Happy July 4!
I hope you are all enjoying fireworks, barbecues, and all the other trappings of Independence Day in America.
A concert in Palace Square for Russia Day.
Russia has it’s own independence day, of sorts, on June 12.
The problem is that Russia has never really received independence from another entity (Unless you want to go back to the Mongol hordes). It’s always been Russia, in one form or another.
That’s why June 12 is known as “Day of adoption of the Declaration of State Sovereignty of the Russian Federation” or Russia Day – День России for short.
It marks the day in 1990 when Russia declared itself separate (or independent, if you’d like) from the Soviet Union (one of the key steps in dissolving the USSR).
Most Russians don’t really know what to make of the holiday, but they do get the day off of work to attend free concerts thrown by the state (Like the one we went to in St. Petersburg on Palace Square, featuring old Soviet, err, Russian, stars) or to go to their countryside dachas.
Zachary Tracer 