May 9 military parades on Red Square were interrupted for 20 years
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In total they passed only 32 times
The most important day of the year, “a holiday with tears in the eyes.” All this is about May 9, this is exactly how it will remain for us forever and ever. However, the “standard” of Victory Day that has already become familiar: a day off – a military parade – festive festivities – evening fireworks, did not always exist. The forthcoming ceremonial passage of troops, for example, will be only the 33rd in the entire post-war history. “MK” reminds its readers of the festive “victorious” May statistics.
For starters, specific numbers.
May 9, 2023 will be the 79th officially celebrated Victory Day. However, it will be the red date of the calendar only for the 62nd time. And the military parade on the occasion of such a significant event for the history of the country has an even smaller serial number – No. 33. Moreover, not all of these 33 cases involved equipment – tanks, guns, armored personnel carriers … Muscovites will be able to admire such combat vehicles, demonstrating the power of our army on the occasion of Victory Day, only for the 21st time today.
And now a little more about the reasons for such strange statistics.
Right in hot pursuit, May 9, 1945, this day was declared a holiday and a day off in the USSR. It was celebrated then, of course, impromptu. The main highlight was the grandiose evening fireworks: 30 volleys from a thousand guns. But the military Victory Parade was held later – on June 24.
In the next two years, Victory Day continued to be a festive red date when citizens did not work. However, military parades were no longer held.
And in the calendar for 1948, May 9 turned out to be marked in black, equaling ordinary working days. However, the name Victory Day was retained for him, as well as the tradition of arranging festive fireworks in the evening. It is generally accepted that the Kremlin leadership carried out castling: May 9 was made a working day, and in return, by Decree of December 23, 1947, January 1 was declared a day off.
“Renaissance” came in 1965. Then, under the new leader of the party and the country, Leonid Brezhnev (who himself was a front-line soldier, more than once found himself at the forefront), Victory Day was returned to its former high status, it was again made non-working. And the holiday on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the end of the war with Nazi Germany was celebrated on a very large scale, including with a military parade on Red Square.
But the next such march of military units and equipment on May 9 had to wait another 20 years. The authorities of the USSR decided to organize such a solemn ceremony again only in 1985, when the 40th anniversary of the Victory was celebrated.
The fourth and last parade in the years of the USSR in honor of Victory Day was held in 1990. Such large-scale celebrations were, apparently, an attempt by the Kremlin to create another bond that would help keep the Union of Soviet Socialist from the already emerging collapse.
The military parade that followed on May 9 took place in sovereign Russia, it was timed to coincide with the half-century anniversary of the Victory. Such a significant event was celebrated on perhaps the largest scale in history. Dozens of heads of state, including former allies in the anti-Hitler coalition, gathered in Moscow. Delegations of World War II veterans also came from these countries. The 1995 parade had a distinctive feature: in addition to the reconstruction of the 1945 Victory Parade carried out on Red Square, at noon, a solemn passage of troops and equipment took place on Kutuzovsky Prospekt near Poklonnaya Gora. And in the air, viewers could see several dozen low-flying aircraft and helicopters.
It was from 1995 that military parades on the occasion of Victory Day became an annual event. They were held in 1996 and in subsequent years again on Red Square. However, at the same time, the organizers limited themselves to a light version: in front of the country’s top leadership, located on a specially arranged temporary platform, “boxes” of military personnel of various branches of the military marched. The participation of equipment in the program of military parades on May 9 was returned only in 2008.
Newspaper headline:
Victory Day Arithmetic
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