Grigory Pasko: On the Invention of Working Vacations

The young pregnant military serviceman Response apropos By Grigory Pasko, journalist The information agency RIA Novosti has reported that president of Russia Dmitry Medvedev left from 4 August on a week-long working vacation. It is expected that until the end of the week Medvedev will visit cities situated on the Volga. On the journey, son and wife will be accompanying the president. The words «working vacation» were highlighted by me, not by RIA Novosti. The fact is that in the Code of Laws on Labor of the Russian Federation there is no such concept – «working vacation». I suspect that this is an example of the know-how of the Kremlin political technologists and bureaucrats in the administration of the president. But then the Code of Laws on Labor does have an Article 71 – «Order of granting vacations». In it is said that that vacation for the first year of work shall be granted to workers upon the expiration of eleven months of uninterrupted work at… an enterprise, in an institution, an organization. Prior to the expiration of eleven months of uninterrupted work, vacation shall be granted to: women – before leave for pregnancy and birth or immediately after it; workers less than eighteen years old; military service personnel discharged into the reserve and directed to work in the order of organized enlistment…

Medvedev has been at the post of president since March of this year – that is, at the enterprise called «the state of Russia» he has been working obviously less than 11 months.Medvedev, as we know, is more than 18 years old. He – is not a pregnant woman and not a military serviceman discharged into the reserve. He has just, it can be said, been called to service, including also in the capacity of Commander-in-Chief of the Armed forces of Russia.Of course, I understand that a president – doesn’t have a standard nine-to-five job. That is, it goes without saying that his vacation too has to be non-standard. But what I don’t understand is why use methods of Soviet propaganda in so doing. Remember how in the books about Lenin they used to write that he would work until he dropped. And about Stalin they would write that his light was on at nights in the Kremlin: Stalin did not sleep, for denizens of the heavens – do not sleep, they – are different, not mere mortals.Why instead of writing «has gone on a short vacation» (that makes sense – it’s August after all!) are they throwing some idiocy at us about some «working vacation». They’re used to regarding us as cattle and as idiots? According to the principle: they’ll swallow anything!And they do swallow anything. Under Putin, they swallowed his endless vacations, sometimes to Sochi, sometimes to the Altai with the prince of Monaco (after which, by the way, it was decided to hold the Olympic games in Sochi). Nobody even bothered to count how much time this president was spending on vacation with his dog Koni. Oh, he worked there, and he and Koni received Berlusconi? Oh yes, of course, how silly of me… The person worked for days on end. And at night too? So he’s decided to outdo Stalin?The successor has been so unable to break away from Putin that he even goes not on a normal vacation, but like Putin – on a «working» one.I sometimes think: they should get normal already. Normal managers – hired officials, whom the people – for its money! – has hired to execute the work of presidents and other officials. There’s no need for them to overwork themselves so, to be so meticulously concerned for us. We’ll survive without their all-encompassing concern. They should just do one little thing, but do it scrupulously: observe the laws!And they can start with the Code of Laws on Labor of the Russian Federation.