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May 9 is among the most important days of the Russian civil calendar
and it acquired more and more value in the Putinian era. It comes after Labor Day on May Day and is part of that spring vacation package which, from weekend to weekend, can extend the “holidays” until June 12, Russia Day, in memory of its independence in 1990.
It is not a legend: the Russians like to say that
on May 9 in Moscow it never rains
and the monumental parade of earth and sky is always saved, no bad weather, the clouds are removed from the capital. For the occasion, in fact, a dozen military planes enter the troposphere to control the trend of perturbations and disperse mixtures of silver iodide, dry ice and cement so that the precipitations move away.
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I remember it well
that my first May 9 in Moscow. Ten years ago
, it was 2012 and it was the 67th Victory Day. It did not come at an easy time for recent Russian history. Two days earlier, the inauguration ceremony in the Kremlin of Vladimir Putin, president of the Federation for the third term, had taken place with great fanfare. The tandem with Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was successful, even that time. Although the so-called White Revolution had been underway for months, the only result of which, however, was gradually a tightening of the rules on demonstrations. And even to my ears as an outside observer the names of Navalny, Akunin, Nemcov, champions of the opposition, became increasingly known.
And that May 9, 2012 the sky was not clear, really and metaphorically.
I was in Russia for the third time in a year and I was going to stay in Moscow for a long time. And, therefore, for the first time in my life, I would have participated in that Day which, with the latest Putinian electoral triumph, had an increasingly nationalist rather than patriotic flavor. My Russian friends did not miss an opportunity to tell me about the Great War and their victory, so little emphasized by Western books. A sacrifice that cost millions of lives and millions of mutilated people in Soviet homes, in their families. “You know, who hasn’t had a relative killed, missing or mutilated?” They repeated to me. That May 9, for Moscow, was
a four million dollar ceremony
.
The evening of 8 May arrives and a friend invites me to dinner in the center, offering me a long night to witness something unique. Without other details. She wanted to amaze me. Everywhere the symbols of the anniversary, the Russian tricolor, the ribbon of St. George. I knew that for days the center in the evening was closed for the rehearsals of the May 9th parade, I could not imagine that I would find myself
in the middle of the dress rehearsal
.
I manage to get to Red Square by secondary roads. I stay beyond the barrier: I see the central stage and the stands in front of Lenin’s Mausoleum ready. For guests only. And I walk all night along the side of the big streets that wind from Piazza del Manege, Ultitsa Ilinka, Tverskaya, Nikolskaya, while hundreds of heavy artillery vehicles parade, including T-90, Iskander and S-400 Triumph tanks, rocket launchers and armored vehicles, intercontinental and even nuclear missiles, men in full uniform (14 thousand): the best expression of what until yesterday was considered the second strongest army in the world. Not only. For the first time they would also participate in the ceremony
the Lince Iveco armored vehicles, the first foreign vehicles allowed
. But even more important that year was the deployment of the newly formed “Immortal Regiment”: men and women with photos of a relative who fought against the Nazis.
From that time on, President Putin also took part in the march with a portrait of his father
. In front of all the sumptuous Presidential Regiment.
I had never in my life seen a tank or a missile so close
, not even in a museum; armaments have never been of my interest and often, during my stay in Russia, I had declined, without regret, invitations to participate in Militaria fairs, so fashionable there.
Of course, at night, the sumptuous suggestion of the great parade of May 9th is a bit muted, but the next day it would have been really difficult to participate.
All armored
metal detectors everywhere, 20 thousand policemen on the street to guarantee public order, agents ready to shoot on the Spasskaya tower of the Kremlin: the opposition square was still too hot after months of protests, the echo of the Caucasian terrorism that had been too strong last hit the capital in January 2011.
But the party succeeded, fortunately, without incident.
With all the ghosts of the former USSR gathered
. There were also Cossacks in the grand parade, along with historic Soviet uniforms and PPsh submachine guns and more recent AK-12 assault rifles. On the other hand, it is an honor for every single soldier to be chosen to parade in Red Square that day: a medal, a week’s vacation and a pay rise. Flowers for veterans.
On that V-Day Putin in his speech emphasized the important military investments. He was flexing his muscles, even then, while guaranteeing
a peaceful future for the country
. To my ears, ten years later, those words resound sinisterly, on the threshold of a Third World War, nuclear.
“Pray for the Ukrainian people and for the Russian people”, my Russian, Ukrainian and Russian friends with Ukrainian origins wrote to me at dawn on 24 February. This is how my eyes widened on the powerlessness of this very absurd war.
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