In Grozny, a Grim New Year’s Eve

Grandfather Frost didn’t visit 6-year-old Zhenya Filatov this New Year’s Eve.

The Santa Claus-like figure is the traditional host of the secular New Year’s holiday in the former Soviet republics. And Grozny, the capital of the mostly Muslim republic of Chechnya, is no exception.

Every year, Tatyana Kostousova, Zhenya’s grandmother, would arrange for a Father Christmas to visit her family. But not this year.

Chechnya’s leaders erected a holiday fir tree--a yolka --in central Freedom Square. They had promised to put up lights too, but that was before Russian rockets hit the city Saturday in an escalation of Moscow’s campaign to topple the breakaway Chechen government.

Despite the attacks, Alika Makhmadova, 43, was determined to ring in the New Year. “I have a yolka, “ she said. “And I’m going to have a holiday New Year.”