In society, the discussion about the removal of the mummified body of the leader of the revolution, Lenin, from the mausoleum, either arises or subsides. The timid performances of the Russian Orthodox Church about the "eternal flame" that burns on the grave of the "Unknown Soldier". All this: both the mummy of Lenin and the "eternal flame" are symbols of the lost Soviet state, which we built without God. We crossed out God from our life and equipped it with pagan temples, more in line with the aesthetics of the Egyptian priesthood than the traditions of the Russian people. And when the "painful" question arises: who lives in Russia, "Russians" or "Russians", then, remembering the accepted symbols of the Soviet state, we must admit that so far Soviet people live in Russia. And yet, the Pskov Information Agency decided to ask the representatives of our Church, the priests of the Pskov diocese, the question of the symbolism of the "eternal flame", so that they would clarify our confused idea of ​​state symbols in our lives.

The head of the information service of the Pskov diocese, priest Andrey Taskaev:

“It is clear to all sensible people that the communist authorities did not invent anything new in building the Soviet state, but God was removed from the life of the country, and they tried to remove everything connected with God or replace: icons with portraits of communist leaders, prayer with communist hymns, religious processions- demonstrations, Divine services - party meetings, God, the Name of God was replaced by the slogan "The Party is the mind, honor and conscience of our era", etc. An absolutely sinless party could not be discussed or criticized, and a bright future - communism was nothing but a "carbon copy" of the Gospel Kingdom of God. Only the Kingdom of God is not of this world, but the kingdom that the communists built, is earthen. This is how a complete substitution of values ​​took place, and this substitution had such a strong impact on the moral level of the people that people have noticeably changed in more than eighty years and lost many traditions Orthodox people. But eighty years in history is nothing, one hundred - one hundred and fifty years will pass and this period will look terrible, bloody, but a short period of time. For us, who live in this time, these eighty years have not passed quickly: there is not a single generation that has not been touched by the communist hydra. That is why, when you realize the substitution, you are surprised at how people quickly got used to it and consider it normal. The same booze - commemorations at the cemetery, you ask: "Why are you drinking at the cemetery? - and they answer you: It's always been done that way, all my life." "So always" and "all my life" is how much? And it turns out that they don’t even know if grandparents did this, but mom and dad did, and often our parents don’t know grandparents at all. The communist government, when it came, tore parents from children, a huge number of people were forced to forget their parents, betray them. And now these grandchildren, who have grown up without remembering their grandparents, already have grandchildren themselves, swear and say: "it's been like that all my life, it's always been done." Is always eighty years? For people, eighty years is really a huge period, and for them it is "always", and what happened before that is of no interest to anyone. Even at school I was struck by the fact, I don’t know how it is now, that thousand years of history We studied Russia for several months, and the sixty-year history of the Soviet Union and the CPSU for several years, my childish mind was not enough to understand this then.

Our people do not know history and it is of little interest to them, probably because of some life problems: we need to make ends meet, get our bread, raise children - there is no time for history, not before how Russia lived before the revolution, and it’s not at all interesting to know about symbolism. And so today we are going on May 9 on Victory Day to the "eternal fire", forgetting the well-known curse "you will burn in hell in hell" - this is what eternal fire is in meaning. And we pray at the "eternal fire", remembering our heroic ancestors, our brave fathers. What's this? A hint that they will burn in eternal fire? Is it really impossible to find another place where you can serve a memorial service and remember the heroes? We have many war memorials, I like the way the Yubileinaya memorial is kept in Pskov - after all, you can pay tribute to the memory of our heroes there, pray at their graves. And we do it near the "eternal flame", at the monument to the "Unknown Soldier". And here is the "eternal flame" and the Unknown Soldier, represented by a five-pointed Masonic star, in which the fire of Gehenna burns. Maybe those who understand symbolism will think about whether we need to remember our soldiers with this satanic sign of eternal fire? It turns out that our ancestors are worthy of this fire? But people do not think about it and will say again: "it has always been like that." Meanwhile, I’ll tell you a story, one researcher - an architect was looking for "chimeras" in Moscow - such strange, symbolic, crazy buildings, and unearthed that until the 30th year there was a public toilet in one place in Moscow, then it was demolished and forgotten that there was a toilet, and when they began to make a memorial to the Unknown Soldier, for some reason the Soviet authorities decided to erect a memorial to the Unknown Soldier at this place of the former toilet, and they threw the remains of the soldiers into the manure and buried it. They put up a pedestal, lit a fire - now it is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which is very similar to a mockery. To prevent this from happening, the symbolism must be known and understood. It would be nice if our government took care of creating a monument to the 60th anniversary of the Victory in Pskov, worthy of our victorious soldiers, of course, we must return to the cross, which has traditionally been placed in Russia for thousands of years on the graves of soldiers."

