Where to gather and how to see equipment from the Victory Parade
On May 9, the Victory Parade and the “Immortal Regiment” event will be held in Moscow. What route will the protesters take, and where will traffic for motorists be blocked?
Anyone can take part in the Immortal Regiment procession. The only restriction is that the organizers ask not to use commercial or political symbols.
The gathering will begin from noon to one o'clock in the afternoon and will last until 15:00 - the procession column is expected to be divided into 25 sectors. About 40 volunteers will be assigned to each of them. Participants will have to walk along Leningradsky Prospekt, 1st Tverskaya-Yamskaya, Tverskaya, Manezhnaya and Red Squares. Next, the columns will be distributed to Moskvoretskaya embankment and the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge. The procession is expected to last four hours - until seven in the evening.
However, not all metro stations along the procession will be open. “Dynamo” and “Belorusskaya” will not be closed, “Mayakovskaya” will be closed as Tverskaya is filled with protesters, but “Chekhovskaya”, “Pushkinskaya” and “Tverskaya” will be closed at exactly 13:00. You can join the column by leaving any of the listed stations, but you will not be able to join the “Immortal Regiment” by leaving any alley on Tverskaya. Therefore, plan your route in advance.
There will be 47 field kitchens operating along the route. It was decided to install a thousand sanitary cabins. 17 tanks of drinking water will be prepared for the march participants.
It is expected that more than a million people will take part in the event. For comparison, last year 850,000 people walked through the center of Moscow with portraits of their relatives, and in 2016 - 700,000.
During the Immortal Regiment procession, Leningradsky Prospekt from the Dynamo metro station to the center, 1st Tverskaya-Yamskaya, Tverskaya and Mokhovaya streets, Teatralny proezd, Kremlevskaya and Moskvoretskaya embankments, as well as the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge will be blocked.
The Victory Parade on Red Square will begin at 10 am and end in about an hour. Traffic for the passage of equipment will begin to be blocked from 5 am - by car you should not go to the area of Nizhniye Mnevniki, Presnya, Barrikadnaya, Zvenigorodskoe highway, and also avoid the center - all streets around the Kremlin, embankments - from Ustinskaya to Komsomolskaya, the Garden Ring from Smolenka to Sadovo -Triumphal.
In general, before 10 pm the time for traveling around the city is not the best.
By the way, on the way to the parade the equipment will make a stop on Tverskaya, on the way back it can be seen on the Kremlin embankment, Vozdvizhenka, Novy Arbat.
And at 22:00 volleys of festive fireworks will thunder over Moscow - about the launch sites.
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What's new was shown at the military parade on May 9 in MoscowVictory Day in 2017 turned out to be unusually cold. The temperature dropped to almost zero, and the sky was covered with low clouds.
“At the historical parade 72 years ago, the weather was exactly the same, it was gloomy and cold,” a correspondent for one of the federal channels rehearsed the text in front of a television camera.
At that moment, light snow began to fall from the sky.
Due to bad weather, the aviation part of the parade was canceled. During the pre-holiday days, the weather was sunny and warm, and during rehearsals a line of helicopters, fighters and heavy bombers gathered crowds of onlookers on the streets, but on May 9 the planes did not appear in the sky.
The night before it started snowing in Moscow. The Moscow authorities and the Ministry of Defense promised to disperse the clouds, but the bad weather turned out to be stronger.
Military aircraft can fly in any weather, but gathering in the skies near Moscow, forming a tight formation based on visual contact, would be too risky.
- The Immortal Regiment marched through the center of London
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- The Russian Ministry of Defense spoke about an air parade that never happened
The parade under a cold gray sky without the final roar of aircraft engines overhead turned out to be unexpectedly short and crumpled, despite the abundance of tanks, self-propelled guns and intercontinental ballistic missiles inevitable at such a parade.
When the last Boomerang armored personnel carrier left the square, a military tractor drove out from the shadow of Lobnoye Mesto - it was hiding there in case some car stalled in the middle of the parade, as happened during the rehearsal in 2015.
This tractor completed the military parade instead of the bombers, hastily turning into the passage near the Spasskaya Tower.
Illustration copyright AFP Image caption The newest T-14 Armata tank at the parade on Red Square."Immortal Regiment"
The procession of the "Immortal Regiment", which began a few hours later, on the contrary, seemed bright and impressively large-scale. It was like this: this year, according to official data, about 750 thousand people took to the streets in Moscow with portraits of relatives who died during the war.
