"Something good turned into a warfare tool"

How is it perceived on May 9 and commemorative events a year after Russia's invasion of Ukraine? We asked readers what they are now thinking about the day of victory and how they would spend it.

Reader "Paper"

- I have a mother’s mother, both grandmothers were also blockade. But in [festive] events they did not participate. Grandmother said that one who really fought would not talk much about it. Therefore, we always have (and when my mother and I were left without grandmothers too) a quiet family holiday. Memories. And the hope that this will not happen again.

As the officialdom increased, rejection grew. They did not go to the Immortal Regiment. Last year, when the victory of the 45th mixed with Z-Tematics, it became sick. Mom immediately said - not my holiday. Moreover, strange flags began to hang on the streets - not Soviet and not Russian.

And this year, already in Georgia, she took a little work on this day. Just out of a sense of rejection of what is happening. Yes, last year even that day I wrote an anti -war verse.

Reader "Paper"

- The attitude has not changed - as I did not like the type of military equipment on the streets, I don’t like it.

Reader "Paper"

- The attitude towards May 9 has changed for sure. Now this is the day of the memory of relatives and the point. The performance “ Be healthy schoolboy ” in MDT helped a lot. I got into the mood. Eight decades later, we ceased to understand all the horror of the created. This is evil, hell on earth. This is not a great tragedy, but a disaster. There is no greatness in death, fear, pain, horror. This is something that should not have happened, much less repeated. We cannot understand the feelings of those who have passed through this without experiencing. And we should not and do not have to understand them, we will not be able to.

It is terrible that today we perceive those who have gone to fight in the forties, as a normal course of history. The debt to die for the homeland is not equal to the normal course of life. Yes, they had to, but this is not laid down either by nature, nor God, nor mind. This is a catastrophe of destruction of the very nature of life, violation of all the processes of the cycle.

And the only thing that we (everyone who was born after May 9, 1945, who has not a day spent in those conditions) must be understood, must understand that this is the priority and value of human life. And a normal person will not even allow a thought of attempted life, to freedom of any other.

Reader "Paper"

- The attitude to the holiday has become negative. Before the start of the war, the magnificent celebrations seemed a mockery of veterans living in poverty. I consider excessive exaltation and orientation back to the past. And after the outbreak of war, invasion and murders under the “idea of ​​eradicating something wrong” and “he knows better,” this holiday became miserable for me. It is a pity that something good was turned into a tool for propaganda of war. I will not celebrate.

Reader "Paper"

- My feelings regarding the celebration of Victory Day have changed for a long time. I found alive my great -grandfather who fought, he never told about the war, because "this, daughter, is scary."

In childhood, of course, everything seemed to be a holiday, but then you begin to rethink and listen (for example, without a coma in the throat and tears, I can not listen or sing “cranes” to Gamzatov’s poems). At some point, I consciously reviewed “only the old people go into battle” and, despite the general tragedy of the plot, finally I burst into tears on the footage of newsreels-there are no happy people, there everyone lost someone there.

In our country, the “Soviet ceremonial” was made annual and obligatory dedication, but completely wretchedly removed from the consciousness of the masses of the suffering of the people and the price that was paid, as well as the culprits of this price. We do not say about the heroes about those who live their lives to do better than others. But they live in the past, to which they are not related, the price of which is not represented. So, in St. Petersburg, a salute is celebrated the day of removal of the blockade. That's just few people read at least the memories of the blockade.

Reader "Paper"

-In no way because of the war, my attitude has not changed. I have not liked the state version of this holiday before, now there are just more reasons.

I want to go to lay flowers to two not the most popular monuments. In the evening, perhaps, finally, I’ll get ready to see “Cranes are flying”.

In my opinion, this holiday should be. Light, but at the same time calm and a little sad.

Reader "Paper"

- I do not want and cannot see any Russian parade. Now I’m not sure that I am proud of relatives who died in the Second World War. It is possible that there was also nothing to be proud of, since the distant war was fed the same. The other side was simply thrown by people, no one counted people. People did not consider other people. And how much you can brag and frighten others with technology, not putting life in anything.

Reader "Paper"

- In schools, kindergartens, a music school these days - concerts and meetings with veterans. Because Victory Day is a curriculum, as well as, of course, a state program, a summons. I have nothing against. I love Astafyeva, “Belarusian station”, songs about the war, books, films. Real, authentic, authors.

I'm talking about something else.

War veterans are less. In my city, for example, there are only three. They do not go anywhere, they are all under a hundred years. They hear and speak badly. Logger workers are also completely elderly. Nothing - the children of the war, they are younger, they are 80+. Many come to events, meet with children. But mainly to schools and concerts on May 9, children are “post -wilted” - this can be seen from photographs in social networks, which are published in their groups created by disposal of the minobra, educational institutions.

The moment will come when the last eyewitness of those terrible events will die. Veterans will be, we are all aging, but only not children of the war, but grandchildren, great-grandchildren of war, like, for example, I am.

One of my acquaintances on May 9 congratulates the old people-the inhabitants of the house in which her store works (they did not fought, were not even born in the 40s, they are just old, but-"tribute and tradition").

Probably, the day will come when they call me home in the year of my 70th anniversary and call me to some school or on a concert on May 9, to congratulate and pay tribute-because my generation of the elderly will be the closest to the war years.

Or maybe it will not come: after all, the current president will definitely not live up to my 70th anniversary. Power will change - the rules of the game will also change. Maybe under other presidents in Russia will be different from May 9: for example, as I am now.

They will look at the “Belarusian station”, read “Curses and killed”, listen to Mark Bernes, raise a stack in memory of their ancestors and tell the children and grandchildren about the great-great-great-grandfathers who once gave their lives to live. As my great-grandfather Andrei, who died at the front in 1943, did.

And there will be no bravura multi-million (at a price) parade on Red Square on the day when the military declare a catastrophic lack of ammunition in the current war, there will be no T-shirts with the faces of front-line soldiers (because memory is not a reason for merchants and cool gizmos, memory is intimate for each family and man), there will be no concert of pop stars, salutes ... and there will be no war.

I’ll live up to 70, I will see how it will happen.

What else to read:

• "In a terrible dream, I did not dream that we would fight with Ukraine." Interview with the blockade - about the experienced in Leningrad and the events of 2022
• In Ivangorod, a screen and a scene were installed for the celebration on May 9 - and deployed in the direction of Estonia. What is known about this