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Santa Claus appears on Samarkand shop windows in mid-December. Shortly after that he begins attending parties at theaters around the city.  Often he makes appearances at office parties or school functions. He assists children in appeasing the warty witch, Baba Yaga, by reciting poems and performing dances.  After several halting elementary-school poems in droning iambic pentameter, two or three games involving cheap corn puffs, and many enthusiastic reprises of the Russian Hokey Pokey, evil Baba Yaga is so drastically reformed that she happily joins in the festivities herself.

 

It seems ironic that Santa Claus, this emblem of all things capitalist and Christian (in a nominal Western sort of way), should have found a foothold in that bastion of Communism, the Uzbek Republic of the Soviet Union.  But Santa is sanitized here, purified of any unwholesome Western influences.  He is not Santa Claus, a name far too reminiscent of infantile religiosity; instead, he is Dyed Moroz, Grandfather Frost, who bears little resemblance to the "jolly old elf" so beloved to us Westerners.  Dyed Moroz is more a Tolkienesque elf, tall, willowy, and distantly magnanimous with his floor-length dark blue robe and long silver staff.  Winking and chortling are out of character for this Gandalf figure, who carries a much more reasonably sized sack than foolish Santa Claus.  Dyed Moroz, grandfatherly and noble, pats children's heads and shoulders benevolently, inspiring innocent ditties about frost and snowmen and the inoffensive New Year.  He does not depend on sexist stereotypes like the overweight, kitchen-bound Mrs. Claus; his Snow Maiden is young and slim and assists him equally in the even distribution of gifts to the masses.

 

In recent years, the respected Dyed Moroz has been challenged by a newcomer, the progeny of the oppressive North Pole bourgeois.  While blue and silver reign still in the shop windows, portly Santa Claus (grown fat on the sweat of proletariat elves) begins to appear inside the shops with his red coat and ridiculously large sack.  His image is emblazoned on gift bags and Chinese greeting cards that play obnoxious beeping renditions of Jingle Bells; his wobbling paunch replaces Dyed Moroz's stately figure at some of the children's parties.  Santa Claus hands out pink Barbie notebooks to little girls and toy cars to little boys.  Most of Santa's gift production has apparently been outsourced to Chinese sweatshops, but the vile Western motifs of Barbies and race cars remain. 

 

It appears that at some point in the near future there will be a showdown between the overfed bourgeois capitalist and the poised, blue-robed autocrat.  The people of Uzbekistan find themselves in a quandary: ally themselves with Santa Claus, this slightly backward but free-speaking symbol of the West; or return to Dyed Moroz, who managed to keep them (those who submitted in silent subservience) well-fed and in jobs for seventy-four years. 

 

Russia, too, the great-aunt of modern Uzbekistan, is in the throes of this monumental decision between East and West, liberty and security.  The Gollum figure currently heading the Russian state seems to enjoy looking back at the Gandalf figure who for so long united him with the -stans; television popularizes the materialistic American Santa, but the hearts of many remain with munificent Dyed Moroz. 

 

Now the American military base, one of Santa Claus's few solid strongholds in Uzbekistan, has cleared out, and Dyed Moroz is experiencing an upsurge in popularity ratings.  His prosperity could be ensured by realignment with Great-Aunt Russia.  Or is Mr. Moroz merely getting his hopes up, only to be dashed by a magnificent comeback from Mr. Claus?

 

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