Halloween Banned in Russian Schools

"Schools should celebrate holidays according to the basic values of the Russian culture"
Very soon Halloween is to be celebrated in different countries. Some time ago, Russian schools also started celebrating the holiday. However, recently Moscow gymnasia and lyceums have got an instruction from Moscow's education department according to which "Halloween celebration cannot be allowed in any form."
 
Russia's newspaper Izvestia reports that heads of the district departments of education in Moscow have got an instruction on the issue signed by First Deputy Head of Moscow's Education Department Larissa Kurneshova. The document says: "Experts of the education department, the Public Advisory Board "Education as Mechanism for Forming moral and spiritual culture of the society" attached to the Education Department, researchers of the State Research Institute for family and upbringing at the Russian Education Academy and the Institute of Teaching Innovations at the Russian Education Academy have passed the judgment concerning negative consequences of Halloween for the teaching and educational process and its participants. The very fact that Halloween activities contain religious elements (the cult of death, scoffing at death, personification of death and evil spirits, and so on) contradicts the temporal character of education in the state-run educational institutions and produces a destructive effect upon the psychological, moral and spiritual health of students. Heads of educational institutions should not allow celebration of Halloween in any possible form. It is important to create new forms of joint holidays at school that could be celebrated together with students, teachers and parents according to the basic values of the Russian culture."

Halloween is an annual celebration of evil forces, the evening on the eve of Catholic Hallowmas. It is believed that the celebration originated in Ireland and is based upon the pagan legend saying that on this very night the souls of dead people return to their homes to gather food from living people as sacrifices.
 
Despite of its wide popularity, the celebration is still rather gloomy. REGIONS.RU has reported already that a year ago teenagers were detained for the profanation of a temple in the Russian city of Krasnoyarsk. They painted the satanic symbolism on the altar and the walls of the temple. The detained said that was how they celebrated Halloween.