Overview
- Press secretary Dmitry Peskov said Vladimir Putin took an icy dip to mark Orthodox Epiphany, calling it a tradition for the president.
- The Kremlin first publicized Putin’s Epiphany plunge in 2018, with official accounts noting he skipped 2020 and 2022 and participated in subsequent years.
- Orthodox Epiphany in Russia falls on January 19 and commemorates Jesus Christ’s baptism in the Jordan River.
- The Orthodox Church regards icy bathing as a folk practice rather than a required rite, generally approving it when done reverently and without health risks.
- Russia organizes thousands of supervised bathing sites for Epiphany each year under the Emergencies Ministry, including 3,100 locations serving nearly 1.4 million people in 2024.