9 May Victory Day 2021, and in Kaliningrad, as in the rest of Russia, young and old turned out in thousands to pay their respect to their forebears ~ those who survived and those who died in the awesome and bloody struggle to deliver their country from Nazi tyranny and to honour the inestimable contribution made by the Soviet Union to the defeat of Hitler’s Third Reich.
Last year Victory Day was a rather muted affair owing to coronavirus, but this year Russia’s second most important holiday after Easter was firmly back on track, led by the traditional Victory Day parade in Moscow and marked elsewhere throughout the country with celebrations and remembrance services.
9th May Kaliningrad Victory Day 2021
At 12pm, Olga and I rendezvoused with our friends, Arthur and Inara, at the Home for Veterans on Komsomolskaya Street, Kaliningrad, a large complex of buildings which, as the name suggests, provides homes to veterans who no longer have kinfolk to support them.
Although the service is a private affair, held behind closed gates, it was still possible to see something of the formal ceremony and the cadets of various denominations who took part in acknowledging the debt that is owed to one of the most remarkable generations in modern history.
Cadets at the Home for Veterans
Cadets in Kaliningrad hold placards portraying family who fought in WWII
From the Home for Veterans, we walked the short distance to the Мass Grave of Soviet Soldiers and placed red roses on the eternal-flame-lit monument, before driving to the city’s foremost WWII remembrance site, the Monument to 1200 Guardsmen, an impressive obelisk and statue-flanked shrine to the soldiers of the 11th Army who died in the assault on Königsberg.
Mass Grave of Soviet Soldiers
Mick & Olga Hart placing flowers at the Mass Grave of Soviet Soldiers, 9 May 2021
Russians do not seem to have the same problem that Brits and Yanks have when it comes to remembering their allies!
Victory Park, an elaborate, grassed, landscaped area criss-crossed with winding pathways and studded with series of steps, lies at the foot of the Monument to 1200 Guardsmen. Today, it was a sea of people, many of which were family groups, proudly carrying the national flag, and also in many cases the flag of the USSR, along with placard-mounted portraits of their relatives who had taken part in the battle of Königsberg or the wider conflict.
As well as photographs, flags and flowers, numerous participants wore medals and many more were wearing the black and orange striped Georgian ribbon, one of Russia’s most powerful symbols of national pride and patriotism. Some children were dressed in the type of military uniform that their grandparents would have worn during WWII, or, as the Russian’s refer to it, the Great Patriotic War, and both children and adults alike had in some instances donned the Soviet army side-cap, the olive-green pilotka, with its red or green-painted Soviet star badge.
Olga Hart & Inara place roses at a monument in Victory Park, Kaliningrad (9 May 2021)
Sadly, but inevitably, with each passing year the veteran population diminishes, but today we were fortunate to meet a 91-year-old lady veteran, who had braved the crowds and temperamental weather to attend the annual ceremony.
During the Second World War, she had contributed to the war effort by providing vital work in the Soviet munition factories. Today, she wore her medals with pride.
Her husband had been amongst those Soviet regiments that had fought their way across the East Prussian region, a punishing military campaign that had culminated in a ferocious artillery assault on Königsberg followed by gruelling street-by-street close-quarter combat in and out of the web of ruins.
One of the lady’s granddaughters, who spoke perfect English, told me that in recognition of her grandfather’s bravery during the Königsberg campaign, not only had he been highly decorated but also a street had been named after him in one of the region’s outlying towns.
It was an honour and privilege to have met and talked with this veteran and her family today and to have had the opportunity to witness such a profound and open expression of respect and patriotism here in Kaliningrad extending across the entire generational spectrum.
Monument to 1200 Guardsmen, Kaliningrad, Victory Day 2021
Thoughts on 9th May Victory Day Celebrations 2002/2020
Published: 9 May 2020
9 May is an important day in the Russian calendar. It is the day when the entire Russian nation pays homage to the sacrifices made by their forbears in World War II, known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War. Each year an impressive military parade is conducted in Red Square, Moscow, and simultaneous events are held throughout the country to commemorate the 27 million Russians ~ military and civilian ~ who died in the Second World War, the highest loss of any country.
Western leaders have been snubbing the parade for years, evidently finding it far easier to rewrite history than acknowledge the inestimable contribution made and loss suffered by Soviet Russia in defeating Nazi Germany.
Whatever underlies the political motivation and projected end game of such revisionism, apart from the obvious, provocative disrespect, it is pointless speculating on as, thanks to coronavirus, the world’s events are cancelled pending further notice.
As many as 15,000 soldiers have been stood down, and so has Mick Hart. I was looking forward to the celebration this year and was contemplating a trip to Moscow, but then along came a little round thing with trumpets stuck all over it and put the mockers on that.
9th May 2002 Kaliningrad
The last time that I attended a 9th May event in Russia, I was in Kaliningrad. This was way back in the mists of time, 2002, but I remember it vividly: bright sunny day, warm, blue sky ~ perfect.
As we walked towards the park, the hub of the celebrations, the first thing that struck me was the sheer volume of people that had turned out. It was relatively early, well, around 10am, and the streets were inundated. The second observation was that the age range extended across the entire generational spectrum, from the very young to wartime veterans. Within that broad swathe of people, teenagers and young adults from 14 years old to late 20s were well represented.
The latter seemed odd to me as this was and still is distinctly not the case in England. Our equivalent of Russia’s 9th May is V.E. Day, 8th May. It is officially acknowledged and in the past few years the tradition of street parties has been resurrected in some places, but both it and Remembrance Day, which is held on 11th November each year, attracts fewer and fewer young people.
