SOVIET CALENDAR

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21222, 19 September 1940, Page 11

SOVIET CALENDAR

CONFUSING METHODS USED Many are wondering in these days of projected calendar reforms, what the Soviets are doing for a calendar, says the Christian Science Monitor. According to Dr. Albert Parry, writing for the World Calendar Association, the present Soviet calendars are quite different from the old Czarist and Kerensky ways of counting time, and a far cry from our Western calendar. 1 Beginning with October 1, 1929, Saturday and Sunday were legislated out of existence in the Soviet Union; a five-day week took the place of the old seven-day one. In each of the twelve months familiar to the western world were crowded six weeks. The extra five days of the year were to be national Soviet holidays. A few industries have six-day weeks, each consisting of five days of labour and one of rest. Annually, each worker was to have 72 days of rest, and the five national holidays. Reactions differed to the sweeping change. Cartoons were printed in Soviet newspapers to show that the Soviet week was being purged of its non-working elemer.ts. One labelled “ Six will not wait for me ” shc/ved six working days of the old week as men and women in labourers’ garb pushing Sunday—a welldressed but distressed gentleman—toward a factory entrance with the accompanying remark, “ Enough loafing from you.” The Latest Scheme The newest Soviet calendar, started in 1932, has likewise 12 months, but each month is of five weeks of six days each. The days have no names, only numbers. The free day falls on the 6th, 12th, 18th, 24th, and 30th of each month. Instead of saying, “ I’ll meet you on Tuesday, the Russian says, “ I’ll meet you on the 17th.” Americans in Russia are in the habit of saying, “ I’ll meet you on Soviet Monday,” meaning the day after the Free Day. Altogether, that means there are three systems used in Russia, the six-day week, the oltf sevenday week and the 1929-32, 5-day week. Educated men who bump into all three systems in the course of their work, find the going hard.