29 July 2012 - Victory Day

Scene outside my apartment one night

["Hymn to Red October" from The Hunt for Red October soundtrack]

In my time here, I've expanded my admittedly limited knowledge of World War II from the Russian perspective.  Growing up during the Cold War era, I had a tendency to forget that the US and Russia were allies in that war.  And I had no idea of the suffering of the Russian people during that war and the deaths of so many civilians not only through bombing and violence but through starvation.  Just horrible.  I didn't, for example, understand just how long the siege on Leningrad lasted, the conditions it created, or the resiliency of the people within and outside the city.  Just amazing and sobering.

One of my former colleagues here is a big military enthusiast and participates in re-enactments of Russian battles.  I noted that while there are Civil War re-enactment groups in the US, I hadn't considered re-enactments of WW2 battles.  His response?  "Might be a bit difficult and expensive to recreate Normandy."  Fair point!  He gave me and a colleague a great personal tour through the Museum of the Great Patriotic War that was quite enlightening.

So I became a bit more intrigued as May 9 approached.  This is one of the most important of Russian holidays - perhaps THE most important.  It is Victory Day, marking the defeat of Germany in the Great Patriotic War (World War II).  At least in Moscow, it is celebrated with a huge military parade that goes through Red Square and with lots of fireworks in the evening.  The parade is such a big deal that the military begins practicing in early spring on various military fields.  As the day approaches, though, they do some dry runs here in Moscow in the night.  This involves blocking off a lot of streets.

Fortunately, the firm sent around an e-mail notifying us of the upcoming practice sessions.  Had this not been the case, I might have been a bit alarmed one night when I came home from work to find streets blocked of and what otherwise would have seemed like a military occupation of the street outside of my house.  Recall that I live on Tverskaya, a main drag street that ends at Red Square so this main drag becomes the entry for the parade.   Even knowing this, though, it's still a bit unsettling to not be able to sleep very well at night because there are tanks rumbling down the street outside your window.  I mean, this would've been the stuff of nightmares when I was a kid.

As fate in a global business world would have it, I had to head to Stockholm for a conference on the 9th, so I missed the actual parade and the fireworks.  I was extremely disappointed.  I also realized that there was going to be no way that I could get a taxi to the airport from my apartment because the streets would be blocked off.  But no worries, as the Metro would be running, so I'd just have to deal with hauling my luggage to the station, catch the Metro, and then connect to the Aeroexpress train to the airport at another station.  No big deal, right?

When I woke up that morning, the tanks and other military vehicles were already on Tverskaya, apparently getting into position or whatever.  See gratuitous video taken from my living room window to give you a sense of the scene.

But the real surprise awaited me when I tried to exit our building complex.  As I may have noted in previous posts, while my building is on Tverskaya, the doors to enter in a courtyard in the middle of the block.  This courtyard is accessible via two small pedestrian gates and a large archway through which cars enter the courtyard.  On this morning around 6:30 AM, the archway appeared to be blocked, which made sense as you can't have cars going out into the path of tanks.  But I was a bit surprised and then alarmed that the pedestrian gates were locked tight.  Uhhh....  So I went back to the archway to see if there was a place for pedestrians to exit there.  Nope.  Guarded by soldiers with big guns.  Uh....

Recall that I don't speak Russian, so I wasn't quite sure how to handle this.  Fortunately, though, some of my neighbors appeared to be having the same issue.  I watched as a few were initially had a relatively calm conversation with the soldiers, but it seemed to be escalating.  The soldiers would come and talk with the neighbors, then go out towards the street, perhaps to confer with a superior.  Then they'd come back, there'd be more discussions and the process repeated.  I finally asked a neighbor who looked like a young professional if he spoke English.  He did.  I asked whether the soldiers were saying that we were not allowed to leave for a specific period of time (for example, if there was something potentially dangerous outside that would be over soon) or if they were suggesting we couldn't leave until after the parade (probably 6-8 hours later).  He said it was the latter and, looking at my suitcase, asked if I had a flight.  I said I did and was just trying to get to the Metro, which apparently was the destination of him and the other neighbors.

As I was talking with this guy, I could see the soldiers kind of perking up, I assume at the speaking of English, but pretending not to listen or pay attention to what was going on.  We waited there as a group of angry sheep for a while longer as the conversations with the soldiers continued.  I finally said a bit loudly to the neighbor so the soldiers could hear as well, "I see you have an iPhone.  Would you be willing to look up the number of the US Embassy?  I could then call them and let them know that one of their citizens was being held against her will by the Russian military and perhaps they could help."  Whether coincidence or not, we were allowed to leave about a minute or two later.  I pretty much ran to the Metro to get out of there before they changed their mind.

Still wish I could have seen the parade and the fireworks, though.