In this RIA Novosti article, we talk about the traditional New Year's gingerbread cookies for the northern regions - kozuly.
What is a kozuli
Photo - © Belyaeva Natalia / Lori Photobank
Kozuli are shaped gingerbread cookies that have been considered a symbol of New Year and Christmas in the northern regions of Russia for many decades. The first documented mention of Christmas Arkhangelsk gingerbread dates back to the 19th century, but in reality the history of kozuli goes back centuries: they were first baked in pre-Christian times. In the Russian North, there were entire dynasties of craftsmen who made the most elegant and beautiful gingerbread cookies and passed kuwait mobile database on their skills from generation to generation. Although, of course, no one was forbidden to bake kozuli, because they were considered a kind of “magic” pastry that could bring prosperity, health and luck to the home.
The name "kozuli" itself, according to philologists, comes from an old Pomor word meaning a curl or a snake. The preparation for kozuli was a thin sausage made of unleavened rye dough, which was bent so that a figurine in the shape of an animal was obtained.
The history of gingerbread Kozuli
Photo - © Belyaeva Natalia / Lori Photobank
In the early centuries, kozuli had no specific connection with Christmas and New Year celebrations. The earliest kozuli, depicting deer, cows, birds or people, were not a delicacy, but a kind of amulet for the home and an offering to higher powers on the day of the Winter Solstice. The first kozuli were baked from rye dough on water, and the whole family participated in the preparation. After the rye figures were ready, they were decorated with berries, and the most beautiful ones were placed in the "red corner" of the hut in a place of honor and kept until the next year.
Some of the baked goods were distributed among the family and given as gifts to dear guests. People believed that a bread figurine could personify the object in whose shape it was molded. So, having eaten, for example, a rye deer, the head of the family could count on a successful hunt throughout the year, and a human figurine could grant health and strength. Ethnographers believe that the kozuli symbolized a kind of pagan communion. The kozuli that stood in the hut for a year were given to domestic animals as food so that they would gain weight well and produce healthy offspring.
Roes as a modern symbol of Christmas
Photo - © Belyaeva Natalia / Lori Photobank
Modern gingerbreads are usually baked for Christmas or New Year. If you approach their production with all seriousness, the dough figures should represent the animals that surrounded the baby Christ in the manger when he was born. However, there are no clear canons; gingerbread can be shaped like the sun, moon, stars, Christmas trees, angels, houses – whatever your imagination can come up with. You can mold them traditionally from a sausage of dough, or you can make them in a modern way, using molds.