This has nothing to do with India...

But!  I was procrastinating writing my grad essays, and stumbled upon this on Wikipedia.  A friend and I were discussing birthdays and Wikipedia-ing dates (it's fun), and I stumbled upon this for Tatiana's Day!

(All of the following information is from Wikipedia)

[I had no idea that Tatiana's Day was actually directly connected to Students' Day!  I thought the two just coincided.  So awesome!]

Tatiana Day (Russian: Татьянин день, Tatyanin den' ) is a Russian religious holiday observed on January 25 according to the Gregorian calendar, January 12 according to the Julian. It is named after Saint Tatiana, a Christian martyr in 3rd century Rome during the reign of Emperor Alexander Severus.
In 1755 on the name day of Ivan Shuvalov's mother Tatiana Rodionovna, his mistress Empress Elizabeth of Russia endorsed his petition to establish a university in Moscow. The church of Saint Tatiana was later built in the university campus, the Russian Orthodox Church declared Saint Tatiana the patron saint of students, and Tatiana Day has become celebrated as Russian Students Day.

[And then I decided to learn about my saint.]

Saint Tatiana was a Christian martyr in 3rd century Rome during the reign of Emperor Alexander Severus. She was a deaconess of the early church.
According to legend, she was the daughter of a Roman civil servant who was secretly Christian, and raised his daughter in the faith, and she became a deaconess in the church. This was dangerous, and one day the jurist Ulpian captured Tatiana and attempted to force her to make a sacrifice to Apollo. She prayed, and miraculously, an earthquake destroyed the Apollo statue and part of the temple.

Tatiana was then blinded, and beaten for two days, before being brought to a circus and thrown into the pit with a hungry lion. But the lion did not touch her and lay at her feet. This resulted in a death sentence being pronounced, and after being tortured, Tatiana was beheaded with a sword on January 12 (Julian calendar) (January 25 in the Gregorian calendar), around AD 225 or 230.


[That is quite a story!!  Thanks, dad, for my name.  :)  I do find it interesting that Tatiana is the patron saint of students.  Maybe this whole education reform track was meant to be, if you're into that fate-ist stuff...]