The Bench of Reconciliation was inaugurated on Tuesday - the Day of Family, Love And Fidelity, a holiday that is the government's latest attempt to help halt a decline in Russia's population.

Urging couples to sit on the bench and work out their differences was Ms Alyona Safina, a 21-year-old who works for the youth branch of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's United Russia party.

She scuttled around the park, encouraging more couples to use the bench as she hung ribbons of white, blue and red, the colours of the Russian flag, around the rim of a nearby fountain.

This event was the first of many which took place across Russia that day, as part of the government's drive to get its people to have more babies and provide their children with a stable family life.

Russia's population plummeted after the fall of the Soviet Union and, until recently, was shrinking at a rate of about 750,000 people a year.

Because of falling birth rates and rising death rates, the number of Russians has dropped from about 148 million to 141.4 million during the 1989 to 2008 period.

Villages emptied, the pool of military recruits shrank and a labour shortage now looms.

Last year, then-president Putin declared 2008 the Year of the Family. On Sept 12, a holiday called Family Contact Day encouraged Russians to stay home and engage in marital intimacy in the hopes of producing children on Russia Day, nine months later, on June 12.

This new holiday extends Russia's promotion of procreation, urging couples to not only have children but also provide these children with two-parent, stable family lives. It is a sign that the new President, Mr Dmitri Med-

vedev, will continue the move under Mr Putin to be more active in promoting morality and optimism about Russia's future.

The new holiday coincides with the Russian Orthodox Saints' Day of Fevronia and Pytor. Fevronia saved Pytor from disease in exchange for the promise of marriage, and they stayed together until they both died on the same day. Under the Orthodox church, they are viewed as the prime example of a happy marriage.

But unlike the saints' joyful marriage, today's Russian marriages are plagued by high divorce rates which, along with the country's high male mortality, have led to many single mothers.

In Vlakhernskoye-Kyzminiki park in southern Moscow, Ms Safina said that growing up without fathers at home harmed children. A girl may choose a husband like her irresponsible or absent father, and a boy without a father has no role model. 'He will not know what it means to be a man,' she said.

In honour of the holiday, long-married couples with children received medals. Floral displays for the holiday bore titles like 'I'm With Mum'. Hanging from the wings of the new bench is a padlock, following a Russian tradition in which newly married couples snap locks on bridges.

As part of the Year of the Family, Russia has started a campaign to encourage marriage and child-bearing. Signs line the escalators of Moscow's metro system, tying families to patriotism. On one billboard, a woman holds three identical babies under the slogan 'The State Needs Your Records'. The state has offered financial incentives to women who have more than one child.

While some officials contend that such efforts have slowed the declining birth rate, statistics suggest that things are still not looking up. The population is expected to shrink by nearly half a percentage point this year, a loss of about 667,000 people.

Ms Safina said the holiday was also intended to encourage people to have children sooner. Waiting until after age 30 to give birth can damage the health of the child, she said.

NEW YORK TIMES