The Day of Victory

For weeks the excitement has been building in the community as preparations continued for the huge celebration. Every television station broadcast the same movies over and over and over again. One in particular kept my attention, “Poslyednye Bronopoezd,” “The last armored train.” It played again and again on every station until I could almost recite the dialog. Yesterday the celebration finally took place with horn honking and yelling and loud music, and the television stations dropped a lot of their usual “reklamy,” or commercials in order to broadcast the celebration live from Moscow. Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvyedev sat in prominent positions in the front of the sea of uniforms and white hair. It was the 65^th anniversary of “the Great Victory.”

The wide Moscow street was lined with countless numbers of spectators and the special bleachers were reserved for the veterans, those white-haired men who continue to deck themselves out with their blue uniforms. Their medals swayed in the breeze, flashing gold as they caught the sunlight. On the street companies of soldiers marched by in perfect cadence, their heads held up and turned to the right as they smiled at the crowd. Their arms swung back and then forward, breaking at the elbow for the final part of their trip as each forearm came to a horizontal position across each soldier’s body before beginning the arc again. The Russians don’t “goose step” the way the Germans did, but they definitely have a high-stepping spring as they march that makes each head bounce up and down as it strains to face the sun.

The old veterans whispered to each other and grinned at the newest generation of Russian warriors.

Then the street was filled with tanks, rolling in perfect precision down that wide street. And then came the missile launchers and then the armored personnel carriers and Russian might was evident. It was an endless display of military power. Vladimir Putin addressed the crowd after the parade had passed by saying, “We are grateful for our great heroes who have given our people such great freedom.” His speech ended to the rising music of the “Gimn Rossy,” or Russian Hymn just as the chorus was brought to prominence. “Slavcya otyechestva,” “Praised be the fatherland.” That was the phrase that said it all. “Praised be the fatherland.” There was no praise for God. It was all about the greatness of the government and the “management of the creature” as the Book of Mormon calls it, and I was handed a vivid reminder of the miraculous difference between the United States and every communist and dictator-ruled country on earth.

Last night I lay in bed and contemplated the bright visual display of power that I had just witnessed when I was rocked by one loud explosion after another. “Mortars!” was the first thought that shouted in my head. The building shook with each explosion and I jumped out of bed to look for shelter. Then I saw the green, then red light that brightened up the building across the street—fireworks! I opened my window and looked south toward the spectacular Ala Too mountains. Boom! A red star spread itself across the sky. Boom! A green star spread from the center of the explosion. Again and again they spread themselves across the deepening black sky and shook the building.

This morning there were drooping, dying flowers that had been laid at the bases of all the heroic statues in the parks, including one golden statue of two obviously Kyrgyz soldiers that we pass each day that catches my attention because of its inscription, “мы шли в бои за коммунизм,” “We went to fight for communism.” Oleg, our driver, laughed out loud as we passed it today. “Now communism in Kyrgyzstan is dead,” he chuckled.