Rector of the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker in Lyubyatovo, Archpriest Vladimir Popov: "The trouble with our country is that we still do not have a legal assessment of the events of 1917 and subsequent years communist power. International communism has not yet been condemned, like, for example, German National Socialism or Italian fascism. A legal assessment of the deeds of this Lenin-Trotsky-Stalin clique and their followers must be given in order to cleanse the country of the ambiguity that is still there, and it is disorienting people. We live in an environment of myths, for example, we celebrate the birthday of the army, which was born not on February 23, 1918, but many centuries earlier, and so with many other dates in our history. Now the communist factions want to organically merge into our further history, but this should not be.

One of the heavy legacies of the communist time is the worship of "eternal fire". By itself, this fire goes back to the atheistic fire of Prometheus, and Prometheus is the image of Lucifer, who taught man to use fire, and fire is a symbol of reason, struggle, imaginary enlightenment. But the main thing in this whole situation is that, while performing litias and requiems for our soldiers at the "eternal fire", we agree that these soldiers are in the same place where Lenin and Stalin are. Forgetting that our warriors, ordinary Russian guys, as a rule, rural, laid down their lives at 18-20 years old, but were brought up at a time when God had not yet been expelled from the provincial hinterland of Russia. To commemorate our dead at the "eternal fire" is simply blasphemous. The "eternal flame" reminds me more of the fire of Chernobyl than any other. Moreover, this arrangement of temples with "eternal fire" is completely alien to our Orthodox culture, Russian culture. Better yet, a forgotten grave with a cross standing over it - this is how Russian soldiers were buried from time immemorial, wherever they laid their heads, there was always a grave, and there was a cross - this is a worthy memory of a Russian soldier. Because when he died, he died like a Christian, with the knowledge that "there is no sacrifice higher than that of one who lays down his life for his friends." This was the meaning of the sacrifice of the Russian soldier and the meaning of the eternal remembrance of the living, who remained grateful to him. The Church needs to take a firmer stand that the worship of "eternal fire" is unacceptable from an Orthodox point of view. If the event of commemoration is connected with public holidays, panikhidas should still be served only in churches, and only there, or the "eternal fires" should be abolished and real Christian monuments to Russian soldiers - crosses - put in their place.

Rector of the military church of St. Alexander Nevsky in Pskov, Archpriest Oleg Teor: “In some city there was a difficult financial situation, there was no money for gas, and then the “eternal flame” was extinguished. “Eternal flame” on the graves of the fallen is a wrong concept and wrong terminology. As a technical the device "eternal flame" can fail - there is no money, the mechanism becomes obsolete, burners wear out, etc. Eternal is permanent, for all time, there may be "eternal glory" and "eternal memory" - this is when people remember the heroes, what is especially clear for believers: eternal memory is eternal life with God. And according to the ideas of believers, eternal fire is the fire that burns in hell, so it really is eternal. Only hell fire is eternal, it torments and burns, and If on earth a person gets used to torment, then in hell one cannot get used to it, this is terrible torment.We mixed up the terminology, and, it turned out, confused the meaning.

Requiem services should not be served at the "eternal fire", but where they are traditionally served - in cemeteries, memorials. Perhaps, near the monument to the liberation of Pskov, put a cross and an "Inextinguishable lamp" instead of an "eternal flame". We, in the churches of Russia, have thousands of lamps constantly burning day and night - they are called the "Inextinguishable Lampada". In general, in ancient times, the offering to the dead was not the smell of gas, but incense, the fragrance of incense. We also put an incense with coal on a pedestal for memorial services at the "Derzhavnaya" Chapel and put incense - everything smells fragrant around.

At the site of the death of Alexander Matrosov in Chernushki, we put a cross, because crosses were put up on the graves of our soldiers during the war - these were their first monuments.

