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I used to have some ex-Soviet country co-workers who took their Christmas break in my January, and I'm sure it was the only time of the year they used that calendar in public. Perhaps in part because of the curious people like us have endless questions about it ;)

Wikipedia has an article on the calendar¹, including how and why the movable feasts are calculated.

¹ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Orthodox_Church_litu...

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Most Russians aren't even aware that this is due to the church using a different calendar - as far as they're concerned, "orthodox Christmas" just happens to be on January, 7 (as opposed to "catholic Christmas" on December, 25).

This is further reinforced by January, 7 being a state holiday in Russia - defined directly like that, without any references to the old calendar.

This ignorance might be promoted by the coincidence that in 2001 it didn't change. In 1901 it moved from 6th to 7th, and in 2101 it will move from 7th to 8th. A couple of centuries in which it doesn't move is a good time for people to forget that it moves.

It didn't move in 1901 for Russia, because the country was wholly on the Julian calendar back then, and thus Christmas was still on December, 25.

It's an interesting question as to what exactly is going to happen when it's time to move it. As I noted earlier, the Russian law on state holidays explicitly designates January, 7 as Christmas - so that would need to be amended to conform to what the Church says. But, much like in the West, Christmas is not a purely religious holiday in Russia - it's effectively the last day of the New Year holiday week. In theory, individual regions can opt out of it (to reflect their local religious traditions - some are majority Muslim or Buddhist), but none have done that in practice. So, if the question of moving it arises, it will be debated by the society at large, not only by the Orthodox.

Various Christian festivals seem to have taken over from pagan celebrations. The winter solstice is at a similar time to Christmas, and Easter has pre-Christian meaning too. Taking over Christian festivals seems inevitable in that context.

Well, many churches use old calendar dates in their church calendars, on websites etc, at least in parallel to the new style. I suppose this might be more common in the diaspora.

The Russian Orthodox Church calendar is Julian; but keep in mind that church attendance in Russia is low - only about 15% attend at least monthly (for comparison, the same figure is 45% in US), and 35% never go at all.

Thus, most believers aren't aware of those details even if they self-identify as Orthodox Christian.