What is why?

A joke:

An American, a Pole, and a Soviet are asked, "Why are there queues for meat in the USSR?"
The American responds, "What is a queue?"
The Pole responds, "What is meat?"
And The Soviet responds, "What is why?"


Today, ladies and gentlemen, was a wonderful day: I stood in a line; not just any ol' line, mind you, but a line for food, a line outside in the freezing cold, a line for fresh produce on a Moscow street corner.
(I don't normally have to stand in cold lines for food, but the grocery store didn't have cabbage and the random lady selling produce on the corner did, which is why there was a line, obviously.)



Today was also a holiday, День народного единства, or Unity Day.
I've heard a few curious things about this holiday, some of which may or may not be true (who knows, really):
1) It's a new holiday and was first celebrated in 2005
2) It's just a little made up day which is actually celebrating the 1917 October Revolution (Russia used to have the old system calendar, so the October revolution was on 7 November by today's calendar)
3) November 4th is the day the Russians pushed the Polish out of Moscow way back in 1612
4) The pushing of the Polish from Moscow never actually happened
5) The holiday is just an excuse for all the nationalist groups to gather and have parades which demonstrate their hatred for minorities


Quite the day, eh?