06/05/1997
Paid access archiveA Holiday Headache For Church And State
Some say it is a sign of the spiritual rebirth of the nation; others will complain it spoils a three-day weekend. But the Russian government has just decided to keep Sunday as a day of rest in its schedule for the June 12 Independence Day holidays next week. The government had dithered over exactly when to set the national holidays, torn between the secular gods of leisure and the Russian Orthodox Church. Independence Day, the sixth anniversary of Russia's formal secession from the Soviet Union, falls next Thursday. Following Soviet tradition, the government had issued an order late last year moving around the calendar to create a three-day weekend. That would have made next Thursday, Friday, and Saturday public holidays. Sunday would have been a working day. This hedonistic if confusing schedule may have been acceptable in the past but not this year.
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