R. Moshe Chaim said that when he attends a Bar Mitzvah nowadays, celebrated in beautiful halls, with great pomp and elegance, he cannot help but contrast them to his own Bar Mitzvah:

“It was in the summertime. My mother's feet were sore and the doctors recommended that she travel to Tskaltubo, a Georgian spa resort and town. My parents decided to go there, and they took me along. Indeed, the climate helped improve her health, and she decided to stay longer than planned. My Bar Mitzvah was fast approaching, and when the time came, my father took me to the nearby city of Kutaisi, where a sizeable Jewish community was located. There, we went to the shul, and I was called up to the Torah for the first time. My father then served some drink and said L’chaim with the people in the shul, and that was my entire Bar Mitzvah celebration.

“I had studied the Chassidic discourse of the Rebbe Rayatz entitled ‘U’va’u HaOvdim M’Eretz Ashur' back in Samarkand, but I never had the opportunity to share it with an audience, as is customary for Chassidic Bar Mitzvah boys: Kutaisi was too far away from my friends in Samarkand who could actually understand it, and before whom I could recite it without fear."