Not every Saturday is a working day in Russia; in fact, most are reserved to be glorious days off work. But this Saturday is a special day.
You see, March 8 is a huge holiday in Russia; dubbed as "International Women's Day" or IWD. IWD started out as a Socialist event in the early Twentieth Century and is more rigorously celebrated in the places that you would suspect: Former Eastern Block and Soviet Union countries, Cambodia, China, etc. However, these days, IWD is no longer a political event; it is really a sexist event where poor men are muscled, exhorted, compelled, coerced, browbeaten, and blackjacked to show their love and appreciation for women. In other words, it is sort of of like a man's wedding anniversary + Mothers Day + Valentine's Day all wrapped in one.
Umm ... Happy Woman's Day?
As it happens, March 8 is on a Tuesday this year, and this begins to explain why today, Saturday, is a working day.
Imagine, for a moment, that Fourth of July were to occur on a Tuesday or a Thursday. As inconvenient as this may be, the preceding Monday or the following Friday would be work days. In the US, however, many people would take a vacation day on that Monday or Friday to have a four-day weekend.
In Russia, things work a bit differently. Because three-day weekends are deemed as goodness, it is seen as a perfectly practical practice to declare Saturday a working day in order to declare Monday a weekend day. And so, people get to have their three day holiday; in this case it is a two weekend days of Sunday and Monday plus a sexist celebration of some sort in the form of a national holiday.
Definitely, It's Worth Mucking Up the Calendar for This
P. S. Working on Saturdays is pretty much like working on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. The day is rather short, and hardly anything gets done.
P. P. S. Happy International Women's Day indeed - and thanks for the opportunity to poke a little fun.
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