barents Sea. The waters of the Arctic Ocean reach the territory of such Russian constituent entities as Murmansk region, Arkhangelsk region, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Taimyr Autonomous Okrug, Republic of Sakha, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug.

Pacific Seas

The list of seas washing the coast of Russia from the east and belonging to the Pacific Ocean is given below:

• Beringovo;
• Japanese;
• Okhotsk.

The territories of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug adjoin these seas, Magadan region, Kamchatka region, Khabarovsk region, Sakhalin region, Primorsky region.

Warm seas

Half of the Russian seas are covered with ice all year round. There are seas that are partially covered with an ice crust for a certain period of time. The warm seas of Russia, the list of which is given below, do not freeze throughout the year. So, the warm seas of Russia include:

Seas of Russia: list of unique seas

All geographical features The lands are special and interesting in their own way. There are objects that are unique and inimitable. Of course, this is Lake Baikal, the Volga, Kamchatka geysers, Kuril Islands and much more. The seas of Russia are also exceptional, a list of which is given below. The table shows the characteristics of some Russian seas from the point of view of their uniqueness.

We hope that the article was interesting and useful.

Celtic Druids decorated the Christmas tree with the entrails of people and animals.

The other day Russia celebrated the birthday of Father Frost. And although the holiday was invented only in 2005 and is very conventional, there is a logic to its “appointment” on this very day: according to many years of observations , On November 18, at the 60th parallel, where the residence of Father Frost is located in Veliky Ustyug in the Vologda region, Russian winter begins.

By introducing clarification into the “metrics” of Santa Claus, we restored justice, because the foreign Santa Claus (aka Svyatos Mikolaus, Saint Nicholas, Sinter Klaas) had a “birthday”, but ours did not. For those who don’t know or have forgotten, Catholics celebrate St. Nicholas Day on December 6th. Gregorian calendar(for us this date falls on December 19 and is known as “Nikola Winter”).

In the biography of our Father Frost there are generally many blank spots. Moreover, in reality he is not such a sweetheart. It's time to take a closer look at it and study it on the eve of the New Year." Personal matter» .

Origin: son of the shepherd god Veles and the goddess of death Mara.

Birth name: Treskun, Studenets, Zimnik, Karachun. The “Frost” option is consonant with the Indo-European “death” - “mor”, “mar”.

Canonical appearance: a short old man with a long gray beard.

The forest wizard sent the lazy and rude Marfushka home on pigs

One of the ancestors: The Great Old Man of the North is a Celtic evil god who entered people's homes with a large bag. Not to give out gifts, but to take what was due to him, but for some reason was not sacrificed. Children were at risk - he could drag a couple with him to pay arrears. After his visit, the inhabitants of the house were often found dead.

Character: evolved from harsh and evil to fair and generous. In the 19th century, children were afraid that the quarrelsome old man would punish them for pampering and, at a minimum, leave them without gifts. Santa Claus punished adults not only for bad deeds, but also for the gloomy mood, on his orders, blizzards and storms swept away entire villages, driving unfortunate people onto thin ice. However, despite the complexity of his nature, the old wizard was not a fiend from hell. In one of the Russian folk tales accidentally destroyed the peasant's food supplies and, when he went into the forest in the hope of getting hold of something, received him in an ice chamber, dressed him, shod him, presented him with a self-assembled tablecloth and sent him home on a magic sleigh.

Occupation: vagrancy. He walked through forests and fields, freezing streams and rivers with a blow from his staff. He could hit the hut in his heart, and then the centuries-old log houses would crack.

Rehabilitation: writer Vladimir Odoevsky in the fairy tale “Moroz Ivanovich,” which appeared in 1841, he was the first to present the winter wizard not as a punishing forest monster, but as a wise and fair wizard. He presented the Handicraft Girl with a handful of silver patches and a diamond, and gave Lenivitsa an icicle instead of a silver bar. Kind.

Escort group: Snow Maiden. Where the old man got his young companion came from, they say all sorts of things. One of the versions is this. In ancient times, in order to appease the lord of the cold, young girls were sacrificed to him. They were chosen by lot, taken to the forest, undressed and tied to a tree in the cold. The next morning they went to check whether the unfortunate woman had died. If there was still some life in the girl, they warmed her up, but this meant that the sacrifice was not accepted. And then another condemned woman suffered the same fate. We see plot analogies with this custom in the fairy tale “Morozko”, where the stern Grandfather mocked the numb Nastenka: “Are you warm, girl? Are you warm, red one? Director Alexander Rowe presented us with a light version: in the original fairy tale, the lazy and rude Marfushenka-darling, sent by her mother to Santa Claus for gifts, froze to death in the forest. Perhaps the custom of sacrificing innocent girls to Morozka was reflected in folklore in the person of the Snow Maiden, who somehow miraculously came to life. Moreover, the question of the “granddaughter’s” parents still remains open.

Next of kin: Finnish Joulupukki, living in Lapland, who, having thrown an animal skin over his shoulders, goes about his business on the back of a goat. Translated from the old Scandinavian dialect, Joulupukki means “Yule goat.” Yule is a Celtic holiday celebrated on the day of the winter solstice. In ancient times, Joulupukki used to drop into houses as an uninvited guest, and again he would get the naughty children: he would boil them alive in a huge cauldron. Christianity did not manage to completely displace ancient customs: sheepskin coats turned inside out and goat masks in which people walked from house to house during carols - an echo of ancient times.

