Conception Day

Kate Sheppard notes that yesterday was the "Day of Conception" in Russia:

Today falls exactly nine months before Russia Day, and as one of Putin's policies to encourage more breeding in his country, he's offered SUVs, refrigerators, and monetary rewards to anyone who gives birth on June 12. So the mayor of Ulyanovsk, a region in central Russia, has given workers there the afternoon off to make with the baby making. Everyone who gives birth is a winner in the "Give Birth to a Patriot on Russia's Independence Day" contest, but the grand prize winner -- judged on qualities like "respectability" and "commendable parenting" -- gets to take home a UAZ-Patriot, a Russian-made SUV.

I wonder what the natalists of the blogosphere have to say about that. The only Russian cars I've been in were GAZ-Volgas and they were pretty impressively unimpressive (Communism doesn't work, kids). Maybe the UAZ-Patriot would surprise me, though.