Russia: Education authorites have banned the celebration of Hallowe'en in schools because Schools should celebrate holidays according to the basic values of the Russian culture
. It seems that authorities are most worried that the festival acknowledges the existence of death, which is apparantly a bad thing to remind children of.
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.
There have been a small number of cases of juvenile delinquents using it as an excuse to do things they would have done anyway. Halloween Banned in Russian Schools - Pravda, 27th October 2003.
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And I thought Halloween honored the Candy company.
Now sure what silly things you folk see this time of year. Last night I saw a house covered in little lights, like people to at Christmas, but these are all orange lights. The effect was quite horrible.
It's a traditional festival in Scotland, but seems to be mostly used as an excuse to party, in fancy dress, by both children and adults alike. There's very little trick or treating (or 'guizing' as it was called) and we seem to have successfully exported that to the US.
Halloween, or the mass migration of children to the streets begging for lollies, has only recently been imported to Australia. There doesn't seem to be much in the way of advertising yet, I'm sure there will be in the future. I'm also uncertain if it's more pronounced in my area, it certainly isn't where my parents live, because of the large number of Army families who are cycled about the country constantly, perhaps they brought it with them from elsewhere