Georgians set decorative tree ablaze to usher in hope for new year

Outside a wooden cabin in central Georgia, local villager Natia Gedenidze places an ornamental tree no more than one metre (3.28 ft) tall in the packed snow, and with the swift strike of a match, sets it ablaze.

"This is the Georgian Christmas tree with which we celebrated the New Year," she said.

"Now that the New Year celebrations are over, we burn and throw away everything old and we greet the New Year with new hopes and new love."

Made by stripping back the branches from dried walnut or hazelnut trees, the "chichilaki", as the trees are known, are designed to look like the beard of the fourth-century Saint Basil, who was known for caring for the poor and destitute.

Popular in western Georgia but found throughout the country, chichilaki are traditionally put on display in homes on Georgian Orthodox Christmas, on January 7, and are ceremonially burned on Epiphany, which falls on January 19, to symbolise the shaking off of the previous year's woes.

Another villager, Mariam Gulordava, sitting in her workshop surrounded by dozens of chichilaki, runs her knife down the length of the tree with an expert hand, adding satisfying new bunches of curlicues to the bushy white beard at the tree's base.

"Hazelnuts... are a symbol of prosperity and well-being," she said, adding that after the old chichilaki is burned, a new one is brought into the home and kept there for the whole year.

At local plant shop Gardenia, owner Zura Shevardnadze hawks chichilaki in the hopes of keeping the traditions of his ancestors alive. When he was a child, a chichilaki always stood in his parents' home in wintertime.

"All Georgians believe, especially in western Georgia, that without chichilaki, the real New Year will not come," Shevarnadze said.

-David Chkhikvishvili and Irakli Gedenidze/Reuters