Initiative of the day: public figures urged to reform Russia Day on June 12

Public figures and businessmen demand to reconsider the approach to the celebration of Russia's Day on June 12. The authors of the letter propose to keep the date in the calendar of public holidays, but associate it not with the day of the vote of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR in 1990 for the Declaration of State Sovereignty of the RSFSR as part of the Soviet Union, but with the events of 862. In pre-revolutionary Russia, this year was considered the starting point of Russian political history.

The founders of the Russia-2062 project Boris Akimov and Oleg Stepanov signed a letter, and entrepreneurs Alexey Zakharov, Varvara Zenina, politician Roman Yuneman, designer Artemy Lebedev and others supported the initiative.

The letter says that every year on June 12, Russians "experience an awkward feeling".

"What are we celebrating on this day? On June 12, 1990, the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR adopted the Declaration of State Sovereignty of the RSFSR. This event has always, to put it mildly, seemed a very dubious reason for joy and celebration. But if earlier we preferred not to pay attention to such symbolic "oddities" in our own state structure, now, in the conditions of the onset of a new era, the era of gaining national identity, the holiday of "separation of Russia from Russia" looks provocative and tragicomic", - the letter says.

Earlier, a bill on the abolition of holidays on March 8, Labor Day and Victory Day was submitted to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine for consideration. The initiators propose to establish a new public holiday — the Day of the Ukrainian Woman. It is proposed to celebrate it not on March 8, but on February 25.