Since 2005 the Russian officials proclaimed September 12 “Conception Day” encouraging government officials and other office workers to take long lunches and leave home early in a latest desperate attempt to boost shrinking demographics.
This year, more Russian towns have caught on the baby patriot fever as more prizes and cash incentives are at play. Novye Izvestia newspaper reports Krasnoyarsk, Perm, Nijnij Tagil, Pskov and Kemerov, Ulyanovsk and St. Petersburg have offered prized to women who gave birth on Russia Day, June 12.
The “Give Birth to a Patriot on Russia’s Day” campaign has led to 87 registered births in Ulyanovsk alone. In Krasnoyarsk the lucky parents of baby patriots received 100,000 rubles in prizes.
Other city officials offered food, toys and even cars in compensation. A St. Petersburg psychologist says the prize incentives has put additional pressure on expectant mothers to give birth on the exact date. “Two women may be staying at the same hospital, but one of them is receiving high city officials with loads of gifts, and the other one receives no compensation from the government. And it’s all because one of them gave birth on the 12th and the other one on the 11th,” she says.
Those families who do make the cut do not always receive their compensation all at once. Six years after their daughter was born, the Shramkovy family from Nijnij Tagil have just received a set of kitchen appliances from the government. They have named their baby girl…Russia. What else?
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