victory day!

yesterday, may 9, was victory day throughout russia. victory day is russia's most important secular holiday, and marks the defeat of nazi germany. and russians love this day!!! the huge parade starts at red square and and travels a route through the city, and we had prime standing positions on the street to see the...

over 100 combat vehicles
over 9000 marching troops
69 combat planes
and
huge missiles

it was really quite spectacular.

pictures will show this day better than my words, and even then they won't quite do it justice...



you could feel the rumble of these tanks in your whole body as they came down the street.


my love





"they were young"

i thought this was a powerful message.


me and liz over the moscow river


silas sharing pretzels with a girl he met

after the parade on arbat street, we headed over to gorky park...

a significant part of this holiday is honoring the veterans who served. veterans fill the streets, wearing all their medals with pride, and people come up to them and give them flowers and say thank you. it is beautiful. most often you'll see a little child going up to one of these veterans {encouraged by a parent standing nearby} to give them a flower and say thank you. so moving.

silas got to meet a few, too...


this man who tim got to talk to for a while, was very adamant on reminding us {once he learned we are from america} that we did this together. i think our friend chris did a perfect job of describing this day here.

there is so much good out there, too.

it was awesome to get to be a part of this day here in moscow.

{so many many more pictures on picasa}

{and happy happy birthday to chris, who graciously shared his birthday with russia's victory day!}