Miriam Elder, Telegraph (London), January 18, 2009
It was the gleaming silver gong every idealistic Soviet matron desired: the “Hero Mother” medal conferred on women who bore at least 10 children to serve the nation.
Now, 18 years after it was discontinued, Russia has revived its policy of rewarding fertility in an attempt to reverse a potentially disastrous demographic decline.
To great fanfare, broadcast live on state television, President Dmitry Medvedev brought eight families into the gilded halls of the Kremlin and presented them with the blue-ribboned silver star of the Order of Parental Glory.
“You are setting an example for all society and you continue the tradition of parental service which has been customary in our country for centuries,” Mr Medvedev told the gathering.
A sharp fall in birthrates, combined with increasing poor health, has prompted a demographic collapse which the United Nations predicts could reduce the population from 146 million today to just 80 million by 2050—a fall in numbers which could also spell social and economic disaster.
Now the country’s leadership is striking back through a publicity campaign urging people to have larger families. Posters line Moscow’s streets and metro stations, reminding people of their duty to have children.
The Order of Parental Glory is reminiscent of Joseph Stalin’s campaign to boost birthrates following the country’s staggering human losses in the Second World War, as well as the dictator’s own purges.
He introduced the Hero Mother award in 1944, to celebrate women who gave birth to, or adopted, at least 10 children.
The Order of Parental Glory has more modest ambitions: parents need only four children to apply, but they must also satisfy a host of other requirements to show that they are bringing their offspring up in a healthy atmosphere.
Eight families, representing different parts of Russia, were chosen through local competitions to receive the award, which also comes with a 50,000-rouble stipend (£1,000).
Some, like the Maximov family from the eastern region of Yakutia, came in traditional Siberian dress. Others wore military uniforms and priestly garb.
Nikolai Levyokin, 37, was chosen to represent the Moscow region. He and his wife, Ksenia, have six children, aged one to 13. He said the ceremony left him—and his children—nervous but proud. “We’re doing this not only to lift Russia’s demographics, but to lift the status of Russia itself,” he told The Sunday Telegraph.
Mr Levyokin said his children were at first sad to learn that the prime minister, Vladimir Putin, who left the presidency in May, would not be the one presenting the award. “Then they saw Medvedev’s smiling face and realised he’s a good president too,” he said.
Mr Medvedev said the state’s campaign—which included naming 2007 “The Year of the Child” and 2008 “The Year of the Family”—was yielding results. Birth rates grew by over 8 per cent in 2007 and 6 per cent last year, he said, though most analysts in Russia attribute this to the country’s improved economic situation.
They also warn that birthrates can be expected to dip as the country enters its worst economic crisis in a decade.
Boosting birthrates is Mr Medvedev’s pet cause and has prompted scorn from some quarters. A radical art group called Voina took the president to task last year, staging a mock orgy in the room holding stuffed bears at Moscow’s Natural History Museum—a play on the president’s surname, which derives from the Russian word for “bear”.
Participants in the Kremlin ceremony, due to be a yearly event, took it rather more seriously. “We are contributing to the growth of a great Russia,” Mr Levyokin said.
Original article
(Posted on January 20, 2009)
Comments
We have a form of that program in the US, where single mothers are given more TANF money (welfare) for each child they have. Some of these mothers are really patriotic, and have 7, 8, and 9 children.
Every time I read something about Russia, something NOT written by the America MSM, it seems like a better and better place. I mean really, these people seem to have their heads on straight. Granted they are not perfect, but who is? Imagine the response if they started offering land or such to white people around the globe if they agreed to relocate there.
This is a good thing for Russia, and something that the governments of most predominantly-Caucasian nations should pursue also. Having babies must be brought back into vogue if the White race is to survive and hold its own in the demographic race with the darker races.
In Russia’s particular case, Mr. Medvedev also needs to work on the excessive consumption of vodka and cigarettes which has caused the male life expectancy to drop to about 59 years — a Third World level. The rising number (I hope) of babies born will need fathers to help raise them.
I feel both hope and envy at the same time: Hope, because efforts are being made to reverse the diminutive white birth-rates; and envy, because the same thing - awards for white mothers who bore a large amount of white children to reverse the declining white birth-rates - would be too politically incorrect in America (but I’m still appreciative).
