Victory Day in Saint Petersburg

9 May 2016, St Petersburg

For a city that was put under the most horrific siege for 900 days and where a million people starved to death and many more died fighting the Second World War or the Great Patriotic War as it is known in Russia, it is easy to understand why the Victory Day, celebrated on 9 May, evokes such strong emotions and sentiments of patriotism.

There is not a family in this city that doesn’t have someone very close who died in the war. No wonder there were over a hundred thousand people who joined the Immortal Regiment Parade, and as many that lined up on the sides of the roads watching the parade and joining the shouts of ‘Ura’ and singing Katyusha, a very popular wartime song.

These were mainly family members of the ones that took part in the war. It was interesting to see that for many this was a family event celebrating their family heroes. It definitely helped that it was a nice sunny day.

We let the procession pass by before going for a very late lunch to a Georgian restaurant, Mamaliga where we had Khachapuri and Pkhali for the first time. Khachapuri is kind of like a pizza, while Pkhali was something completely unexpected. There were three different kinds of Pkhali.. spinach, beetroot and eggplant ones, and they were all really good.

We went to the palace square after lunch, and the scenes that we saw there were so surreal.. On one side of this huge square there was a concert going on where they were playing patriotic songs and projecting scenes from some old war movies and people were waving the red communist flags, and on the other side by the winter palace, kids were going berserk climbing the soviet era artillery.. tanks, big guns, rocket launchers, trucks. The sights were unreal. Thing 1 and Thing 2 joined the crazy fun climbing real tanks and guns.

We ended the day with a movie night at the hostel. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.