In the ensuing darkness, some inebriated Cossacks can't find their way to a shinok (tavern) and decide to go home.

At the same time, Solokha's son Vakula the Metalsmith (P. Lopukhin), tries to woo the beauty Oksana (Olga Obolenskaya), but she laughs at him and demands that he find her the shoes which the Tsarina wears.

From the journal "Kino-theatre and life" («Кино-театр и жизнь», 1913, № 2): "The Night Before Christmas" (after Gogol) is a very well written and acted cinema piece; however, not without some deficiencies in the scenes of crowds.

This picture will have success in Russia as a live illustration to the work of literature well- known to all the Russian public.From the journal "Cinematography news" («Вестник кинематографии», 1913, № 24): Some scenes - such as, e.g., the scene at Soloha's, meeting the Stanitsa Head fetched out of the bag by Chub (a Cossack), Patsyuk's dinner and many others - shine with distinctively Gogolian humour and play over the incessant laughter of the public...

The film is made excellently, including the minute details which create the reality of the Ukrainian life.