Winter festivities may be over, but if you are not ready to say good-bye to the holiday spirit just yet, there is a way to bring back the spark.

One Moscow exhibition offers plenty of winter charm with its collection of seasonal decorations made back in Soviet times.

The venue adds its own dash of magic to the experience. The exhibition is being held in the former royal retreat of Kolomenskoye – an estate in the south-east of Moscow where generations of Russian Tsars spent their summers. It means that you can have the best of both worlds – Tsarist architecture and a review of Soviet kitsch.

Although today New Year is the nation’s favourite holiday, it has not always been that way.

Before the revolution it was Christmas, and in the early days of the USSR both Christmas and New Year were banned as bad bourgeois influences.

In 1935 New Year was brought back, but Christmas still remained outlawed –strictly speaking the exhibition displays New Year decorations rather than those from Christmas.

More than 700 sparkling items, from some made in the 1930s to those produced in the twilight of the USSR, trace the history of the country’s biggest winter holiday.

As soon as New Year celebrations were officially back, the very first Soviet decorations appeared.

The holiday was so eagerly embraced that even World War II did not stop people from celebrating – with decorations made out of metal and wire.

It is only since 1947 that the New Year began to be marked in grand style. January 1 was became a day off and dozens of new decoration designs appeared.

First, fairy tale characters were all the rage, but then the agricultural boom of the 1950s made fruit and vegetables popular.

The Soviet leader at the time, Nikita Khrushchev, had a particular penchant for maize, ordering its widespread planting across the country, so no fir-tree could do without a corncob.

Then began the space exploration era – it is easy to guess which decorations sprung into fashion.

The exhibition goes on until the end of the month, so even though we might have packed in our Christmas decorations until next December, it is worth dropping in for the festive spirit to last just a bit longer.