Penza, 9 May 2016. PenzaNews. The city of Penza held an official event dedicated to the 71st anniversary of the Great Victory over Nazi Germany in the Great Patriotic War (the Eastern Front of the Second World War) celebrated on Monday, May 9. It took place at the Military and Labor Valor Monument.

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After the march of the “Immortal Regiment” column, with people holding banners with portraits of their relatives who made a contribution to the Great Victory, they were followed by columns of citizens.

These columns included a group of the Penza Communists, who held a Stalin March of their own. The Communists were carrying the picture of the Soviet leader, accompanied by a slogan “For the Motherland! For Stalin!”, a banner reading “Stalin – Generalissimo of the Victory,” and red flags. Their colum was headed by war veterans and homefront workers, followed by the CPRF regional committee secretaries Georgy Kamnev, Vladimir Simagin and Oleg Shalyapin, as well as a large group of young people – school and university students, and young mothers with children.

The head officials of Penza and the region, representatives of workers and athletes who participated in the Victory Day relay race assembled at the square by the monument before the official speech. The honorary places at the seats were given to the veterans: they received words of congratulation and gratitude for the Great Victory, as well as flowers, from the people who carried the banners in the Immortal Regiment.

The citizens and guests of Penza watched the guard relief ceremony by the Penza Military and Labor Valor Monument, which was followed by a children’s performance accompanied by the song “Nam Nuzhna Odna Pobeda.”

Next, the 200-meter replica of the Victory Banner was unwrapped at the square, and the soldiers brought in the 10 flags bearing the titles of the frontlines in the Great Patriotic War.

Following that, the audience enjoyed a performance of the EMERCOM cadet drum troop who played to the song “Vremya, Vperyed.”

The Penza region governor Ivan Belozertsev made a speech, during which he congratulated all people who came to Pobedy prospekt with the grand holiday and expressed his gratitude to the veterans for their courage and selflessness.

“Our compatriots who won the war wrote ‘And We Are From Penza!’ on the walls of the Reichstag. […] 242 our compatriots received the grand title of the Hero of the Soviet Union. 309 received the Order of Glory of all degrees,” said the head of the region.

The new generations of Russian people treasure and cherish the legacy of the victors, he added.

“We are a strong, unified and undefeatable country. We are the great Russia,” Ivan Belozertsev stressed.

In turn, Vladimir Kerkhanadzhev, veteran of the Battle for Stalingrad and the Battle of Kursk, chairman of the city council of war, labor, military and law enforcement veterans, wished the young people to never ever encounter the same fate as their ancestors had had to live through.

“Take care for our Russia. Help the traditions of our Russia grow tenfold. Never, ever give our country away to the invaders,” he heeded the Penza citizens.

In a parade after the speeches, the veterans and the audience watched the march of the Penza branch of the Army General Khrulev Military Academy of Material and Technical Supply, which featured students from such foreign countries as Kazakhstan and China, as well as other cadets.

To honor the legacy of the fallen soldiers, the people at the monument square held a moment of silence. It was followed by the hymn of Russia and gun salutes, as well as hundreds of white balloons released in the sky as a symbol of peace.

The solemn ceremony concluded with laying flowers and wreaths to the Military and Labor Valor Monument.