Moscow to have two ‘subbotniks’ in April

(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Aleksandras Budrys – February 19, 2013)

Moscow will organize two “subbotniks,” or voluntary labor days, on Saturdays April 20 and April 27, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said at a Moscow government meeting.

The tradition of holding “subbotniks” dates back to 1919, when in the early years of Soviet power in Russia, massive voluntary work on weekends became popular with ehthusiastic members of the Communist party and members of the Young Communist League “Komsomol.”

Later, Soviet authorities used Saturday work as a means of “communist education of the masses” stimulating people from schoolchildren and students to factory and office workers to become involved mainly in cleaning and scrubbing the streets on their days off.

The tradition died with the collapse of the Soviet Union, but authorities of many cities have begun reviving it in the last few years, inviting residents to clean streets and parks as well as plant trees.

The “subbotniks” were traditionally scheduled around Vladimir Lenin’s birthday on April 22.

In 2012, more than 2 million people took part in “subbotniks,” Andrei Tsybin, the head of the city’s department of housing and public works, said at the meeting, adding that he expected this number to rise this year.