For 11 years, from 1929 to 1940, the Soviet Union did not have weekends. Instead, to increase productivity citizens were allocated a day off in every seven at random. With 80% of the population at work on any given day, factories never had to power down.
A letter from a disgruntled worker to Pravda newspaper, published soon after the implementation of this new working calendar, outlined the problems: “What is there for us to do at home if our wives are in the factory, our children at school, and nobody can visit us?” the letter-writer asked. With no shared day off, extended family gatherings became impossible. The workforce became demoralised and listless, the projected spike in productivity never materialised, and the policy was first modified, then abandoned altogether.
Is that not absolutely wild? A world without weekends feels impossible. A world without Saturday Night Fever, without Manic Monday.
We may no longer go to church on Sunday, but we still worship the weekend. From Cilla Black to Gary Lineker, the main characters of our weekends become giants of the culture. We romanticise the weekend, even the prosaic bits – the distant roar of a lawnmower, the rattle of classified football results on the radio.
Everyone knows what a weekend means. The snap of a laptop cover at 4.58pm on a Friday. The clink of the first pint glass and the smell of chips on the way home.
The slow-motion pace of a weekend pavement, the gear change from hustle to meander. The rituals have changed with the times, of course, and people-watching at brunch on Saturday is now as much of a tradition as cooking a roast at home on Sunday. A weekend changes shape as you move through life stages, but in each iteration it remains a shared experience between you and your peers.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
