In Russia, calendar week starts в понедельник (on Monday). So вторник (Tuesday) is the second day of the week. Can you guess what day of the week is субботник?

Ok, so that was a trick question. Субботник is not a day of the week, but a concept. Суббота (Saturday) is the sixth day of the Russian week. Weekends begin on Saturday. Ok, some might argue that weekends start в пятницу вечером (on Friday night). Then again, others might say that понедельник начинается в субботу (Monday starts on Saturday). BTW, if you feel very motivated, do look up the origin of this last phrase.

Anyway, ever since 1919, a few Saturdays each year, Russians spend voluntarily (or semi-voluntarily) participating in various quality of life improvement projects. Such all-volunteer unpaid centrally organized labor-intensive community-service projects are known as субботники.

Way back, субботники frequently meant just another day at work doing whatever it was you did the other five days, only without pay. Later, the focus shifted to community projects, such as neighborhood clean-ups, planting trees in public parks, or putting together playgrounds. Субботники were no longer restricted to Saturdays, but could be held on Sundays in which case they were known as воскресники.

I don’t remember субботники to ever originate with the students or workers themselves. They were always something directed by the powers that were. Sure, we volunteered to take part in them, but only because we were volunteered. Not participating in the mandatory fun of a субботник meant getting on your boss’ or teacher’s s**t list.

So when the tradition of субботники pretty much died off in the mid-90s, nobody seemed to be upset over it. But lately, субботники are making somewhat of a comeback. There seems to be no shortage of them held by schools, districts or even entire towns.

В нашей школе очень любят проводить субботники – Our school likes holding subbotniks.

На общегородской субботник вышло десять тысяч человек – Ten thousand people showed up for the city-wide subbotnik.

Студенты решили отдохнуть от учёбы на субботнике – Students decided to take a break from studying by participating in a subbotnik.

Чиновники приняли участие в традиционном субботнике – Bureaucrats participated in the traditional subbotnik.

If you want to watch a present-day субботник in action, this is a good video from Russia Beyond Headlines starting at about 2 min mark.

And since Saturday is the official beginning of выходной (weekend), let’s talk about the verbs отдыхать (imperfective to rest) and отдохнуть (perfective to rest).

The root of these verbs is -дых-, same as in дыхание (breathing). Which makes them easy to remember since we frequently require отдых (rest) in order to catch our breath from demands of work. So this weekend, дышите глубже (take deep breaths) – вдох (inhale), выдох (exhale) while you’re relaxing.

If you don’t have the luxury of an entire weekend to rest and relax, take at least a short break in order to передохнуть (to take a short break). Pay particular attention to the proper stress in this word since передохнуть (to die out, usually about animals) is definitely not what you want to do even if you are so busy with work/life imbalance that вздохнуть некогда (no time to take a breath). Remember, as they say, от работы дохнуть кони (horses die from work). It’s just not good to work без продыха (nonstop).

Enjoy your upcoming выходные (days off)!

UPDATE:

There was a lively debate about why среда is called this even though it is not in the middle of the week. I might had muddied the waters somewhat with the mention of a calendar change. Here’s a better answer:

Originally the week did start on воскресенье (Sunday) or, as it was called way-way back – неделя (lit: the day of doing nothing; the day of rest). Please note that even before the Revolution of 1917 the word неделя ceased to be applied to Sunday. Instead, Sunday became воскресенье and the word неделя moved on to describe the entire week and, in turn, replaced the old седьмица (seven days). Sounds confusing? Just remember that the original word неделя meant the first day of the week. The first day after неделя and the second day of the week was called понедельник (Monday) since it came сразу после недели (right after Sunday). Вторник (Tuesday) got its name since it was второй день (second day) after неделя, even though it was the third day of the week. So naturally, среда (Wednesday), the third day after Sunday would be the fourth day of the week  and also its middle. Четверг (Thursday), even though it was the fifth day of the week got its name because it was четвертый день (fourth day) after Sunday. You can probably guess why пятница (Friday) got its name. And суббота (Saturday) is a bit of a misnomer in this system coming from the Hebrew “shabbat” even though it was not observed as a day of rest in Russia until the introduction of the 5-day workweek.