KZBlog

Happy Subbotnik

Why is this Saturday not like other Saturdays? A subbotnik, derived from the Russian word for Saturday, is a day when all workers clean up their office, when students and teachers clean the school grounds, when community members sweep the yards around their houses, when everyone pitches in to make the town a little bit cleaner. It’s like a giant communal spring-cleaning.

While I’ve noticed this sort of behavior before, this is the first year I saw such a mass effort on one specific day. Even as I walked to work today at 10am, I saw students at the nearby university being given brooms and heading out to different parts of campus to sweep away dirt and liter. Workers at the construction site nearby are also busily sweeping away and hauling spare parts over to the dumpsters.

It’s a neat idea, especially as it is entirely democratic. The teachers and the students work together, do the same manual labor. I was assured by one acquaintance that even Ministers have been known
to spend the day filing their own papers, straightening and polishing their desks. This is not abuse of power to get free slave labor from underlings; this is community spirit in action. Of course I may only be being so optimistic because I have other work today, and can’t join my fellow residents in sweeping our litter-filled yard.

Even so Happy Spring Cleaning Day everyone! And may people learn by their efforts to not litter in the first place and make their community dirty at all.