Apparently the second most lucrative holiday in the U.S. is still relatively unknown in many regions of Europe -- rural Germany, for instance:
BERLIN (Reuters) - Passengers on a German train mistook a Halloween reveler dressed up as a gore-covered zombie for a murder victim and called the police.
The 24-year-old man fell into a drunken slumber on his way home from a Halloween party in Hamburg, police in the northern town of Bad Segeberg said Monday.
Believing his hands and face were smeared with blood, passengers alerted police after getting no response from him.
A first aid team called to the scene soon cleared up the confusion. Police told the man to remove his make-up after which he was allowed to continue his journey.
"Bad Segeberg is in a rural area and Halloween isn't very well known there," police spokeswoman Silke Tobies said. "So people weren't expecting anyone to be dressed up in the train."
Moreover, Russia's government is extraordinarily peeved by the decadent "American" holiday:
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Moscow schools have been ordered to ban students from celebrating Halloween despite the widespread popularity of the imported festival to Russia.
Halloween is being forced underground because it "includes religious elements, the cult of death, the mockery of death," a spokesman for the city's education department Alexander Gavrilov said Wednesday.
"It's not an attempt to block the celebration of this holiday completely, just in schools and colleges," he added.
Pumpkins and images of witches are widespread across Russia, with many bars organizing special fancy dress parties, despite the efforts of the Kremlin, and especially the Russian Orthodox Church, to curb enthusiasm for non-native festivities.
"This is destructive for the minds and the spiritual and moral health of pupils," said Gavrilov.
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