Happy Procreation Day
I admire the Russkies’ spirit, but when you have to bribe people with refrigerators to procreate, you’ve probably already lost the battle:
MOSCOW - This would make a heck of a reality TV show.
The baby-poor Russian region of Ulyanovsk wants to its people to procreate, and has come up with a holiday and prizes to encourage them to their duty for Mother Russia.
Ulyanovsk has declared Sept. 12 the “Day of Conception” and for the third year in a row will give couples the day off from work . . . so they can work on making babies.
Couples who “give birth to a patriot” nine months later during “Russia Day” festivities - June 12 celebrations marking the end of the Soviet Union - will win money, cars, refrigerators and other prizes.
Everyone who has a baby on Russia Day, June 12, gets a prize, but the grand prize goes to the couple who are judged most fit to be parents. The 2007 grand prize went to Irina and Andrei Kartuzov, who received a brand new UAZ-Patriot . . . a Russian-made SUV.
Other contestants won video cameras, televisions, refrigerators and washing machines.
Russia, with one-seventh of Earth’s land surface, has just 141.4 million citizens. That makes it one of the most sparsely populated countries in the world. The former Soviet Union’s low birth rate and a high death rate - exacerbated by alcoholism problems, inadequate health care and other social ills - have been shrinking the population since the early 1990s.
Last year, President Vladimir Putin identified the demographic crisis as the most acute problem facing the former communist nation and encouraged Russians to get busy and boost the birth rate.
Putin has also offered cash incentives to families with more than one child.
Topics: Russia, moms and dads
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:29 am on Thursday, August 16, 2007
4 Responses to “Happy Procreation Day”
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August 16th, 2007 at 9:04 am
[...] irony is that the sexual revolution appears to have resulted in a procreation surrender. Jules Crittenden says “when you have to bribe people with refrigerators to procreate, you’ve probably [...]
August 16th, 2007 at 9:28 am
Must scare the crap out of Putin, looking at the demographic shortfall Russia has. Where will he get the troops to occupy the Arctic?
August 16th, 2007 at 10:08 am
[...] actually in Ulyanovsk, but do you know how difficult it is to use alliteration with Ulyanovsk? Via Jules Crittenden, the Boston Herald catches up with the latest government program in Russia, where Vladimir Putin [...]
August 16th, 2007 at 2:08 pm
Happy Sex With Hot Russian Babes Day!
I lived in Russia for a year–the women there are smokin’ hot– so it just boggles the mind that the Russian government would have to pay their dudes to have sex with them. Jules Crittenden has this:The baby-poor Russian region…