Never underestimate what you will find on the Internet.

I started out this morning to write a little primer on Independence Day, the holiday that Russia celebrates today, June 12. It's Russia's newest holiday, and so doesn't have quite the weight of Victory Day (May 9), which commemorates Russia's defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, or even those Soviet holdovers like International Women's Day (March 8) or Defender of the Fatherland Day (February 23).

So there I was, happily gathering material on Russia's official holidays and how they are celebrated, when I landed on this: A line of Web greeting cards you could e-mail to friends for the Independence Day holiday. Some even have use the magic of Flash programming to show fireworks exploding and flags waving. And the page has been set up with Google ad words, which I guess is how the developers support themselves.

Somebody has way too much time on their hands.

But as I said, that wasn't what I set out to do this morning. So here's the lowdown on Independence Day. It marks the day in 1990 when the Russian parliament finally put the Soviet Union behind it. It was kind of a sleepy holiday until 2003, when President Vladimir Putin pulled out all the stops and threw a big parade complete with a warplane flyover and interpretive dances on Red Square. Its official name now is Russia Day, but a poll two years ago found that three times as many Russians celebrate November 7, the anniversary of the October Revolution, as celebrate Russia Day.

It didn't seem to get the big treatment this year. Kommersant reported that there was to be a foot race around the Kremlin and than 5,000 police had been called out to maintain order (the photo accompanying the piece showed police ingloriously patting down parade goers).

Please don’t interpret all this to mean that I don't find Russia Day important. Remember that, had Russia not declared its independence from the old Soviet Union, there would be no adoptions. And even though we are all waiting for adoptions from Russia to return to an even keel, that fact alone should be cause for celebration.