Russians Get Day Off to Procreate, Then Win Prizes
Moscow - A Russian region of Ulyanovsk has found a novel way to fight the nation's birth-rate crisis: It has declared Sept. 12 the Day of Conception and for the third year running is giving couples time off from work to procreate.
The hope is for a brood of babies exactly nine months later on Russia's national day. Couples who "give birth to a patriot" during the June 12 festivities win money, cars, refrigerators and other prizes.
Ulyanovsk, about 550 miles east of Moscow, has held similar contests since 2005. Since then, the number of competitors, and the number of babies born to them, has been on the rise.
Russia, with one-seventh of Earth's land surface, has just 141.4 million citizens, making it one of the most sparsely settled countries in the world. With a low birth rate and a high death rate, the population has been shrinking since the early 1990s.
Tango’s Take
Ah, the procreation vacation. America has this too. We call it taking a sick day before a three-day weekend. Russia needs to get a little more creative with the patriot baby concept. They can cancel newspaper service, they can plan day long rolling blackouts, replace birth control with Ecstasy, turn off everyone’s cable and shut down the internet. Or possibly just replace their vodka with ginseng... and vodka. That would be a real vacation and a little glimpse back to the good old Soviet days. When the government got what they wanted and the citizens got screwed (and you’re welcome for the double entendre). We wonder if the OBGyns get a kick back from couples if the baby is delivered on the right day? A C-Section might not be so bad if you’re getting a new hatchback out of it.
Discussion
Man, what a deal! Not only do they get a paid day off, the whole country is rooting for them! "Go, team, go!" the crowd screams as he brings her to another earth-shattering orgasm... add the blow-by-blow commentary (pun intended) and it could be turned into a national spectacle, instead of just a national sport like it is everywhere else in the world.
Maybe we need something like that here - it might shake us all out of our 200-year-old obsession with "don't ask, don't tell" that we've been in regarding anything surrounding sex since the Puritans re-invented chastity (and backed it up with the threat of the stocks). Let me get this straight - the Puritans were kicked out of England (which was known for its obsession with repressing all things sexual anyway) for being too liberal - and so they came here and started a country! Ah, that explains the mess we're currently in...
