Cultures typically approach s*x, marriage, and reproduction in unique ways. Russia may take the cake on this in terms of institutionalized acceptance, though.
This is because the declining birth rates of the country coupled with the unequal proportion of women to men and the alarmingly short lifespans of Russian men pose serious concerns for the society.
Therefore, the government has instated a public holiday created solely to give couples time off from work in order to have s*x in the hopes that doing so will result in pregnancy.
Parents whose babies are born exactly nine months later can even win prizes for helping to keep the Russian bloodline going. In his 2006 State of the Nation address, Russian President Vladimir Putin called the demographic crisis the most urgent problem facing Russia and announced efforts to boost Russia’s birth rate, including cash incentives to families that have more than one child.
In 2005 Gov. Sergey Ivanovich Morozov of Ulyanovsk, a region about 800 kilometers east of Moscow, added an element of fun to the national campaign by declaring September 12th the Day of Conception and giving couples time off from work to procreate and produce the next generation.
The 2007 grand prize went to Irina and Andrei Kartuzov, who received a UAZ-Patriot, a sport utility vehicle made in Ulyanovsk. Other contestants won video cameras, TVs, refrigerators, and washing machines. Ulyanovsk, a region on the Volga River 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 have been on the rise.
Alexei Bezrukov and his wife, Yulia, won a 250,000 ruble prize — equivalent to $10,000 — in June after she gave birth to a baby boy, Andrei.
Bezrukov said patriotism wasn’t their motive for having a child, their third, although the money was welcome. Since Ulyanovsk’s campaign began, the birthrate in the region has risen steadily and is up 4.5 percent so far this year over the same period in 2006, according to the regional administration’s Web site.
Everyone who has a baby in a Ulyanovsk hospital on Russia Day gets some kind of prize. But the grand-prize winners are couples judged to be the fittest parents by a committee that deliberates for two weeks.
The 2007 grand prize went to Irina and Andrei Kartuzov, who received a UAZ-Patriot, an SUV made in Ulyanovsk. The selection committee chose the Kartuzovs from among the 78 couples because of their “respectability” and “commendable parenting” of their two older children, a spokesman for the governor said. Other contestants won video cameras, TVs, refrigerators, and washing machines.