At the head of the column was Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Illustration copyright Reuters Image caption Victory Day in Moscow was celebrated with a military parade and a procession of the “Immortal Regiment”“Hundreds of beautiful and stern faces around, looking at you from black and white portraits. When I look at them, my throat always tightens. Thank you,” writes Facebook user Oksana Mishchenko.
“I joined the ranks of the immortal regiment. It’s high time - after all, my grandfather reached Berlin. It’s a pity that we didn’t have time to meet. Thank you for this feat, it’s always in our hearts!” wrote Facebook user Yulia Chuvaeva.
For the second year in a row, the two main events on Victory Day in Moscow - the military parade and the procession of the Immortal Regiment - were separated in time and place (in 2015 they were part of one event on Red Square).
Illustration copyright EPA Image caption More than 700 thousand people reportedly took part in the Immortal Regiment march.For the second year in a row, it takes place a few hours after the noise of tank engines over the center finally subsides. This seems logical: the two main components of the holiday are completely different in essence.
The Immortal Regiment appeared in 2011 on the initiative of journalists from the independent Tomsk TV channel TV2, which was closed under pressure from local authorities.
Back in Soviet times, on Victory Day, war veterans gathered in the center of Moscow, met with fellow soldiers, and remembered their fallen friends.
This tradition, which also arose spontaneously, without instructions from above, existed for many years, as long as veterans could come to these meetings. However, over time they became fewer and fewer.
The idea of Tomsk journalists arose just when living human emotions and memories on that day became sorely lacking.
Illustration copyright Nikolsky Alexey Image caption For the third year in a row, the Immortal Regiment procession is led by Vladimir PutinUnder the direction of
The first procession took place in 2012 in Tomsk, and in a short time it became so famous that by 2015 it was already officially held in Moscow.
When this movement became really popular, the Russian authorities tried not only to help this action, but to lead it. In fact, for the third year in a row, President Vladimir Putin himself is in the forefront.
They began to prepare the “Immortal Regiment” in advance, organize it, and gather people for it; among homemade posters with portraits, more and more professionally made.
Illustration copyright TACC/Fadeichev Sergey Image caption The Russian authorities decided to take the “Immortal Regiment” action under their wingOn May 9, in the morning there were many people on the streets with stalls selling caps, and they began to let people into the procession through metal detectors. In 2017, meetings of the “Immortal Regiment” were held in schools at the initiative of administrations and even in Russian embassies abroad.
This was evident back in 2015, when many on social networks began to complain that the procession was attended by people who clearly did not know whose portraits they were carrying. “Quantitative indicators are not as important as the meaning of what is happening. And there was no need to mobilize anyone in advance. People would have been behind their backs anyway,” one of the authors of the idea, Sergei Lapenkov from Tomsk, said in an interview with the BBC.
On the one hand, it seems that the authorities are trying to organize and even initiate a movement, which in itself is much larger and larger-scale than that which can be assembled by administrative methods.
On the other hand, many fear that as a result, the sincere desire to remember dead relatives is thereby eroded and vulgarized, turning into something like a mass flash mob.
Illustration copyright TASS/Pochuev Mikhail Image caption People from different parts of the former USSR took part in the celebration of Victory Day in Moscow“Enthusiasm, sincerity, the real desire of people who remember the stories of their grandfathers or fathers about the war, who are proud that they have a photograph of their father, grandfather, mother, grandmother hanging on their wall, who want to come out and show that yes, ours also fought, also died when it all turns into an order from above, of course it degenerates. How long it will degenerate, fizzle out, we don’t know,” journalist Nikolai Svanidze told the BBC Russian Service.
Many others agree with him, who were confused by the state’s desire to participate in the action, which was born on the initiative “from below.”
However, so far there are no visible signs that this idea is running out of steam. Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of many cities with portraits of their dead relatives.
Dear fellow soldiers!
We have prepared answers to the most frequently asked questions for you. We hope they will help you better prepare for the march.
Attention!
Due to the special security regime, we ask you to come with lightweight structures. If you assembled the banner yourself and you ended up with a heavy and unsafe design (large dimensions, a thick shovel shaft, metal elements, etc.) - they may not let you through.
