The infamous businessman German Sterligov proposed to return to Russia the medieval tradition of St. George's Day, a period once a year when peasants could move from one landowner to another. "Now people, and mostly young people, are jumping around like fleas at work. They came and quit. This is an outrage. Once a year, a person could quit so that it would make at least some sense to spend time and effort on him, to teach him something, to explain something so that he would learn and work normally," said the entrepreneur. On the pages of the Argumenty I Fakty newspaper, Vera Makedonskaya, Professor of the Department of History at the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI, Doctor of Historical Sciences, appreciated the businessman's initiative.

Below is a commentary by Vera of Macedon. Is it possible to take such an initiative (to return serfdom to the relationship between employee and employer) seriously? And will there be any benefit from its implementation?

"The initiative to return serfdom with dismissal only on St. George's Day is historically untenable," – says Vera Makedonskaya, Professor of the Department of History at the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI, Doctor of Historical Sciences.

In her opinion, serfdom, introduced in the Judicial Code of 1497, did not increase productivity: peasants lost motivation, the economy stagnated, which is confirmed by the data of the reforms of 1861.

"Assigning zoomers to an employer will worsen working conditions, provoke shadow employment and an outflow of talent,— Professor Makedonskaya is convinced. — History teaches us that forced labor reduces efficiency, and a modern economy requires flexibility, not archaism".