First Prize In Russia’s ‘Day Of Conception’: New Apartment For Heterosexual Couples
September 12 is an annual holiday in Russia. The official, government-sanctioned “Day Of Conception” allows opposite-sex couples to take the day off from work with pay to make babies. The governor of the Ulyanovsk region, Sergei Morozov, this year will award an apartment to one couple whose baby is born nine months from the holiday.
The annual holiday is in reality a fertility campaign designed to increase Russia’s struggling economy and relatively small population of 143.4 million people across a vast landmass.
“In January 2013 the Moscow Times reported that President Putin invited R&B group Boys II Men to perform in Moscow on the coming St. Valentine ’s Day, in a bid to up the libido of Russian couples. The performance did not, ultimately, go ahead,” according to the Independent.
“Couples who gave birth 9 months later on June 12 in years past received cash prizes, refrigerators and even a new car,” MSN reports:
That day in Russia is symbolic — it’s Russia Day, a major patriotic holiday in the country. Ulyanovsk is the birthplace of the late iconic Russian leader Vladimir Lenin.
The 2007 winning couple was chosen “because of their ‘respectability’ and ‘commendable parenting.'”
Recently, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law that prohibits the promotion of “non-traditional sexual relations,” also known as the “homosexual propaganda” law, which has led to a boycott of all things Russia from the West.
Watch this video from last year explaining the holiday:
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