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Saturday, April 24, 2004 marked the 85th anniversary of the subbotnik, a nationwide day of voluntary work geared toward giving Russia a good spring cleaning. The first subbotnik was held by rail workers on the Moscow-Kazan line in April 1919. Others soon followed, and the first all-Russia subbotnik was held on May 1, 1920. These were lauded as great communist events in writings by V. I. Lenin, but contemporary news reports refer to them simply as "traditional" days of spring cleaning. This year's events reportedly involved more than one million Russians, including 5,000 in Moscow, working to clean schools, hospitals, parks, and other public places.
Photo: Grigory Sysoyev/Itar-Tass
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