Russia's Conception Day: Have a June baby, win a prize

MOSCOW — A Russian region best known as the birthplace of Vladimir Lenin has found a novel way to fight the nation's birthrate crisis: It has declared Sept. 12 the Day of Conception and for the third year running is giving couples time off from work to procreate.

The hope is for a brood of babies nine months later on Russia's national day. Couples who "give birth to a patriot" during June 12 Russia Day festivities win money, cars, refrigerators and other prizes.

Ulyanovsk, a region on the Volga River about 550 miles east of Moscow, has held similar contests since 2005. Since then, the number of competitors and the number of babies born to them have been on the rise.

Alexei Bezrukov and his wife, Yulia, won a 250,000 ruble prize — equivalent to $10,000 — in June after she gave birth to a baby boy, Andrei. Bezrukov said patriotism wasn't their motive for having a child, their third, although the money was welcome.

"It was a patriotic atmosphere, you know, when everyone around is celebrating, but I wasn't thinking of anything but my son," he said. "The whole thing is great, it's great to get 250,000 rubles when you have a new baby to take care of."

Russia, with one-seventh of the Earth's land surface, has 141.4 million citizens, making it one of the most sparsely settled countries in the world. With a low birthrate and a very high death rate, the population has been shrinking since the early 1990s. It is falling by almost half a percent each year.

Demographic experts expect the decline to accelerate, estimating Russia's population could fall below 100 million by 2050.

In his state-of-the-nation address last year, President Vladimir Putin called the demographic crisis the most acute problem facing Russia and announced a broad effort to boost Russia's birthrate, including cash incentives to families to have more than one child.

Since Ulyanovsk's campaign began, the birthrate in the region has risen steadily and is up 4.5 percent so far this year over the same period in 2006, according to the regional administration's Web site.

Everyone who has a baby in an Ulyanovsk hospital on Russia Day gets some kind of prize. But the grand-prize winners are couples judged to be the fittest parents by a committee that deliberates for two weeks.

The 2007 grand prize went to Irina and Andrei Kartuzov, who received a UAZ-Patriot, an SUV made in Ulyanovsk.

The selection committee chose the Kartuzovs from among the 78 couples because of their "respectability" and "commendable parenting" of their two older children, a spokesman for the governor said.

Other contestants won video cameras, TVs, refrigerators and washing machines.