RUSSIAN MILITARY MUSIC FESTIVAL FEATURING FIREWORKS

Since 2006, Russia has held a Military Music Festival with Fireworks in celebration of the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945. The event is being held at Patriot Park, a Russian military-style theme park with interactive installations and a range of military vehicles.

Like the rest of the World, whilst planning for the event has been going on since last year, they had to implement last-minute changes due to the COVID 19 pandemic. The result was that they replaced any visiting military bands with those from within Russia to avoid further spread of this awful disease.

So, the event was held before a limited number of spectators, but it was filmed and televised as an online festival, featuring all the pomp and circumstance we have come to expect on 6^th September, enabling people to still honour the lives of family members lost.

This year’s theme was “75 years – the end of the war” in honour of the 75^th anniversary of VE day across Europe and Russia. Having lost a colossal 8.6 MILLION military personnel during WW2, compared to the 384 thousand British soldiers, it is unsurprising that they were desperate to find a way to honour their dead.

At the conclusion of the military parade, the representatives from the various armed forces, bands, and musicians all lined up in perfect symmetry before Spasskaya Bashnya (Saviors Tower) as a spectacular firework and laser show lit up the skies over Red Square. The fireworks were provided by Russia’s primo display team ‘Khan of Russia’ who boasts an impressive haul of International Pyro competition trophies. A couple of years ago, the team competed at the Cannes International Fireworks Festival against the best from the rest of the world, and their efforts were described as ‘staggeringly good!’.

We are very hopeful that once we are on top of this awful virus, we will be back to normal.  But in the meantime, keeping safe is paramount.