May 9 — Vic­tory Day all over East­ern Euro­pean coun­tries, a national hol­i­day which remem­bers the Vic­tory over Nazi Ger­many in World War II and hon­ors 20 mil­lion Sovi­ets who died in the war.

Vic­tory Day marks the capit­u­la­tion of Nazi forces to the Allies (the Soviet Union, the United King­dom, the United States and other prin­ci­pal Allied nations) in Berlin on May 8, 1945. It is cel­e­brated in the suc­ces­sor states to the Soviet Union on May 9, because when the Ger­man Instru­ment of Sur­ren­der was signed (in the mid­night), it was already May 9 in the USSR and East­ern Europe. The US, UK and most west­ern Euro­pean coun­tries mark Vic­tory in Europe Day on May 8.

The main rea­son for the cel­e­bra­tion of Vic­tory Day was to remem­ber the peo­ple who died in the war. On that day, flow­ers are laid on their graves and vet­er­ans that are still alive go out on the streets wear­ing their medals and orders. There are few of them left now days and the num­ber is get­ting smaller every year. Rus­sia mainly fought a war to defend itself, which is called a “Great Patri­otic War”. That is what most Rus­sians call WWII. In Rus­sia almost all the fam­i­lies have at least one per­son who took part in the war. The other old cit­i­zens who did not fight dur­ing the war had to work in fac­to­ries to make guns and prepa­ra­tions, which wasn’t eas­ier than fight­ing. They too are hon­ored on Vic­tory Day.

I’ve lost my Great Grand Father to the bat­tle of Stal­in­grad. Although he was kom­div or divi­sional com­man­der (cor­re­sponds to present day lieutenant-general), he was reported MIA. On this day, I take time to remem­ber him and be thank­ful for every­thing that I have. Because I live in a bet­ter age and place.

9th May, 2008