A couple of centuries ago, Santa Claus looked much more serious, and what’s more, more nightmarish than the affectionate bearded man we know. It is not surprising that the children not only loved him, but were also openly afraid of him. Creepy photographs from the 19th and 20th centuries have survived to this day. At that harsh time, clausophobia was widespread - a pathological fear of Santa Claus. Looking at the ominous images, you understand the reasons for this fear:

Christmas tree and death

The tradition of decorating the Christmas tree New Year It echoes, oddly enough, with the sad custom of decorating coffins with fir branches and using them for funeral wreaths. The roots of this phenomenon go back to the times when the forest beauty was considered the abode of the forest spirit, whose favor could only be achieved through bloody sacrifices performed on December 21 - the winter solstice. The deity was depicted as a bearded old man with a staff, mace or scythe in his hands. To gain his favor, Celtic Druids practiced ritual killings of people and animals, whose intestines and internal organs were hung on spruce branches. Subsequently, the bloody gifts were replaced by fruits and pieces of bread.

The image of a kind and sympathetic old man did not appear immediately. The history of Santa Claus has been formed over thousands of years. At first he was known as a small, hunched old man with a stern disposition.

Early Eastern Slavs did not set themselves the goal of creating positive character giving joy and love. Against, ancient frost was a kind of reflection of the harsh Russian winter. Firmness, steadfastness, rigidity and imperious character are his most striking features.

He was known by different names, be it Moroz, Treskun, Studenets, Karachun and so on. His integral attribute was a hard wooden stick, with which he punished naughty children.

Depending on his mood and specific circumstances, he could act both as a positive and as a negative character.

As for his functions - the Legend of Santa Claus, or rather legends, testify to him as one of the most prominent mythological characters. The husband of winter, the all-powerful sorcerer, wizard, giver and judge - this is just a short list of his powers. IN winter time he gained supreme power and became one of the most powerful beings of the Slavic world.

Based on this, those who invented Santa Claus simply do not exist, since this folk character, who repeatedly changed his appearance and behavior. However, there is another version, according to it, this character was created only in the twentieth century and was a cultural borrowing from the peoples of Western Europe.

Of course, it cannot be ruled out that he borrowed a few traditional features from its counterpart. However, most historians are inclined to believe that it was the Russian people who acted as the main author who provoked the appearance of Father Frost.

How Santa Claus took root as a good wizard in Rus'

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the character began his next transformation. New morals, values ​​and ideals demanded high quality new image, capable of fully complying with them. As a result, the history of Santa Claus, as well as his character and appearance, underwent significant changes.

He became kinder, more affectionate, and lost his most frightening character traits (rudeness, tough temper, and so on). The small, unkempt creature was replaced by a sweet old man who inspired trust.

Santa Claus as a symbol of the New Year

The story of Santa Claus goes as follows - he was first known as a Christmas character who gave gifts on the eve of the holiday. It is worth noting that during this period “grandfather” was not very popular.

She came to him a little later, in 1935. It was this year that the story of the appearance of Santa Claus in his current version begins. The Soviet government decided to establish children's version New Year celebrations.

The candidacies of Santa Claus or the more traditional Saint Nicholas went against the traditional socialist ideology. The atheistic policy and the strong anti-bourgeois character of the state excluded even the very possibility of using these characters.

It was necessary to come up with something new, not related to either religion (Christmas) or Western countries. Taking as a basis Old Russian image, Soviet politicians endowed him with the best moral qualities in the spirit of a young, developing country.

As for appearance, the only thing that was preserved was the beard. Instead of a kind and funny grandfather, the inhabitants of the USSR saw a tall and mighty hero, dressed in a blue cloak, hat and mittens. Actually, this is exactly how Father Frost emerged as a symbol of the New Year.

Santa Claus in the USSR

The history of Father Frost in the Soviet Union is a period of creation, formation and development of a beloved character. It was at this time that he gained national recognition. Became frequent guest Santa Claus is in every home, moreover, he even began to appear in the Moscow Kremlin.

This era gave birth to a completely original character. All foreign motives were discarded. Digging deeper, you can see a lot interesting moments, which conceals within itself modern history the emergence of Santa Claus.

For example, the character abandoned the cart with reindeer and began to drive a traditional Russian troika. Threw away his trousers and short jacket and donned a long raincoat. purple. But the main innovation was the appearance of a charming companion - the Snow Maiden, who acted as the granddaughter of a well-known character.

The appearance of Santa Claus as a symbol of the New Year - its meaning, role in Soviet and modern culture

The importance of this character is difficult to overestimate. His image has been used in many fairy tales, books and cartoons. And he himself became an integral part of Winter, the “title face” of its main holiday - the New Year.

Santa Claus was the personification of kindness, generosity and responsibility. This image played a huge role in raising several generations of children at once. Has become an excellent tool for shaping the best moral qualities in the child's character. And also created, or contributed to the creation of a happy and unforgettable childhood.

The history of Santa Claus today

Camber Soviet Union provoked the appearance of Santa Claus in a new guise. He began to use some Western elements (for example, he dressed in red clothes) and preached new ideals (nowadays he is often identified with St. Nicholas).

However, all the best remains, be it kindness, affectionate character and justice. As a result, it became even more popular. The legend of Santa Claus continues to be part of national culture, and questions such as “Who invented Santa Claus” or “How did Santa Claus appear” are asked more and more often.

Now he continues to give joy to kids, turning their lives into a fairy tale, even if only for a short moment. And the very story of the appearance of Father Frost has turned into a cult legend that is worth telling to your child as soon as he asks, “How did Father Frost appear?”

United offers you on the eve of the New Year! Father Frost and Snow Maiden delivered to your home - what you need to make your holiday truly magical!