Petersburgian Case File #18: A Holiday For The Rest of Us

We here in the motherland have no class on Monday as it is a national holiday.

And this is what I imagine all of Russia will look like on the day off.

Which, as absolutely and utterly content with that as I am, begs the question: why? As is always the case in all things Russia the answer turns out to not be all that simple. I present to you the reason we have a day off (the way it has been explained to me, at the very least):

I be here edumakating the masses. Where be my governmentally approved grants and monies and suches, Mr. Obama? See I'm a well respected pillar of my community here so much as I could have resorted to childish and coy name calling like replacing the B in your name with an S denoting you to be some sort of Muslim Terrorist of ill repute and the like, I did not. Bet youse don't hear about the plight of the workin man like me in your lamestream media outlets like Ms. Ariana Huffington's Post and her Post's related publications.

Russia always had a day off or even a few days off in early November because on November 7th they'd have a holiday for the October Revolution. Logically the October Revolution would be in November (I believe because it was in October on the old calendars which then became November when they switched to the Western/Gregorian calendar but I guess the name had stuck by that point). Well the good ol' CCCP is no more, down with the curtain, blah, blah so celebrating the October Revolution is somewhat...passé now, to say the least (see how I got the line on the e there? Be very impressed with my technological prowess).

And people say my propensity towards the broad means I can't be delightfully wry.
Well here it is. I am being wry. Delightfully so.
And drawing absolutely no unwarranted attention to it whatsoever. 

But the people always had a holiday then and the people expect a holiday then. They demand a holiday then and they deserve it, damn it! So what do our benevolent overlords do but say "We must have a holiday in early November but we can't have the October Revolution!" So off they go to their batcave to meticulously rifle through the annals of history to find something, anything, that occurred in early October that seems like a thing to celebrate.

"Oh guys you won't believe it. This is just, oh how could we be so stupid - look! Putin's birthday is on November 6th oh this is perfect!...Hey wait why does this say edited 3 hours ago...and from this very IP address. IVAAAAAAN!" *Benny Hill music begins

Eventually they find, back in the mid-1500s something dealing with a Saint and Russia defeating the Pollacks. Truth be told I kind of missed a bit of this part but rest assured that whatever I write is 100% true and you should never doubt or attempt to do any research into it. Point being if there is one thing Russians love almost as much as their government holidays its a hardy fuck you to the Pollacks. Because well...Pollacks! [I know you read and worship this blog Luke so that's right this was aimed directly at you]

...because this comes up under a google image search of Polish People.

And so, on the basis of not much of anything, the day of the victory mixed with something dealing with some Saint, again I really kinda zoned right about here (November 4th), is declared a new holiday. Since the 4th falls on a Sunday this year, we have the 5th off. From what I understand if you ask most Russians they wouldn't know what the holiday is for or just continue to call it the October Revolution. God bless this country and a Happy Lenin Day to you all!