Instead of the "eternal flame" you can put a beautiful forged cross and light the "Inextinguishable lamp" - there will be a worthy monument to our soldiers, and near it you can perform requiems. Such a monument will be like a revival Orthodox tradition commemoration of those who died in the war, and many can participate in its creation: donate funds for oil, for forging the cross.

We remind our readers that the biblical concept of "eternal fire" is fiery hell, hell, hell, arranged by God for Satan and devils. In eternal fire, the bodies and souls of sinners also burn in terrible torment. The Lord says: "these are the corpses of people who have departed from Me, for their worm will not die, and their fire will not be quenched" (Is., 66, 24); "Depart from Me, damnation, into eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels" (Matt. 25:41); "And death and hell are cast into the lake... of fire and brimstone... and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever!" (Rev. 20, 10, 14). BUT Orthodox people in their prayers they ask the Lord: "Deliver me the eternal fire, and the evil worm, and tartar." Therefore, in Orthodox Holy Russia, in general, there could never even be any monument with eternal fire - it would be perceived as a satanic temple.

http://informpskov.ru/print/28255.html

Methodical development class hour, dedicated to the Day Great Victory.

Class hour “They don’t put crosses on mass graves”

There is little time left until we celebrate the 68th anniversary of the Victory Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War. The Soviet Union lost about 26 million human lives. About 2 million soldiers and officers were missing. The fate of many is still unknown.

Crosses are not placed on mass graves

And the widows weep at them,

Someone brings bouquets of flowers to them

And the eternal flame is lit.

Here the earth used to rear up,

And now - granite slabs.

There is no personal fate here

All destinies are merged into one.

And in the eternal flame you can see a flashing tank,

Burning Russian huts,

Burning Smolensk and burning Reichstag,

The burning heart of a soldier.

There are no weeping widows on mass graves,

Stronger people go here.

Crosses are not placed on mass graves,

But does that make it easier?

Why do you think they don’t put crosses on mass graves? (Answers of children)

Indeed, the cross denotes a person's belonging to the Christian religion. Cross, crescent, six-pointed star and other symbols - symbols different religions. A mass grave is the burial of people without a name, without a surname, without a title, who are still missing. How many of them, mass graves? Thousands? Tens of thousands?

The problem of establishing the fate of missing servicemen during the Great Patriotic War still remains very acute. We, the current generation, cannot afford to let it drag on for decades. It is necessary to do everything possible so that the memorable words “No one is forgotten, nothing is forgotten” turn into a deed, so that the memory of the war heroes is sacredly kept by our people, so that their descendants know their names.

A few years ago, a photograph of a military chronicle was shown on one of the TV shows. It has a machine gunner on it. Who is this soldier? Whose son, brother, husband, father? Letters. Dozens of letters. Sheets torn from a notebook with traces of tears.

“... Mother kept crying. My father wiped her tears with the edge of his cap, lit a cigarette, and I looked at his face for the last time and remember every line. It's him. Do you hear? He!…".

“…Look. He has a chipped fingernail right hand. Believe me, this is my father…”

“...Khabarovsk. February eighteenth. My dears, this is my brother. Vanya Skvortsov, he fought near Kyiv. I don't know where he died. On what land was he buried?…”

The letters kept coming and going and going.

The soldier's last name is now set. This is Polikarpov Nikolai Mikhailovich.

In May 1944, Nikolai Mikhailovich wrote to his brother: “May 9, 1944. I am in the hospital after being wounded. The leg is almost normal, I walk. And the doctor does not let go to the front. If my Evdokia is alive, bow to her and the children. And yet ... say - we will win everything back. I will crawl, but I will not give offense to our land. ”

Nikolai Polikarpov died in July 1944 in Poland.

There are events that, after decades, are erased from the memory of people and become the property of archives. But there are events whose significance not only does not decrease with time, but, on the contrary, acquire special significance with each new decade, become immortal. Such events include the Victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War.(Presentation “No one is forgotten, nothing is forgotten”)

Let's honor the memory of those who died during the Great Patriotic War with a moment of silence. (There is a minute of silence in the background of the last slide from the presentation).

The victory in the Second World War came to us at a very high price. The fate of thousands of people remained unexplained. Until now, the search for the burial places of the dead soldiers continues. In order to organize work to perpetuate the memory of the fallen defenders of the Fatherland and put into practice the slogan “No one is forgotten, nothing is forgotten,” the President of the Russian Federation issued a number of instructions and decrees.

