What a minute, what a holiday

It died down and saluted Victory Day. Great and holy holiday. The marches and songs, fireworks and shots died down.

What's left? Joy and sadness? Frustration and anger? Fatigue and indifference? Just a little bit.

Was there a holiday? Don't know. It's different for everyone. After all, a holiday is, first of all, an atmosphere. It’s difficult to create, but to lose in one moment. If there is no festive atmosphere, there is no holiday.

What is unique about the Victory Day holiday? Here the incongruous is combined, the incongruous is put together.

If Victory means joy. If there is a great Victory, there is great joy and pride. We are the winners. Exactly WE. That is, complicity is mandatory. Our victory. General. And general joy.

But there is grief and tears nearby. Grief. Great grief from loss. In every family. All of us. Grief and memory. General. This is what “joy with tears in our eyes” means. At the same time - grief and joy. Tears and smiles.

If we rejoice and mourn sincerely, without falsehood or show, then there is a holiday. He lives and helps us feel universal unity, helps us feel like one people, one whole, one country.

The country of the victorious people!

But if there is no holiday, but there is falsehood and window dressing, then the opposite happens - the country is being torn apart - in hearts, in families, in memory. And instead of joy there is hatred, instead of sorrow there is indifference, instead of memory there is oblivion.

I will not argue what prevails in the great holiday now. I want to believe in the best. But there are warning signs. And there are more and more of them.

Each holiday has its own symbols. In fact, the atmosphere is built on them.

Victory Day has this:

military parade
procession to the eternal flame
Victory Banner
Gergiev ribbon
song Victory Day
minute of silence
Firework

Perhaps there will be new ones in the future

One of the main symbols is a minute of silence. Here there is sorrow and memory and the oath “no one is forgotten and nothing is forgotten.” Important point. And therefore, at 18:55, a minute of silence is broadcast on all central television channels. Music, solemn voice of the announcer, words and metronome. Everyone stands up and freezes. They are silent. They're crying.

This is how it is intended and this is how it should be. Catharsis.

And in Kirov, during the broadcast of a minute of silence, there were concerts on the main square, no one stood up, did not freeze, did not remain silent - in general, there was not a single moment of memory and sorrow. They didn’t remember, they didn’t remember. It didn't work out.

Maybe people don't want to remember? Don’t want to cry and be silent for a minute? Why don't they want to? Forgot? Consider it not important? Not necessary?

The answers are not now and here.

And if there is no minute of silence, then there is no holiday.

And you can say “Victory Day is a national holiday” at least a hundred thousand times - it will only be a shock of air and nothing more. It's not words that are needed. We need emotions, feelings, experiences, shocks.

But this is not the case. There was no such atmosphere. Which means there was no holiday

We can talk about other symbols - are they real or fake? But let everyone decide for themselves.

At the end there are two illustrative examples. A minute of silence in Israel and a minute of silence in Tyumen. See and judge for yourself - where is the sincere impulse, and where is the production, imitation. Where does unity occur, and where is it unclear?

And finally, a question. And it is, of course, rhetorical.
Are we winners?