Blog - Vacation and holidays
Russia has an at first sight somewhat peculiar, but at second sight rather nice system of holidays and vacations.
Like any country it has its share of public holidays, with particularly New Year's standing out. January 1st through 10th a lot of people drink till they drop, and a lot of stores are simply closed.
Whenever a public holiday falls in the weekend, it is moved to the next Monday. That way you don't lose any public holidays, like Christmas and New Year's, which are both in the weekend this year. (Christmas here is celebrated later, and is thus part of the New Year's holidays.)
When a single public holiday falls on a Tuesday or Thursday, the Monday before or the Friday after is included, so you can enjoy a long weekend. Last week this was the case with Unity Day, which fell on a Thursday. In order to make up for this lost Friday, the week after includes Saturday as a working day. And that day was yesterday. It felt weird to wake up on Saturday morning to go to work, and it feels even weirder now on Sunday morning that it's already Sunday…
One could of course take a day off, but in general you're not supposed to take any days off the first half year on the job. After that, it gets better though. There are 28 calendar vacation days, which come down to four weeks of paid vacation a year. However, instead of taking Monday through Sunday off, you can opt for Monday through Friday, which leaves you with a bit less salary, but with more days off.
So if you can take a slight hit in income, you can have between 40 and 42 (depending on when the New Year's holidays start) days off a year, or about 8 weeks if you plan them well. Not bad, not bad at all :)
Like any country it has its share of public holidays, with particularly New Year's standing out. January 1st through 10th a lot of people drink till they drop, and a lot of stores are simply closed.
Whenever a public holiday falls in the weekend, it is moved to the next Monday. That way you don't lose any public holidays, like Christmas and New Year's, which are both in the weekend this year. (Christmas here is celebrated later, and is thus part of the New Year's holidays.)
When a single public holiday falls on a Tuesday or Thursday, the Monday before or the Friday after is included, so you can enjoy a long weekend. Last week this was the case with Unity Day, which fell on a Thursday. In order to make up for this lost Friday, the week after includes Saturday as a working day. And that day was yesterday. It felt weird to wake up on Saturday morning to go to work, and it feels even weirder now on Sunday morning that it's already Sunday…
One could of course take a day off, but in general you're not supposed to take any days off the first half year on the job. After that, it gets better though. There are 28 calendar vacation days, which come down to four weeks of paid vacation a year. However, instead of taking Monday through Sunday off, you can opt for Monday through Friday, which leaves you with a bit less salary, but with more days off.
So if you can take a slight hit in income, you can have between 40 and 42 (depending on when the New Year's holidays start) days off a year, or about 8 weeks if you plan them well. Not bad, not bad at all :)