day off:

[zdragon]

.. и получи холодилник
http://www.rte.ie/news/2007/0912/russia.html?rss

The governor of a central Russian province has urged couples to skip work today and make love instead.

And if a woman gives birth in exactly nine months time, on Russia's national day on June 12 next year, she will qualify for a prize.

The prize is normally something for the home such as a fridge or a television set , according to Yelena Yakovleva at the Ulyanovsk regional administration press office.
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And it does not matter if it is a girl or a boy.

Regional governor Sergei Morozov told employers to contribute to a Kremlin campaign to boost the birth rate by giving couples today off work to have sex.

Russia wants to reverse a trend in which the population is shrinking by about 700,000 people a year as births fail to outpace a high death rate.

This is the third year Ulyanovsk region, famous as the birthplace of Soviet state founder Vladimir Lenin, has dedicated a day to encouraging couples to produce more babies.

Prizes will extend equally to unmarried women who produce children on the right day, though the biggest prizes will go to married couples.

On Russia Day this year, a family won a jeep after their fourth baby was born on the holiday.

This year a record 78 babies were born on June 12 at the main hospital in the regional capital of Ulyanovsk, beating the 2006 total of 26, according to chief doctor Andrei Malykh.

He said the scheme is working. 'People want the prizes,' he said.

A mass wedding and special lessons for children at school on how to deal with having a brother or sister are also planned in Ulyanovsk city, which is about 900 km from Moscow.

This week First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said he wanted to stabilise the population at about 142 million by 2015 and boost it back to 145 million by 2025.