wednesday walk on the Victory Day - reportage + 22 foto

The park is full of crowds, everyone is in a festive mood, flowers, flags. And special decorations: orange and black St. George ribbons (they symbolize military honor and heroism; in fact, this is an order ribbon, which, according to the established rules, only those who have been awarded this order have to wear .... and thus, all these people are just appropriated other people's awards of their ancestors).

Well, on the other hand, these are all symbols ... the emblem has changed, today no one understands this fact about the fact that the orange-black ribbon is someone else's award, and not some kind of sign of respect in favor of the military achievements of their ancestors, as they think. (And for some, its just a nice bijouterie!)

Some people came here today for a tour, apparently. Here in the photo: I noticed one such group of people near an interesting sculpture. A woman lying on the rails with a handkerchief in her hand, giving a signal to someone, is Raymonda Dien, a famous French communist, an active participant in the anti-war movement in the 1950s (the time this park appeared).

She is known for throwing herself onto the tracks in front of a train that was ferrying tanks to the war in French Indochina (this is a former French colony). Echelon was detained for nine hours, and Raymond received a prison sentence of 1 year. At the trial, she proudly pleaded guilty, explaining her act briefly: "I hate war." The brave girl was then 20 years old by the way. It is hard to imagine doing the same thing again today. No, you cannot enter the same water twice, and no one will lie on the rails of a train carrying heavy weapons to Ukrainian or Russian soldiers... such a fantasy would not even come to mind! different time, different people.

People who admired Raymonda's courage called her "the woman who won the war." You can read more about this here.

I like to photograph children in such "military", soldier caps, and boys obviously like to wear them - it is like playing soldiers...

Kids leaving flowers at the Zhukov's minument. They are being taught to remember and to be patriot this way. Hmmm... In my opinion, it would have been better for them to study the history well, to read more books about what That War was like. But, alas, not everyone is fond of history and its lessons (especially if we speak about the real ones) - this is a bloody, bitter, unbearably tragic story(ies) ....

In the center of the park is the so-called "alley of heroes" (heroes of the Soviet Union). And in the middle of the alley there is a monument to soviet marshal Zhukov, which tourists invariably like to visit. (The monument appeared here late in 1995, when the USSR already have been destroyed).

But the park lives a normal life too. Other people came here just like on any other day, to relax, to do their own business - which needs to be done outside the home ... For example, to go for a run or train their dog.

By the end of the walk, we had an interesting meeting with a seagull, which watched how the pigeons were fed, but itself refused treats in the form of bread ... it would be interesting to know exactly what she thought, what exactly she wanted, expected, or feared, why pigeon feeding outpost control :)
Thanks for walking with me, see you next time.