Victory Day

May 8 in America is the traditional day for celebrating the end of WWII.  However, at the time the war ended in 1945, it was already May 9 in Russia, so May 9 is Victory Day.  Russians love to celebrate holidays with gusto, and this time we were glad to celebrate with them.  Who wouldn’t want to celebrate the end of The Great War!

I’m very glad that we were able to enjoy this day.  Our friend Luda joined us for the whole day, which helped us to even better understand the importance of this national holiday.  Here are some of the pictures from our day to help you appreciate the celebration as well.

In the morning there was a parade to honor the current military.  It was really something with troops marching and then weapons being brought out.  A canon was fired before the parade started, and we could feel our insides shaking!  It was quite impressive.

Here people are standing on the outer corner of a building to view the parade.

But Isaiah had the best spot!

Here is the current Russian flag following a flag to honor Lenin.  Lenin is still very popular here!

These rocket launchers brought great cheers from the crowd.

This memorial honors the citizens and soldiers who endured, fought or died during the blockade by the Germans.  There was also a museum with a mosaic to honor the Russian people and artifacts from the time.

This veteran was in The Great War from the first moment the last.

In the evening there was The March of the Veterans.  Soldiers who had fought in the war led the parade.  Behind them were citizens who had survived the war and sports veterans (not really sure what that meant, but that’s what they were called), and finally some representatives of the Communist Party, which was interesting.  While the veterans were marching the crowd was cheering quite fanatically, but when the Communist Party marched, they grew strangely quiet.  There were some veterans marching with the party, and the crowd made the clear distinction to cheer for the veterans, but not for the communists.

The man on the left was a foot soldier, and the man on the right was a paratrooper, according to their flags.

These were civilian survivors of the blockade.  Many of them were most likely rather young children during The Great War.

And here are the Communists.  We were rather baffled at the fact that they had a flag with Jesus on it, since usually Communists are atheists, but there it is nonetheless.  Here is when the crowd grew quiet, except to specifically cheer for veterans who were marching.

Sadly, many of the older people still believe that Stalin was the reason for the eventual victory over the Germans.  This woman was carrying a picture of Stalin with the text, “I.V. Stalin, Creator of the Great Victory”.  In reality, Stalin was probably the reason that the blockade was able to last as long as it did as he did not prepare well at all to defend Leningrad.

And of course, I had to add a cute picture of Little Man enjoying the day!