День Победы (Day of Victory)

Привет once again,

I'm back for my fourth and final blog of the day. Hopefully I haven't blogged you guys out. Ha.

So as many of you know, and I'm sure some of you don't, yesterday (May 9) was День Победы (Day of Victory) in Russia. This was the day that World War II ended for Russia. This holiday is the second largest celebration in Russia behind New Years. It was incredible to be in Moscow for it and be able to experience all the festivities that go along with it.

The main event of the day is the Victory Day Parade. It is a H-U-G-E parade that goes through Red Square. First march the troops and all the different branches of the military. Next the tanks and other heavy artillery are paraded through the square. It is concluded by numerous fly-overs by different Russian planes. They fly-overs were really cool to see because one of the formations was a "65" to commemorate 65 years since the Victory over Germany in World War II and in another formation six planes flew over and let out different color smoke to make the colors of the Russian Flag. HERE is a link to a short video highlighting the parade. I suggest you check it out because it really is spectacular.

After the parade I walked around Park Pobedy (Парк Победы, Victory Park) with some of my friends. Since it is a park dedicated to Russia's victory in the wars, it was a crazy, spectacular event. There were thousands upon thousands of people walking around the park. They had a stage set up and live music being played all day. While walking around the park we explored the Military and Artillery Exposition which was cool to see. There they have numerous tanks and other military equipment used in World War II. (See photos below).

And to conclude the night, at 10pm there was a huge firework salute all across Moscow. There were great firework displays at Park Pobedy as well as on Red Square. It was most certainly one of the most impressive firework displays that I have ever witnessed. HERE is a link to a Youtube video from a Russian TV Network displaying the salute. Once again, I highly recommend that you check it out because it was simply impressive.

Well here are some photos that I took documenting my experience on Victory Day. I hope I haven't worn you out with too much blogging in one day :-)

ENJOY!!! С ДНЁМ ПОБЕДЫ!!!

A temporary monument to Victory Day outside of my metro station.

An "artistic" photo by me. Ha.

The sea of people out on what was a beautiful day to celebrate!

And now begins some of the military artillery and such...

Here is what I believe to be some sort of anti-aircraft gun (?)

Here is some crazy military vehicle kinda like a tank... again, not really sure exactly what it is.

This is some kind of German tank.

There were many people like this guy waving huge Soviet Flags.

Some sort of train big-gun thingy...really REALLY BIG! Ha.

A picture of me in my Victory Day hat with Graham and his flag. Haha.

An old war boat, in a small man made lake in the park.

Me sitting on an anti-aircraft gun. With that awesome hat, I almost look like I belong on it.

It thunder stormed for about 30 minutes, but these people didn't let the rain affect their Victory Day dancing. Hahahaha.

Finally a picture of the group at the end of the night.

Hope you enjoyed your Victory Day experience :-) We are going to St. Petersburg this week so look for pictures of that trip sometime next week! (I know you all can't wait, ha.)

Пока!