I like the Russian people and the Russian culture a lot. Leo Tolstoy and Feodor Dostoyevsky are some of my favorite authors. It’s very good to see a great white nation acting to preserve its demographics. Alas, if only America had the same prudence - the prudence to preserve its demographics instead of being ethnically cleansed through third-world non-white illegal and legal immigration - we wouldn’t be in our unfortunate situation.
Why can’t we Americans, a great people of a great nation, be allowed to preserve our race, too?
I have the sneaking suspicion that most of these “prolific parents” will actually be Georgian, Azerbaijani, Chinese, Siberian etc and not actual “Russians”.
Every white nation should do the same thing.
Pro-natalist policies are no substitute for a pro natalist culture. American “culture” is dependent on our extraordinary accumulated wealth, which has allowed people to remain children for life, obsessed with toys. Rearing children is time consuming and expensive. They don’t bring any money in and so you have to share yours with them.
At least one White nation wants to remain so. Amazingly, Russia may end up as the last bastion of the White race. And they know how to erect a wall.
Well, I’m just wondering if this is one of the unintended consequences of rabid multicult jeering. I mean, the only reason I can see they keep pointing out white demographics while ignoring all other races is because they just love to gloat about it all.
In Russia at least it’s had the opposite effect, because their slight rise in birth rates looks promising indeed. Without all the gleeful doom and gloom figures the diversity bunch loves to hit us over the head with, Russia probably would still be declining.
If a good number of white couples of child bearing age had at least three kids here in this country for years to come, whites would easily pull their percentage up substantially.
Hey it’s a step in the right direction. Now all they have to do is expel the non whites in their midst.
The multicults have always been whining that the population of whites is too low in places like Russia, Europe, North America etc. Weren’t these the same people who advocated the use of birth control to stop overpopulation? Now they want more non white immigrants to “pick up the slack.” Hogwash! Eighty million is still a lot of people, and even if the doomsday prophecy comes true due to whites being childless, then I’d rather fade away than be conquered and absorbed.
Don’t give up hope white man. We have suffered conquest and enslavement before and survived, only to return more powerful than ever. We can do it again.
“a demographic collapse which the United Nations predicts could reduce the population from 146 million today to just 80 million by 2050”
What they always fail to account for is the population loss that is due to Russian bride syndrome. I wonder how many immigrated to England, where this story comes from?
Considering the level of instinctive, blood and soil patriotism that is widespread in Russia, I am pleasantly unsurprised. The 27 million dead of the Great Patriotic War are omnipresent, just below the surface, and letting the Russian nation die out demographically would be considered a betrayal of their legacy. The diseased, PC-infected White Americans who are happy that they will soon be a minority in their own land find no counterpart in Mother Russia.
I cheer for Russia. A few years back, I immensely disliked Russia. But all that’s changed. To me, Russia presents a glimmer of hope that people that look like me will still play a key role in the world’s affairs a 100 years from now. Russia still seems foreign and so far away to me but they seem to have a future whereas the future of the US just 10 years from now will be incredibly foreign to me too. I feel as if I don’t have a country anymore. I do however look forward to seeing Mr. Putin and the new US President meet. The way I see it, the new US president wants to marginalize or take advantage of people like me whereas Mr. Putin wants to grow more people that look like me.
To Schoolteacher:
I couldn’t have put it any better than you did.
As for Mr. Medvedev, he should consider outlawing, or at least curtailing, abortion. One of the reasons Russia ended up in this mess is that under communism Russian women averaged six abortions during their lifetimes.
People I lived in Russia, they DO NOT like Americans, since unlike Westerners they are taught to love ONLY their own kind and tolerate indigenous people like the guy from Siiberia mentioned above. However I need to state Russia is NOT the savior of the white/Christian due to alcoholism, more abortions than births and 15% Muslim population AND GROWING, China is next door so they are to Russia what Mexico is to us, large impoverished race consious people. Russia is declining unfortunately.
I hope they’re backing this up with some actually useful policies, like tax breaks, health care, etc, and not just medals.
Why can’t we Americans, a great people of a great nation, be allowed to preserve our race, too?