In accordance with the Decree of January 22, 2006 “Issues of perpetuating the memory of those who died defending the Fatherland”, the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation created a Generalized Computer Data Bank containing information about the defenders of the Fatherland who died and went missing during the Second World War, as well as in the post-war period.

The main goal of the project is to enable millions of citizens to determine the fate or find information about the dead relatives and friends and determine the place of their burial.

The implementation of the technical part of the project - the creation and content of the OBD Memorial website (www.obd-memorial.ru) was entrusted to a specialized organization - the Corporation "Electronic Archive".

The data for filling the Generalized Data Bank are taken from official archival documents stored in the Central Archive of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation and in the Military Memorial Center in the Military Forces Russian Federation. The main array of documents is reports of combat units about irretrievable losses, other archival documents specifying losses (funerals, documents from hospitals and medical battalions, trophy cards of Soviet prisoners of war, etc.), as well as passports of burial places of Soviet soldiers and officers.

On the site you can find information about the rank of the deceased, the unit in which he served, the date of the cause of death (killed, died of wounds, went missing) and the place of burial. Moreover, the site contains scanned copies of all processed primary source documents containing information about personalities. These documents make it possible to identify the fallen with great accuracy, since they often contain Additional Information, in particular the names and addresses of relatives to whom funerals were sent.

Within the framework of the project, about 10 million sheets of archival documents and over 30,000 passports of military graves were provided for Internet access. For the first time, you will be able to get acquainted with real documents, independently conduct searches and research. To date, no other country in the world has such a data bank.

The memorial is a worthy monument to all the soldiers who died and went missing in the defense of our Motherland, in practice realizing the slogan: "No one is forgotten, nothing is forgotten."

The war, long after the Victory, was catching up with its soldiers. They died from old wounds, diseases. In hospitals and at home. They were buried quietly, without salutes and funeral speeches. Those who could not find relatives were brought from hospitals to cemeteries. Over their graves put simple tablets with surname, initials, dates of birth and death. It was assumed that, having recovered from military devastation, the country would immortalize the names of its defenders in granite and marble. No one will be forgotten, nothing will be forgotten?

In the yard - the sixty-first victorious spring. Over the years, many monuments and obelisks have indeed been erected. Those who did not return from the bloody fields. What if he did come back and died from his wounds? Or not from wounds, from diseases or some other misfortune?

There is a tiny military cemetery in Serpukhov, which joined the old one, Zanarsky. A modest picket fence lined up in a kind of rectangle - there is nowhere to turn around here. Burials are tightly pressed to each other. The area was saved, it immediately catches the eye. But the current state of the soldiers' graves cuts the nerves even more. They are slowly disappearing. No one has ever corrected the mounds during the years of their existence. No one erected monuments to the soldiers. Even simple metal pyramids. Only stakes, in some places crowned with stars.

... First, the stars fell off, followed by the plates with the names of the fighters. About a third of the local graves no longer have any indication of whose burial it is. Some tablets lie on the ground or are leaning against stakes. But the names can already be read with difficulty: soldier Smirnov (1920-1946), soldier Ivanov (1933-1955), soldier Markov V.N., soldier Efremov M.I., senior sergeant Starkov (1920-1952), soldier Prapov ( however, perhaps, and Krapov, it is almost impossible to make out the letters) ...

In this mournful row comes across a fresher inscription: Guards Lieutenant Izhutin Alexander Efimovich (1923-1947). It seems that one of the relatives found the grave and managed to update the tablet during his lifetime. Judging by the crumbling mound, it was a long time ago.

There are no signs of care for the grave of cadet Alexander Georgievich Ryabov (1925-1945). But here the memory of Alexander is kept by granite.

An old woman in a headscarf used to come here and bring flowers. She probably died. No one else walks, - Larisa Nikolaevna Selezneva said sadly, whose only son Nikolai, who died in Afghanistan, is buried in the same cemetery. His grave stands out for its grooming. However, neighboring burials are always cleaned up.

Here, to the former cadet Vladimir Morozov, no one goes either. He died a long time ago, in 1956, and I try to maintain order here, too, - the woman says in a tired voice. Turning a little, she shows another burial, where not even a mound is left. But with a caring hand, artificial flowers are laid out over the entire surface.

