There is never too much good - we celebrate two New Years, and there are also two Student Days, who did not know. The first - international - is celebrated on November 17, on this day the memory of the Prague students who died at the hands of the Nazis in 1939 is honored all over the world. The second, much more popular, is usually celebrated in Russia on January 25 - this date is known as Tatyana's Day.
It was on this date that the decree “On the Establishment of Moscow University” was signed - Empress Elizabeth, although she was considered a “merry queen”, very much understood the need for higher education in the country, and since it was customary to celebrate the feast of St. Tatiana on January 25, she was the one became the patroness of all students in our country.
Officially, the holiday became such under Nicholas I - at first it was celebrated only by Muscovite students, and this was done with unprecedented scope and daring: the wine flowed like water, and the coachmen did not know how to rest, they rode both on a sleigh and on skates. After the morning prayer service in the university church, a meeting was usually held in the assembly hall of the university with the participation of the rector, and the main fun began in the late afternoon, when crowds of current and former students flocked to the popular Hermitage restaurant: blue caps were visible everywhere and the singing of Gaudeamus was heard . According to Chekhov's memoirs, on that day they drank everything that was possible to drink, "except for the Moskva River, and that was due to the fact that it was frozen." The police looked at these amusements very condescendingly.
Soon after the revolution, the traditions of the student holiday changed a lot - there was no time for noisy festivities, and officially the customs returned only in the 90s of the last century, although, of course, it was customary to celebrate Tatyana's Day before, but much more modestly - student skits were in use and a variety of student initiation rituals for first-year students. Nevertheless, despite the structure and time, students are, perhaps, the most carefree people in the world, eager to organize noisy and cheerful fun. A selection of interesting and just plain fun facts about students, fun traditions of university life and some of the rituals that have been revered by university students around the world for decades.
