Awesome gallery of aerospace-themed holiday greeting cards from the former Soviet Union. Link (Thanks, Ed Weekly)
Reader comment: Peter Brown says,
All of the cards in the linked to collection are, in fact, New Year's cards, not Christmas cards – they bear the New Year greeting С НовÑ‹м годом! (Pronounced: s'novy godom). New Year's was the main holiday celebrated in the former Soviet Union (officially atheist), replete with a New Year's tree and the appearance of "Dyet Moros" (Grandfather Frost) – not Santa. Christmas was banned after the 1917 revolution and not celebrated again until 1992. Also, in Russia, Christmas is celebrated by the Orthodox church according to the Julian calendar, on January 7, and was/is a much different type of celebration than New Years. (Link).
Reader comment: Kate Hunter says,
The pronunciation for the Russian "Happy New Year" phrase isn't quite right. It should be "s'novym godom" (missed the M on the end of the first word). And if you wanted to focus more on pronunciation than transliteration, then the second O in 'godom' might be changed to an A. It's written "godom" in Russian, but pronounced more like "GO-dam."