Someone young is also lying next to my Kolenka. The nameplate has long been lost. But I saw this guy in a dream: young, fair. I talked to him. More precisely, he asked why no one puts some water in a glass for him. Since then, I have been pouring water on him.

Before the deadline, the gray-haired mother pulls the grass that has broken through with learned movements, leaving only flower shoots.

They steal flowers. I will not have time to plant, I will come, but they are already gone. How are people not afraid of God?

Then Larisa Nikolaevna says that usually after Easter she manages to decorate other ownerless graves.

People come to their relatives to clean up the Zanarsky cemetery. Old wreaths, artificial flowers are thrown away a lot. And I’ll pick up those that are better, wash them in a basin with washing powder and take them to all the guys - so they have a holiday, ”she circles the military cemetery with her hand. - True, the flowers will be stolen again, but at least a day or two our guys will rejoice.

- "Our" - whose is it?

From the question, the woman is a little lost. But then he explains:

That's who here at least sometimes comes to bow to the graves, for those and ours.

This conversation happened to me last spring. I didn’t find the current Larisa Nikolaevna at the cemetery ...

She just left, - explained the cadets of the Serpukhov Military Institute, who were cleaning up garbage heaps in the neighborhood. It is noticeable that they also worked with a rake at the military cemetery. But no more changes here.

Our cadets come here every year in the spring, - Vasily Zakharov and Salavat Imut explain, judging by the stripes on the sleeves, they are first-year students.

We were ordered to remove the garbage from here, we clean it.

Will you come in the summer when the grass grows to the height of a man?

Don't know. We will come if they send, - Salavat is responsible for two. He looks around and notices: - Here, probably, our cadets are lying, only long dead. There are no graves, no stars left, it’s even scary somehow, - the guy shudders, as if a cold blew from somewhere.

There are no relatives left, so no one needs them anymore, - his friend states.

I don’t have anyone either, - Salavat almost whispers and explains that he lost his parents when he was barely twelve. Since then, he grew up as a "son of a regiment" at military units in Saratov, in the Penza region. I came to the Serpukhov Military Institute by direction.

This higher institution became an institute about five years ago. And so there was a flight school here during the war, then a school for strategic missile forces. Traditionally, the dead cadets were buried in this small cemetery, next to the hospital graves. And who would have thought that this mournful corner would eventually become a place for walking dogs. They are brought here from neighboring mansions. Close the gate - and the site is ready.

This barbarism was told by a woman who was cleaning a grave not far from military graves. She also offered to see for comparison how the burials of German and Hungarian prisoners of war are kept.

Walk a hundred meters from our military cemetery. The order here is perfect. Not sticks stick out of the graves - cast-iron crosses, made for centuries. In their arrangement, in the design of the cemetery itself, one can feel the hand of the designer. On a large marble slab is engraved: "Prisoners of war - victims of the Second World War are buried here."

In the cemetery, it is probably a sin to moralize. But about the “victims” - this is still coolly said. Well, okay, what now to disturb their ashes? But it's unbearably insulting for the winners. It turns out that they are victims. Victims of our unconsciousness. It is we who are shouting about eternal memory from the stands to the whole world, but in the cemetery, at our side, we cannot bring military burials back to normal.

But as an obligation - by the next Victory Day, either a new stove will appear somewhere, or an obelisk. But there is no guarantee that in twenty or thirty years they will not be abandoned.

70 years ago, victorious salutes died down throughout the Soviet country in honor of the end of the Great Patriotic War - the most cruel and bloody in the history of mankind. Millions of Soviet citizens celebrated this unforgettable day with joy and tears in their eyes. But the bitterness of those losses has not let humanity forget the horrors of war for 70 years now.

I remember one incident. I'm on a bus to another city. In the center of each town and village stands a monument to the Unknown Soldier with the obligatory Eternal Flame. 90s, everything is falling apart. The people are angry, confused. Poverty, collapse and collapse of everything that seemed unshakable ... And the Eternal Flame is burning! I don't know why, but that's exactly what caught my eye. Suddenly I hear a loud remark from a middle-aged woman: “The country is in devastation, poverty, and they are firing gas! Who needs it now?! It would be better to save money!” The bus was just passing by another monument to the Unknown Soldier. It cut to the heart.

