Snowsquare is on top of things with an 8th of March post. This has spurred me into action. What can one say to the English-speaking reader about International Women's Day? Well, whatever its socialist origins, the holiday as it's celebrated in Russia is now something of a combination between Valentine's Day and Mother's Day (although Valentine's Day is increasingly being celebrated in Russia as well nowadays, thanks to the tireless efforts of card, candy, and flower marketers), except with the added weight of being an honest-to-goodness federal holiday. Usually, this results in a three-day weekend, but not this year - the Russian practice is to observe federal holidays that fall on a Wednesday on that Wednesday rather than moving them to create a three-day weekend.
I spoke to my wife, who's still in Moscow, today, and she was lamenting the fact that she didn't even really get the full holiday feeling - one day off and back to work the next day wasn't doing it for her.
[trip down memory lane] I was just recalling what we did for 8th of March in elementary school in Leningrad in the mid-1980's (I was the only foreigner in the school, for three long years): made cards for our mothers - this was before Hallmark's infiltration of Russia - with poems, construction-paper flowers, etc. We must have done something for our female teachers as well, but I can't remember for sure. Anyway, it was a different country back then. [/trip down memory lane]
Oh, and here's what I was writing about last Women's Day - a bit depressing...
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