International Women’s Day, a day to celebrate women both young and old, is celebrated differently in all parts of the world. In Russia, Women’s day is celebrated as a combination of Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day. Women may receive gifts or flowers from men and often the day is free of work.

Women’s Day was first observed in Russia on the last Sunday in February in 1913 as part of a peace movement surrounding World War I. It was next celebrated in 1917, again on the last Sunday in February. Russian women organized a strike for “bread and peace” after losing millions of soldiers to the war. This strike led to Russian women’s right to vote. They were among the first women in the world granted this right. This historic Sunday fell on February 23 on the Julian calendar, which Russia was then using, but on March 8 on the Gregorian calendar in use other places. The tradition of Women’s day represents at least nine decades of struggle for equality, justice, peace and development.

Women’s day is a national holiday in Russia, so Natasha doesn’t have to go to school and her parent’s don’t have to go to work! The day before the official holiday, there was a concert at Natasha’s school. The women teachers also received gifts from the school and from their students. Natasha and her sister, Anastasia, spent their day off with their family. Natasha’s father got them all beautiful flowers to decorate their home. He also got each woman in his life a long stemmed red rose, Natasha’s favorite! He got them for all the women he works with, all the women in his family, and even their women neighbors.

Natasha and the other girls got to play all day! In March, the weather is still really cold, but they love being outside anyway. The girls love to play in the snow, but most of all, they love to ice skate. There is a lake close to their homes that is perfect for skating and on Women’s Day there were a lot of girls on the lake. Anastasia and Natasha spent much of the morning on the ice and then helped their father cook dinner in the afternoon.

Many families are getting together tonight to celebrate Women’s Day together. The men are going to cook a great dinner with Pelmeny (meat filled pastry), kotleta po-kievsky (Kiev style chicken) and pirozhky (an apple pastry) for dessert. The women got the night off from cooking and cleaning and enjoyed the evening relaxing with each other and the children. The celebration continued far into the night and Natasha and Anastasia got to stay up just a bit later than normal. The girls dreamed that every day could be filled with so much fun and celebration!

Natasha NoTearski enjoyed International Women’s Day and reminds us to celebrate Women’s History month in March.