Silence fell on the bus, and no one objected to the scandalous aunt. The indifference of people shocked more than these crazy phrases. She could not stand it, she answered, without addressing anyone: “This is not necessary for the dead, this is necessary for the living!” And again, silence in response ... So, in complete silence and tension hanging in the air, we reached the final destination. One, apparently, became ashamed, the other was, as before, all the same ...

How many of them, unknown soldiers, are still lying in the fields and forests from Moscow to Berlin! How many mothers never found out where the graves of their sons were. How many widows and orphans could not find a place to mourn their dead husbands and fathers, if not for these monuments to the Unknown Soldier in every village and town of our long-suffering land.

Every year on May 9, millions of people go to bow to the Soviet soldiers who fell in the Great Patriotic War to monuments and memorials where the Eternal Flame burns, as a tribute to our eternal memory about them - the famous and nameless heroes who saved the world from the brown plague.

The most famous memorial "Tomb of the Unknown Soldier" was erected in Moscow in the Alexander Garden on May 8, 1967. In December 1966 on the eve of the battle near Moscow, it was decided to transfer the remains of an unknown soldier from the burial place at the 41st kilometer of the Leningrad highway to the Kremlin Wall. First, the idea arose to create a monument to the soldiers who died for Moscow. In the process, it became clear that the monument should be nationwide. This could be only a monument to the Unknown Soldier. Specially developed a solemn ritual of burial. Already early morning December 6, 1966 the entire Gorky Street was filled with hundreds of thousands of people. The ashes of the unknown soldier were carried on a gun carriage, accompanied by a funeral cortege until Manezhnaya Square. In the mournful silence, the cry of people was heard. The last meters of the coffin were carried by prominent members of the government and Marshal Rokossovsky.

Footage of the chronicle about this has been preserved:

May 7, 1967 from the Eternal Flame on the Field of Mars in Leningrad, a torch was lit and delivered by relay to Moscow to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. According to witnesses, there was a living human corridor along the entire road from Leningrad to Moscow. In Moscow, the torch was received by the legendary pilot, Hero of the Soviet Union, Alexei Maresyev, and the Eternal Flame was lit by Secretary General L. Brezhnev. An eyewitness wrote: “I saw men crying and women praying. People froze, trying not to miss the most important moment - the lighting of the Eternal Flame.

Everyone who was involved in the creation of this monument had the feeling that this was the most important thing in their lives, that it was forever.

What force raised in those years millions of our Soviet people in a mortal battle with fascism? For the sake of what our grandfathers and great-grandfathers, without hesitation, went to the last mortal battle? Is there another such people on Earth, capable of sacrificing themselves for the sake of saving others?

Here is how Friedrich Wilhelm von Mellenthin wrote about Russian soldiers in the book Tank Battles 1939-1945:

“It can almost be said with certainty that no cultured Westerner will ever understand the character and soul of Russians. Knowledge of the Russian character can serve as a key to understanding the fighting qualities of a Russian soldier, his advantages and methods of his struggle on the battlefield ... You can never say in advance what a Russian will do: as a rule, he shied from one extreme to another.

His nature is as unusual and complex as this vast and incomprehensible country itself. It is difficult to imagine the limits of his patience and endurance, he is unusually bold and courageous ... "

Today, all the riddles of the Russian soul, so mysterious for the inhabitants of the West, and for ourselves, have been unraveled by the Systemic Vector Psychology of Yuri Burlan.

It's all about our unique mentality. Due to the harsh climatic conditions, it has never been possible to survive alone in the endless forest-steppes of Russia, people must help each other, and the common is always more important than the personal. That is why Soviet soldiers went into mortal combat, not sparing their lives - for the sake of future generations. Therefore, they did not take into account deprivations and personal difficulties - for the sake of preserving the common. That is why the following inscription is carved on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Moscow: “YOUR NAME IS UNKNOWN. YOUR FEAT IS IMMORTAL.”

Where are we going today - their descendants? What are we focusing on? What can we give to the world? Why is the personal more important for us now than the general? Did our grandfathers and great-grandfathers think about such our future, freezing in the trenches under heavy fire of enemy guns?

How little we do in memory of the fallen when we come to honor them on May 9! We must build another world in memory of their sacrifices, for our sake. A world where there is no room for hatred towards each other. And it is in Russia that this is possible as nowhere else on earth.

The article was written using materials