President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday handed out the first "Hero of Labour" awards to Russians since reviving the Soviet-era tradition this year, with recipients ranging from top conductor Valery Gergiev to a Siberian coalminer.
The honorary Hero of Labour award and medal, recreated by the Kremlin in March for the first time since the end of the Soviet Union, was bestowed on a group of five people for the first time as Russia marked the May 1 holiday with organised parades of labour unions and pro-Kremlin politicians. In a televised speech in Saint Petersburg's Konstantinov palace, Putin praised the five medallists who have "brought glory to the motherland with their labour."
"The Hero of Labour medal is yet another step to restoring the continuity of traditions, and strong connections between different eras and generations," he said. "We can only go forward based on our cultural and spiritual heritage," he said, striking a highly patriotic tone.
"Creating a strong, successful Russia can only be possible with hard work," he said, calling on Russians to "bear in their heart the pride of their people, who created a great country." Russian channels prominently aired biographies of the five recipients of the golden star-shaped medal, which looks like a copy of the Hero of Socialist Labour award given out to Soviet workers between 1939 and 1991.
Putin also continued the Soviet tradition of awarding the top honour both to internationally known cultural figures like ballet dancer Galina Ulanova and obscure cotton pickers and railroad workers from the vast stretches of the Soviet Union. Mariinsky Theatre director Gergiev - renowned in the music industry as a workaholic - received the medal along with an especially productive coal miner from the Kemerovo region of southern Siberia.
Thanking Putin for supporting the Mariinsky, which is on Thursday to inaugurate a new opera house in a grand event, Gergiev said the theatre will now "work hard to pay back this support." The award ceremony went on as tens of thousands of people marched in several Russian cities for the May 1 holiday with all the main channels showing the parades hosted by the ruling United Russia party, the Communist Party and various labour unions.
"May 1 sent 1.5 million people to the streets," across Russia, the Vesti news channel claimed in its report, which showed people with flags walking to the sounds of marching bands and blaring declamations like "Glory to the athletes!" A demonstration in St. Petersburg unusually included about 200 gay activists who marched along the Nevsky prospect yelling slogans like "Homophobia is the shame of St. Petersburg!" in reference to a recently introduced law forbidding "gay propaganda". Some opposition groups also made a showing at the rallies, carrying signs like "Freedom to (Alexei) Navalny!", referring to the protest leader currently on trial on controversial embezzlement charges.
May 1 parades were a regular occurrence during the Soviet era, with the long holiday marking the start of spring and gardening season. Last year, Putin joined the crowds in Moscow in a highly publicised event held a week before his presidential inauguration but did not repeat the move this year.
Putin has occasionally tapped populist Soviet themes to boost his standing among older voters who look back with nostalgia on Russia's Communist days. He quickly restored the tune of the booming Soviet anthem on his rise to the presidency in 2000 and has since highlighted the positive economic achievements under Stalin.
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