Soldiers marched and medal-bedecked veterans waved from military trucks rolling down a main Moscow street yesterday, as Russia began a pomp-filled, high-security celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Allied victory over Nazi Germany.
About half a dozen tanks, including at least one World War II-era T-34, stood on a street near Red Square, awaiting today's military parade, which will be watched by the foreign guests. The pavement was marked by tank tracks.
Dozens of foreign leaders have been invited to the ceremonies, prompting some of the strictest security measures Moscow has seen.
PHOTO: AP
City authorities have long been urging Muscovites to leave town over the weekend, as some parts of the city center as well as roads leading to the city's airports were blocked off and accessible only to people with special passes.
Yesterday, gray-haired veterans rode on open military trucks down Moscow's main thoroughfare to Byelorussky railway station, where a train was pulled by a period locomotive in a recreation of the arrival trains bearing victorious Soviet troops back from the war.
As in 1945, the front of the locomotive bore a big portrait of a smiling Josef Stalin, the Soviet leader whose legacy is hanging over the anniversary celebrations. Many Russians feel he was the driving force behind the victory, while others revile him as a dictator who killed millions of his own citizens and say the Soviet people won the war despite his mistakes.
The 60 veterans aboard the train were greeted on the platform by women in traditional Russian costumes and war-era clothes, as well as by Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov. They were led into the square outside the station, where some waltzed as they awaited a concert in their honor.
"Today is a great day. Our victory meant that we could live and study," said Alexander Roshin, 79, a veteran who was aboard the train.
Another veteran, 80-year-old Vera Minayeva, expressed anger at economic hardship in today's Russia.
On the way to the station, soldiers stomped alongside the veterans in trucks as Russians lining the street, holding flags and balloons, chanted "Thank you" and shouted congratulations.
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