Posted by James H. at 7:59 PM on January 20
No one is stopping you or other whites from having three kids. The reason why there is such a low birth rate is because who wants to have a kid under a economic recession. Also the standard of living in Russia is poor that’s what has stopped them from having kids. Their government can brutal at times, they enact crazy laws that only hurt their people.
I have the sneaking suspicion that most of these “prolific parents” will actually be Georgian, Azerbaijani, Chinese, Siberian etc and not actual “Russians”.
(At least, unless they take great care to make sure who is who.)
Well, I disagree to some extent - with all the put downs on Russia. There are all types, no doubt, but there always are. Look at all the drug use here. Russia has some strategic problems, but so do we. They are certainly much more comfortable with decisive action in their own defense than we are - that is worth something.
The most beautiful woman I ever had as a patient was a Russian woman - blue eyed blonde, tall and with the most exotically beautiful White face I had ever seen and a perfect figure. She told me that all she heard here was how bad things were in Russia. So she called back to friends in Moscow. They said that things were just fine. I have had many Russians as patients over the years and many of the young women were virgins and quite conservative socially. Many of the Russians I have known have big families. If you meet them half way, they are warm people.
Russian women have long been treated poorly by Russian men. But that was a part of the dehumanizing nature of communism. During the last years of communism, a law was passed that made it easy for a wife to divorce a bad husband. So many of them dumped louts. Regardless, Russia has been around for a long time and the people are resiliant. And they also have an identity as a people whereas being an American doesn’t really mean anything as far as ethnicity or race.
“I’d rather be a poor man among men that a rich boy.”
Posted by Schoolteacher at 8:20 PM on January 20
> Another great post! Take a bow, Schoolteacher!
As an aside - The American economy will certainly collapse if all these grown up adolescents also stopped playing computer games! Imagine how much of the global economy is now based on computer games and movies about computer games!
“People I lived in Russia, they DO NOT like Americans, since unlike Westerners they are taught to love ONLY their own kind and tolerate indigenous people like the guy from Siiberia mentioned above. However I need to state Russia is NOT the savior of the white/Christian due to alcoholism, more abortions than births and 15% Muslim population AND GROWING, China is next door so they are to Russia what Mexico is to us, large impoverished race consious people. Russia is declining unfortunately.”
Posted by Anonymous at 5:46 PM on January 21
Anyone besides me notice that Anonymous lives in multiple cities, has been everywhere, done everything, and knows EVERYTHING? This has to be more than one person.
“People I lived in Russia, they DO NOT like Americans, …”
Well, since my mother was Russian I have an in. Maybe some of you single posters who can’t find a decent American woman should look for a Russian one? They can be really great wives, very loyal and strong and often beautiful. They tend to be very intelligent too. I lived in a Slavic country myself and and speak somewhat for the general culture.
One factor of population that no one seems to discuss these days is that we cannot have the world’s population doubling every 30 years. Can anyone here imagine a world in 30 years that has nearly 10 billion people, 20 billion in the next 30 years after that?
What needs to happen is to begin to demand that population control be exercised with all the means conservatives usually rail against, the pill, abortion and sterilization. If we cannot control the third world population, it doesn’t matter if half of you have 6 children, it still won’t be enough to “counter” the onslaught of millions and millions who already are shoving their way into our home nations.
Personally, I’d like to see all the money spent on aid to Africa to be spent on birth control for Africans - and other wildly expanding population groups. Then, the White race has a chance without breaking itself financially trying to compete in a numbers game we can’t possible win.
A tall order, does anyone think it is likely. No? Well, I predict (as many well known scientists have) that nature will act soon to lower the population drastically. Earth is a closed cultre and closed cultures have a number of constants that dictate how long they can grow. We are statistically at the point where the population will drop suddenly because of a scarcity of resources and abundance of waste products.
In fact, if BHO is as smart as he is supposed to be he knows this and will act in Africa like no one ever has before him. That would be Change I coud support!
“Russian women have long been treated poorly by Russian men”.
I’ve met Russian women who believed this too. More than one spoke in class about it when I was in college. They believed it. Told stories about it. ‘Casting Couch’ type stories.
Personally, I don’t believe it.
They are served by a media over there too. Their media has an agenda too.
