New Years Eve is a popular holiday celebrated all over the world with fireworks, cannon-fire, counting-down the clock and all sorts of other fun-filled activities. But there are other, less conventional ways of greeting the new year. Here's a look at five of the world's most unusual New Years traditions:
New Year under water
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| Divers in festive costume set up and decorate a 33-foot New Year’s tree beneath the waters of Lake Baikal in Siberia |
Baikal, the world's deepest lake and Earth's largest freshwater reserve, is host to one of the strangest, most dangerous New Years traditions. Professional divers will cut a hole in the ice covering the lake, dive down 40 meters and take part in a ritual carried out every year since 1982.
One of the divers gets to carry the New Year tree to the bottom of the lake, wearing equipment over 100 kg-heavy, while others will dance around the tree. The Ice Maiden and Father Frost, two popular figures in Russian culture, will also be present for the festivities and the divers will get to have their pictures taken with them.
Scuba-divers from the Siberian city of Novosibirsk have become famous for performing the dangerous dive.
New Years at the cemetery
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| Celebrate the dawning of the New Year by sleeping in a graveyard, surrounded by deceased loved ones. |
For the past 11 years, the people of Talca, a small Chilean city, have been spending New Years with their dead relatives, at the municipal cemetery.
After the town's vicar finishes mass, around eleven o clock at night, the mayor opens the doors to the cemetery and people are welcomed with dim lights and classical music. Those who enjoy waiting for the New Year near their loved-ones graves can do so in a peaceful atmosphere.
The tradition began in 1995, when a local family jumped the cemetery fence to spend New Years near their father's grave. Now over 5,000 people have adopted this tradition.
New Year spiritism
Mexicans believe they can communicate with the spirits of the dead and they are famous for their Day of the Dead celebration. Apparently New Years is also a great time to contact people who have left our realm and, if you're willing to spend $15, the Taos Inn, in New Mexico offers 15 minutes session of spiritism and meditation.
New Years Soap-Opera
What do you think most Germans do on New Years Eve? I bet you would say anything but watch an obscure British television skit. As strange as it might seem, watching Dinner for One has become Germany's most popular New Years tradition.
This is nothing like Frank Capra's a Wonderful Life is for Americans during the Christmas season. We're talking about a television skit that has never been aired in Britain or any English-speaking country, but is extremely popular in a country so proud of its national culture.
New Year with New Energy
In places like Cusco and Machu Picchu people still practice the ancient rituals of the Inca. One of these, Temascal, has become very popular among the tourists that visit Peru on New Years. Temascal involves a small, wooden chamber covered by cloth and that signifies a womb, the womb of Mother Earth.
During Temascal, the person steps into the wooden chamber where his aura is cleansed and they come purified, as if they are reborn.
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