Financial Times FT.com

New Russian holiday harks back to time of troubles

By Arkady Ostrovsky

Published: November 4 2005 02:00 | Last updated: November 4 2005 02:00

For the first time in almost 90 years Russia will not celebrate on November 7 the anniversary of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, later renamed by Boris Yeltsin "Day of Agreement and Reconciliation".

The country today will celebrate a new holiday, the Day of National Unity, which commemorates one of the most mythologised episodes in Russian history: the liberation of Moscow from Polish occupiers in 1612.

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