New Year's speech

The New Year Address by the President of Russia is a traditional speech given in Russia by the President to the citizens, and generally broadcast on Russian television.

In Russia, tuning in before midnight to watch the President's speech (Russian: новогодние обращения) has become traditional. The president gives the New Year speech from the Kremlin, a few minutes before the Kremlin Clock chimes at midnight. The speech sums up the main events of the year and discusses prospects for the coming one. The tradition is observed by most Russians, regardless of political views.

The speech is broadcast in each of the 11 time zones in the country. Because of that, the video of the speech is already available on the internet to audiences in western Russia during the afternoon of 31 December.

The tradition dates back to 1941, when the Soviet government broadcast a speech about the state of the country during World War II.Gorbachev gave a speech in 1990 saying the 1990s would be "a decade of the drawing of the United States and the Soviet Union closer together".

Boris Yeltsin generally avoided talk of politics during his new year speeches, preferring to talk about family values and the holiday spirit, though he did use his 1996 speech to promote economic reforms. Yeltsin famously resigned during his New Year speech on 31 December 1999. In 2013 two different speeches were broadcast: the first one was only broadcast in the Far East, while a new broadcast for the rest of the country mentioned the December 2013 Volgograd bombings.

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