On May 10th in Sochi, where Vladimir Putin participated in the games of the Night Hockey League, the president again raised the issue of Victory Day celebration and told Pavel Zarubin in an interview what the Immortal Regiment means to him personally.
Vladimir Putin: How could my father walk along the square in 1945? He couldn't. He limped all his life and died with a grenade fragment in his leg. Could such people walk across Red Square in the Victory Parade? No. But it was they, ordinary soldiers, who secured the victory. And they secured it at a huge price. I remember my feelings when I first walked across Red Square with a portrait of my father. Do you know what thought came to me? He couldn't do it. But I can at least walk with his portrait. He deserves it. I think that when hundreds of thousands of people walk with portraits of their loved ones that participated in the war, they probably think about it, too.
- When we talked with you during the Immortal Regiment yesterday, the weather was great, the sun was shining brightly, and literally, an hour and a half later a powerful thunderstorm began in Moscow.
- Despite the bad weather, almost a hurricane, people still walked along Red Square. You know, it doesn't surprise me. I talked about it yesterday. When people walk across the Red Square and hold portraits of their relatives, participants in the Great Patriotic War, they realize that they hold portraits of heroes. After all, all of the participants in the war, participants in the hostilities, homefront workers are heroes because they died at the machine tools in the rear, let alone those who fought. To rise and cry "For the Motherland, for Stalin!", as they shouted then, face the guns, and go to certain death, that means a lot. All of them are heroes. But what does it mean to walk with a portrait? It means to realize yourself that their blood is in our veins, that in our genes are the same things that our grandfathers, grandmothers, fathers, and mothers had. And what does it mean? It means that each of us imagines oneself doing the same thing and thinks, subconsciously at least, that we can do that, that we inherited such potential and opportunities. If something happens, we'll respond properly in a particular life situation.
