celebration

Yesterday, Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov held the final meeting of the city organizing committee to prepare for the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Victory. Subordinates reported to Mr. Luzhkov about the readiness of more than 2.5 thousand veterans to drive 140 ZIS-5 trucks into Red Square, and veterans complained to the mayor of Moscow about his subordinates, who allow jubilee medals for the 60th anniversary of the Victory to be awarded to “technical specialists and schoolchildren.”

Yesterday, at the fifth and final meeting of the organizing committee for preparations for the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Victory, Yuri Luzhkov received a report from his subordinates on the readiness of the capital for the holiday. Chairman of the Moscow Public Relations Committee Tatyana Vasilyeva told how veterans were prepared for the military parade. Judging by her words, before veterans could not even dream of such a comfortable holiday: 2.6 thousand war veterans will not march across the square, but will drive through it in 140 historical ZIS-5 military trucks. These machines, according to Ms. Vasilyeva, have already been prepared by the ZIL plant. Trucks with veterans will be divided according to the fronts of the Great Patriotic War and allowed into Red Square in the same order as at the 1945 Victory Parade. Before the parade, columns of trucks will be lined up on Tverskaya Street, and so that the veterans do not get bored while waiting to leave, they will be entertained by a broadcast of greetings from Russian President Vladimir Putin on four huge screens installed on Tverskaya and Bolotnaya Squares, on Tverskaya Street and Kamergersky Lane. 40 ambulance teams will monitor the well-being of veterans.

Yuri Luzhkov, who listened attentively to all this, asked the head of the Moscow municipal services complex, Pyotr Aksenov: “Do veterans need to take umbrellas with them?” Mr. Aksenov clearly prepared for an answer. He stated that “all organizational issues have been removed, the events have been paid for.” According to him, 12 aircraft of the special forces of the Ministry of Defense will deal with good weather during the holidays, which, 60 km from the city, will sprinkle the clouds with “dry ice” (frozen carbon dioxide) for three days. 30 million rubles have been allocated from the federal budget to disperse clouds. With this money, on May 7 and 8, clouds near Moscow will be bombed with carbon dioxide from 8.00 to 20.00, and on May 9 - from 8.00 to 23.00. “But in general, the preliminary forecast from the Hydrometeorological Center for May 7 is a forty percent chance of rain, for the 8th - sixty, for the 9th - forty,” Mr. Aksenov said victoriously.

One of the last to report on the readiness of the capital for May 9 was the prefect of the Central Administrative District Sergei Baidakov. He talked for a long time and monotonously about how many free plumbing supplies, medicines and travel vouchers the veterans he sponsored received, so that Mr. Aksenov, sitting opposite him, began to nod off. But then the situation was unexpectedly revived by the chairman of the city council of veterans, Vladimir Dolgikh. He said: “We have signals that commemorative medals for the 60th anniversary of the Victory are being awarded by technical workers of prefectures and even schoolchildren! This should be a memorable event for a veteran. But schoolchildren who go from house to house with medals is no good.” . The prefects of the districts immediately began to buzz, and Mr. Baidakov began to justify himself, saying that such signals “were only at the very beginning of the action”, that medals were delivered to their homes “only to bedridden people,” and even then in the presence of the top officials of the prefecture. “I can expect any tricks from officials, but not this,” said Yuri Luzhkov and promised to take “this issue under special control.”

ALEXANDER Kommersant-Voronov

Yuri Luzhkov took part in the pre-holiday parade