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Spawn a Russian Patriot, Win a TV
Russian officials continue to think up fun and creative ways to raise the birthrate:
A Russian region of Ulyanovsk has found a novel way to fight the nation's birth-rate crisis: It has declared Sept. 12 the Day of Conception and for the third year running is giving couples time off from work to procreate.
The hope is for a brood of babies exactly nine months later on Russia's national day. Couples who "give birth to a patriot" during the June 12 festivities win money, cars, refrigerators and other prizes.
Ulyanovsk, about 550 miles east of Moscow, has held similar contests since 2005. Since then, the number of competitors, and the number of babies born to them, has been on the rise.
The 2007 grand prize went to Irina and Andrei Kartuzov, who received a UAZ-Patriot, a sport utility vehicle. Other contestants won video cameras, TVs, refrigerators and washing machines.
I'm no demographer. But when you need to bribe people to copulate with free washing machines, it's probably time to throw in the towel.
|8.15.07 @ 12:32PM|#
I'm no demographer. But when you need to bribe people to
copulate with free washing machines, it's probably time to throw in
the towel.
I dunno - people will sign up for high-interest credit cards in
exchange for free t-shirts...
Episiarch|8.15.07 @ 12:36PM|#
You'd think that with all the vodka they drink that Russians
would be getting knocked up all the time, even the ugly ones.
Maybe they should just hand out free Viagra to combat whiskey dick
and that might solve everything.
|8.15.07 @ 12:37PM|#
bribe people to copulate with free washing
machines
What, do you think they'll have sex with washing machines for
free?
Doctor Duck|8.15.07 @ 12:39PM|#
time to throw in the towel
Paradox -- can't throw in the towel until you have the washing
machine.
Oh, you knew that!
Stephen the Goldberger|8.15.07 @ 12:44PM|#
It's better than their old strategy of putting a gun to the populice's head at least.
JMR|8.15.07 @ 12:49PM|#
@SugarFree
Duh, that's not what she meant by free. The meaning of
free here clearly refers to liberty, not price, meaning
the washing machine was not coerced into having sex.
|8.15.07 @ 12:49PM|#
"Russian officials continue to think up fun and creative
ways to raise the birthrate:"
Isn't every woman who takes time off to have a baby for the reich
just gonna be the butt of every office joke for the day?
...they'd be better off just mandating miniskirts.
|8.15.07 @ 12:50PM|#
Am I the only one that gets creeped out when its suggested the only reason to have a child is for the good of the state?
|8.15.07 @ 12:53PM|#
JMR,
No, I get that part. But is she suggesting they wouldn't
need to be bribed if they paid for the washing machine first? Or
are we talking about non-consenting washing machines, you know,
appliance rape.
hale|8.15.07 @ 12:54PM|#
In 1966, the Ceauşescu regime [in Romania] reversed the 1957
decree permitting abortion, and introduced other policies to
increase birth rate and fertility rate - including a special tax
amounting to between ten and twenty percent on the incomes of men
and women who remained childless after the age of twenty-five,
whether married or single. Abortion was permitted only in cases
where the woman in question was over forty-two, or already the
mother of four (later five) children. Mothers of at least five
children would be entitled to significant benefits, while mothers
of at least ten children were declared heroine mothers receiving a
gold medal, a free car, free transportation on trains, etc.; few
women ever sought this status, the average Romanian family having
two to three children. Furthermore, a considerable number of women
either died or were maimed during clandestine abortions.
The government also targeted rising divorce rates and made divorce
much more difficult - it was decreed that a marriage could be
dissolved only in exceptional cases. By the late 1960s, the
population began to swell, accompanied by rising poverty and
increased homelessness (street children) in the urban areas. In
turn, a new problem was created by uncontrollable child
abandonment, which swelled the orphanage population and facilitated
a rampant AIDS epidemic in the late 1980s - created by the regime's
refusal to acknowledge the existence of the disease, and its
unwillingness to allow for any HIV test to be carried out.
|8.15.07 @ 12:57PM|#
Dan T: "I dunno - people will sign up for high-interest credit
cards in exchange for free t-shirts..."
Thus, in your worldview, "high interest credit cards" = SEX?
You don't get asked to be the wingman on a Friday night a lot, do
you?
JMR|8.15.07 @ 12:57PM|#
Ulyanovsk is a perfect choice as the city for giving state-encouraged birth to "patriots", as it is the birthplace of Lenin.
|8.15.07 @ 12:57PM|#
Cesar,
Every part of you belongs to the state, especially your genitals.
Duh. It's not like they have the 3rd Amendment over there or
anything. They could house soldiers in your vagina if they wanted.
(Or a vagina you know, if you don't have one yourself.)
|8.15.07 @ 1:01PM|#
It has declared Sept. 12 the Day of Conception and for the
third year running is giving couples time off from work to
procreate.
Sounds like a ******* great reason for a holiday to me.
"National Get Laid Day"
Jim Anderson, Pedant|8.15.07 @ 1:02PM|#
"...when you need to bribe people to copulate..."
Actually, they're being bribed to procreate. Or was there
an unannounced mass conversion to Catholicism?
|8.15.07 @ 1:05PM|#
Ulyanovsk is a perfect choice as the city for giving
state-encouraged birth to "patriots", as it is the birthplace of
Lenin.
And where UAZ Patriots are made, too. It looks like a pretty decent
ride.
|8.15.07 @ 1:06PM|#
Let's see, so far we've had a reference to the Catholic stance on contraception and a reference to forced pregnancy. Abortion thread anyone?
|8.15.07 @ 1:10PM|#
"It has declared Sept. 12 the Day of Conception and for the
third year running is giving couples time off from work to
procreate."
Sounds like a ******* great reason for a holiday to me.
"National Get Laid Day"
Goodbye "May Day" -- hello "Lay Day"!
Urkobold™|8.15.07 @ 1:14PM|#
ALL THE ATTRACTIVE RUSSIAN WOMEN HAVE MARRIED OR, AT LEAST, MATED WITH WESTERN MEN. THIS IS WHY APPLIANCE INCENTIVES ARE NEEDED.
|8.15.07 @ 1:49PM|#
I'm looking forward to when we get a new Cold War, in babies! I
also would like a free day off to have sex with my wife.
Children? Hell, no. I've got a washing machine. But how will they
know I'm using a condom?
Unless everyone gets a free video camera... installed in your
bedroom.
|8.15.07 @ 1:50PM|#
The 2007 grand prize went to Irina and Andrei Kartuzov, who
received a UAZ-Patriot, a sport utility vehicle. Other contestants
won video cameras, TVs, refrigerators and washing
machines.
Sadly, when the winners got home, they realized that their prizes
were made of old potatoes.
|8.15.07 @ 2:23PM|#
bribe people to copulate with free washing machines
What, do you think they'll have sex with washing machines for free?
...
I've always wondered why the "spin cycle" setting on my washing
machine was in quotation marks ...
|8.17.07 @ 4:03AM|#
when you need to bribe people to copulate with free washing machines, it's probably time to throw in the towel.
Excuse me, Miss Howley -- your participle is dangling! (But a
lovely participle it is ...)
Rather than wait on the government to buy my wife a washing
machine, I did it myself. Privatization!
|8.17.07 @ 4:11AM|#
SugarFree | August 15, 2007, 12:57pm | #
They could house soldiers in your vagina if they wanted.
I know some people believe in all-powerful government, but ... wow.
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