I can appreciate, or at least understand, the disinterest for non-heritage youth but the sad fact remains that even legacy-UK youth have very little time, very little interest and even less respect for the sacrifices made by previous generations, let alone those that continue to be made by our serving military.
In more recent years, the very act of remembering the debt we owe to our armed forces has become a victim of a socio-political pincer movement, caught up in the machinations and fripperies of social engineering and political correctness. Pathetic spectacles of the red poppy, the traditional symbol of remembrance and peace, being burnt by dissident immigrants whilst the usual suspects on the left agitate to expunge the tradition, ostensibly on the grounds that it offends the sensibilities of certain foreign groups and sects, but really as part of a broader cultural purge, is grist to the carnival mill of neoliberal politics. But the real disrespect lies not in these sideshows, but in a cultural revisionist programme which invidiously subtexts the UK education system from primary school to university level.
Thankfully, the wind of change is blowing from various directions ~ even from a coronavirus one~ and achieving positive confluence, so perhaps there is hope for us yet?
From angst to Hallelujah in three paragraphs!
9th May Victory Day Kaliningrad
Meanwhile, back in Kaliningrad, Russia, 9 May 2002.
As we were walking Olga introduced me to two WWII veterans. The first was ex-Soviet Navy and the other Merchant Navy, and my presence at the celebration was warmly welcomed by both. Because of my involvement over the years with 1940s’ re-enactment and living history groups and through personal associations made when we ran a vintage and antique warehouse, I have been fortunate in that I have had many opportunities to meet and converse with veterans from various countries and from different services of the armed and auxiliary forces. It is 75 years since the close of the Second World War and each year the number of surviving veterans dwindle. I am grateful that I have had the chance to meet and speak to this remarkable generation before the era in which they lived and the experiences they encountered fade from living memory into history.
On our return from the war monument and park where the celebrations were being held, I would have the chance to meet more veterans, but first we went to place the flowers we had brought with us on the steps of the war monument next to one of Kaliningrad’s eternal flames.
Placing flowers at the 1200 Guardsmen monument, 9th May 2002, Kaliningrad
Photo-shoot opportunity with Russian soldier, 9th May Victory Day celebration, Kaliningrad, 2002
The 1200 Guardsmen monument, which was constructed a few months after Soviet troops wrested what was then Königsberg from the Germans, is arguably one of the most dynamic sculptures and wartime monuments in the city, and a fitting tribute in scale and drama to the fallen soldiers whose remains occupy the mass grave by which it stands and marks. The gas-powered eternal flame burns in front of a tall, carved obelisk. Behind and set back from the obelisk a curved wall bears the names of those who made the ultimate sacrifice in the four days of savage urban warfare which it took to take the city. At either end of the wall, on massy plinths, two figural groups of soldiers storming into battle capture the cost in death and the glory in memory of what in its entirety is a truly awesome ensemble.
Mick & Olga Hart, Wedding Day 2001. Photograph taken at the obelisk of the 1200 Guardsmen monument, Kaliningrad
This was not my first encounter with the monument. We had been here before, on 31st August 2001 to be precise, on the afternoon of our wedding, when, in keeping with Russian wedding tradition, we had placed flowers on the monument steps, as we were doing today.
‘Kasha’ dispensed from a mobile military unit, 9th May 2002, Kaliningrad
From here we descended the steps into the park and walked towards a row of tables at the far end, where, my wife informed me, I would be able to refresh myself with mineral water or tea. There was quite a crowd assembled in front of the tables, and, as we drew nearer, I saw in the background, two or three old Soviet mobile ‘soup kitchens’. Olga revealed that on this occasion they were serving ‘kasha’, hot porridge. My inclination was to avail myself of a glass of water or tea, as I was parched, but lo and behold, as we arrived at our destination I found that not only was there free water and free tea but also free vodka! Well, it was far too early in the day for me to say no, and besides as the friends who we were with had already helped themselves to a glass apiece, it would, to coin a phrase, have been rude not to.
Partaking of vodka at the 9th May Victory Day celebrations in Kaliningrad, 2002
It was whilst we were imbibing that my wife told one of the staff serving behind the tables that I liked the t-shirts that they were wearing. There were about six people serving in total and all had white tea shirts with a printed ink outline image of Mr Putin on the front and on the back the slogan ‘Forward with Putin’. The chap whom Olga was talking to, when he discovered that I was from England and that I liked the shirt, immediately said that I could have it and, taking it off there and then, handed it to me. I still have this shirt, which, being almost 20 years old, must have acquired collectable status. It is, after all, a piece of significant political memorabilia.
Vodka gratefully received at 9th May celebrations, Kaliningrad, 2002. In the background you can just see the back of a Putin T-shirt, one of which was given to me on this day.
By the end of the day this, at that time contemporary political icon, would be joined by another, but one which represented Russia’s Soviet era.
We were making our way back from the park along the street busy with pedestrians when my attention was drawn to a group of lady veterans bedecked with medals and carrying aloft a large silk Soviet banner. Olga introduced me to them and as a token of their esteem for my attendance at the celebration that day, they presented me with a 9th May medal. This medal was home-made, constructed from cardboard with a pin back but, as with the Putin T-shirt, it is still in my possession, waiting to return home if or when coronavirus allows, along with many other personal items that I want to ship from England.
Kaliningrad 9th May Victory Day celebrations 2002: Lady Veterans
Had things been different I would certainly have been in Moscow this year, and history would recall that whilst many western leaders were conspicuous for their absence, Mick Hart did his duty and was there to fly the flag!
Aaah well, “This time next year …” as Del Boy was fond of saying, and I will qualify that with another aphorism, “Hope dies last!’
Patriotism & Romance: Wearing my 9th May medal, Kaliningrad 2002