1. Where will the procession take place?
The procession will take place along Leningradsky Prospekt, st. Tverskoy, st. Tverskaya-Yamskaya, through Okhotny Ryad, Manezhnaya and Red Square. Next, the procession column is distributed along the Moskvoretskaya embankment and the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge.
You can join the procession at the metro stations:
- "Dynamo" (open for entry and exit during the entire procession),
- “Belorusskaya” (open for entry and exit during the entire procession),
- "Mayakovskaya" (will be closed as the section of Tverskaya Street near this station fills up),
- “Tverskaya”, “Pushkinskaya” and “Chekhovskaya” (will be closed at 13.00).
2. What time does the procession gather and start?
Gathering of procession participants from 12:00 to 15:00.
3. Which metro stations will be closed?
“Okhotny Ryad”, “Revolution Square”, “Teatralnaya”, “Alexandrovsky Garden”, “Library named after. Lenina", "Borovitskaya", "Ulitsa 1905", "Krasnopresnenskaya" and "Barrikadnaya" are closed for entry and exit during the entire procession.
4. Will there be metal detectors?
All protesters will be searched using metal detectors.
5. Is it possible to leave the column during the procession?
Yes, you can. It will be possible to return only through designated metro stations.
6. What are the divergence routes for the column?
Route one. After passing through Red Square, go around St. Basil's Cathedral on the left and walk along Vasilyevsky Spusk to the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge.
Route two. After passing through Red Square, go around St. Basil's Cathedral on the right and walk along Vasilyevsky Spusk under the Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge to the left to Moskvoretskaya Embankment.
7. Where to go after the column diverges?
After the column disperses, the procession is considered completed.
The nearest metro stations open to the entrance are: Tretyakovskaya, Novokuznetskaya, Polyanka and Kitay-Gorod.
8. How long is the procession?
The procession will last until the last participant. Estimated completion time is 19.00.
9. How far will it be necessary to walk?
From Dynamo metro station to the divergence point of the column (in front of St. Basil's Cathedral) 5.9 km. From Tverskaya Zastava Square (Belorusskaya metro station) - 4 km. From Triumfalnaya Square (metro Mayakovskaya) - 2.5 km.
10. How long might it take to complete the route?
You need to focus on 2 hours or more.
11. How to become a member?
Anyone who honors the memory of our soldiers and wants to preserve the history of their family can join the “Immortal Regiment”. But it is preferable to come to the procession with a banner portrait or photograph of your hero.
12. Where and how to make a banner?
You can make the banner design yourself or. There is very little time left and most companies no longer accept orders for production due to the technological features of the production process.
It is important to understand that the rules regarding the appearance of banners are only advisory in nature.
13. Where can I print my photo?
You can contact any photo center in Moscow (there are more than 1000 of them). The service is paid and depends on the specific photo studio.
14. Are “folk arts” welcome at the procession?
Folk art only decorates our event. Wear tunics, caps, take flags, streamers and banners. Decorate the event with symbols of the Great Victory. After all, this is the most beautiful and sincere thing that is at the procession of the “Immortal Regiment”.
15. Can I take water and food with me?
Yes, you can. Water only in plastic bottles.
Water will also be distributed along the procession route.
16. Will there be toilets?
Toilets will be located along the procession route and in large quantities after the column disperses.
17. Is it possible to borrow photo and video equipment?
Yes, you can, but count on your strength. Carrying a camera and video camera for several hours can be difficult.
18. Will there be a festive program at Vasilyevsky Spusk?
19. Can I bring a scooter/bicycle?
No, they won't let me in. This is traumatic for the participants in the procession.
20. Is it possible to take children in strollers?
Yes, you can.
21. Where can I park my car?
Think in advance where you will leave your car. Streets in the center will be blocked. We recommend arriving by public transport.
22. Will there be ambulances?
Yes, they will be located in the alleys adjacent to Tverskaya Street along the entire route of the procession, as well as after the column disperses.
23. Can I take a folding chair with me?
Yes, you can. Take it if you doubt your abilities.
24. Will there be musical accompaniment?
Yes, there will be a lot of button accordion/accordion players. Front-line songs will also be played along the entire route of the procession.
25. Will there be a field kitchen?
Yes, there will be several points with a field kitchen along the procession route.
26. Will St. George ribbons be distributed?
Yes, on the procession route.
Come and take a good mood with you!