Old and New Holidays of Spring

May & June

May and June are a good time of year. The days are longer, the sun is shining, and people are happy to be alive.

In the Soviet Union and Russian Federation, May has always begun with holidays, right from Day 1: May Day, or in Russian simply «первое Мая» (the first of May). When I was growing up it was officially called “the Day of International Workers’ Solidarity” (День международной соли–дарности трудящихся) and was always extended into May 2 for some reason. Just what this solidarity was all about was a total mystery to my childhood self, but there were nice little red flags for sale everywhere with the words “Peace! Labor! May!”

In Stalinist times, people were required to participate in official demonstrations, but by my childhood this duty was not as strictly enforced, so May marked the opening of dacha season. It was usually a bit cool during the “first May [holidays]” (первые майские). According to the folk wisdom “the bird cherries are blooming, that’s why it’s cold.” During the “second May [holidays]” (вторые майские), Victory Day, the weather was almost always good, and people would say “they’re specially driving away the storm clouds” («разгоняют тучи специально» – a reference to cloud seeding, which apparently was done to prevent rain in Moscow on some holidays). Again, people headed to their dachas, but not to relax: it was time to plant potatoes.

Crammed in between these two major holidays were two lesser ones: May 5, the Day of the Press (День печати), commemorating the day the first issue of the Communist Party mouthpiece, Pravda, was published, and May 7, the Day of Radio (День радио). These two were not as interesting, since they were regular working days, but there they were on the calendar, sandwiched in between the “first May” and the “second May” holidays.

After May 9 we had to head back to school, which was not easy. By then we were all infected with spring fever, and schoolwork seemed like unbearable drudgery.

Before long, May 19 rolled around – not a day off, unfortunately. This day marked the founding of the Pioneers – a sort of junior Communist Party for children ages 9 to 14. The occasion was celebrated in all schools with ridiculous pomp and ceremony, but at least we could wear our Pioneer uniforms, which were described with the silly words “light up top and dark down below” (светлый верх, темный низ), instead of our drab and heavy school uniforms. So instead of a brown dress covered by a black apron, we girls put on blue skirts and white tops – much more suitable for May. This made the militaristic rituals of the Pioneer Line-Up (пионерская линейка) and the presentation of the red banner easier to endure.

Then, before we knew it, with the end of May came the last day of school, which Russians refer to as the “last bell” (последний звонок). Back when I was in school, the last bell was not celebrated as elaborately as it is now. There were still exams to take, so you had to study. We would come to school with flowers for our teachers, listen to a few agitated speeches, and go our separate ways. Today the last bell is marked by extravagant ceremonies with endless speeches and funny (or not so funny) skits (капустники, literally “cabbage gardens”) and even field trips to the countryside for city kids and to the city for rural kids (Victory Park on Moscow’s Poklonnaya Hill is a popular destination). What does this have to do with the end of school?

Meanwhile, stores make haste to cover up window displays featuring alcohol, which is not sold to anyone on the last day of school.

Then came June. During my childhood June began with a writing examination that usually fell on June 1, which, as the irony of fate would have it, was also Child Protection Day (День защиты детей). After that, there were no major holidays for a while, although the arrival of summer was a cause for celebration in and of itself (Russians consider June 1 – not the summer solstice – to be the beginning of summer).

But in recent decades, Russia has had a new June holiday. In 1990, Russia, which was then still part of the Soviet Union, passed a Declaration of Independence on June 12. One year later, elections were held on that same day, and Boris Yeltsin became president of Russia. Six months later, the Soviet Union collapsed, and June 12 was turned into a real holiday in independent Russia, a day off, in other words.

It was never entirely clear what we were celebrating on this day. Some cynics claimed that Yeltsin had given everyone a day off to commemorate his election, even if we were calling it “Independence Day.” Before long, Yeltsin was out of the picture, and today few remember the date of his election. But independence was here to stay, although now this holiday was being referred to as “Russia Day” (День России). The holiday still has not been firmly implanted in the national consciousness. In the school where I work, there were several years in a row when we kept scheduling exams on June 12 and only later, a few days before its arrival, would someone remember that it was supposed to be a day off. Holiday? What holiday?

Today, alas, all the “patriotic holidays” are an excuse for nationalists to hold yet another demonstration and for officials to deliver impassioned speeches. The rest of us are perfectly happy to take the day off. Surveys have shown that very few people actually know why they have the day off. In good years, the 12th falls on a Monday or a Friday and we get a three-day weekend. If the 12th is a Thursday or Tuesday, that’s also not bad —they turn Saturday or Sunday into a work day and we’re again given a three-day-weekend: off to the dacha for shashlyk on the grill and all the joys of summer. Even if the 12th falls on a Wednesday, we’re still glad to have a free day in the middle of the week.

Such is the strange state of Russian holidays. Day of the Press is all but forgotten – who but the most stalwart communists cares when Pravda started publishing? The phrase “Day of Radio” is now linked in the minds of most Russians not with a holiday, but with an incredibly funny play staged by the Kvartet I comedy theater and a film of the same name.

On the anniversary of the founding of the Pioneers, a few Pravda enthusiasts induct a handful of unfortunate children into the organization on Red Square. There are not many Pioneers left, at least for now.

June 1 writing exams are no more; the schedule of the Unified State Examination (единый госу–дарственный экзамен, commonly known as the ЕГЭ) has completely changed.

June 12, on the other hand, is still going strong. Across Russia, the grills will be fired up in celebration of… something.