1945 жылғы Жеңіс шеруы: Нацизмге қарсы жеңістің мерекесі

Parade commemorating Soviet victory against Nazism in 1945

The 1945 Moscow Victory Parade , also known as the Parade of Victors , was a victory parade held by the Soviet Armed Forces (with the Color Guard Company representing the First Polish Army) after the defeat of Nazi Germany. This, the longest and largest military parade ever held on Red Square in the Soviet capital Moscow, involved 40,000 Red Army soldiers and 1,850 military vehicles and other military hardware. The parade lasted just over two hours on a rainy June 24, 1945, over a month after May 9, the day of Germany's surrender to Soviet commanders.

Intensive preparations for the parade took place in late May and early June in Moscow. The preliminary rehearsal of the Victory Parade took place at the Central Airfield, and the general rehearsal on Red Square on June 22. Marshals Georgy Zhukov, who had formally accepted the German surrender to the Soviet Union, and Konstantin Rokossovsky, rode through the parade ground on white and black stallions, respectively. The fact is commemorated by the equestrian statue of Zhukov in front of the State Historical Museum, on Manege Square. Zhukov's stallion was called Кумир ("Idol") while Rokossovsky's was called Столб ("Pole"). The General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin, stood atop Lenin's Mausoleum and watched the parade alongside other dignitaries present. According to certain editions of Zhukov's memoirs, Stalin had intended to ride through the parade himself, but he fell from the horse during the rehearsal and had to yield the honor to Zhukov, who used to be a cavalry officer. However, this story is disputed by former Soviet spy Viktor Suvorov. He claims that the story was inserted into Zhukov's memoirs as a counterargument to his theory, (although it apparently was in circulation earlier) that Stalin didn't lead the parade because he considered the war's results not worthy of the effort invested. Suvorov notes several inconsistencies in the story, along with numerous evidence that Zhukov was intended all along for the role of leading the parade; for example, the memoirs of Sergei Shtemenko, the man responsible at the time for the preparation of the parade, state that the roles were decided from the start, and Igor Bobylev (who took part in the preparations) claims that the story never happened and that Stalin never visited the Manege at that time. Another planned part of the parade was the march of the Victory Banner, which was delivered to Moscow from Berlin on June 20 and was supposed to begin the procession of troops. Despite this, the weak drill training of Mikhail Yegorov, Meliton Kantaria and Stepan Neustroev forced Marshal Zhukov to not go ahead with this portion of the parade.

Displays of the Red Army vehicles were some of the focal points of the ceremony. It was one of the few times in which Cossacks took part in a victory parade, with personnel from the 4th Guards Cossacks Cavalry Corps taking part in the procession of troops as part of the 2nd Ukrainian Front's combined regiment. One of the most famous moments at the end of the troops parade took place when soldiers from the Separate Operational Purpose Division of the NKVD carried the German standards and threw them down next to the mausoleum. One of the standards that was tossed down belonged to the LSSAH, Hitler's personal bodyguard. The next day, a reception was held in the Grand Kremlin Palace in honor of the participants in the Victory Parade. and ended with the performance of Slavsya. The first song after the conclusion of the inspection was the Moscow ceremonial fanfare under the direction of conductor Vasily Agapkin. The parade was opened by the young drummers of the Corps of Drums from the Moscow School of Musicians, wearing uniforms similar to those of the Moscow Suvorov Military School and led by a bandmaster, which after marching past soon took its place behind the massed bands to provide additional support. The parade ended with the Glory to the Motherland march. Additional marches have included Jaeger March, March of the 92nd Pechersk Regiment, March of the Leningrad Guards Divisions, March "Joy of Victory", March "Hero".

Outside the 1945 parade, the only parade to be held on 24 June was in 2020 in honor of the 75th anniversary of the victory. Elements of the 1945 parade were included in the 2020 parade, the most notable of which being the bands playing the Jubilee Slow March "25 Years of the Red Army" at the outset of the inspection stage. A statue of Zhukov on his parade horse is located near the State Historical Museum on Manezhnaya Square. There was an original debate over where to place the statue, with many saying that it should be located at the site of the parade, Red Square. During the 2010 Moscow Victory Day Parade, the contingent from Turkmenistan, upon request from the government of Turkmenistan, was led by an officer riding on horseback, with the horse being a descendant of the horse used during the 1945 parade. In 2008, during the celebrations of the Independence Day of South Ossetia, the annual military parade in Tskhinvali saw Georgian flags being thrown to the ground by South Ossetian militiamen, resembling how Soviet soldiers threw German flags on Red Square during the parade of 1945. In 2020, during a Victory Parade in the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinval, equestrian team from the Russian FSB took part, with the equestrian ranks being led by an officer on a stallion called Brilliant, a direct descendant of Idol. In the 2017 Moscow Victory Day Parade, officers wore the new standing collar tunic for the first time, which was supposed to resemble the uniforms officer corps in the 1945 Parade of Victors. At the 2020 parade, the Mongolian contingent wore a modified version of those uniforms and later that year, officers of the Korean People's Army wore uniforms based on those worn at the 1945 parade at a military parade on Kim Il sung Square. In the Kazakh city of Almaty, there is a street near Abay Avenue on called 24 June Street, named in honor of the first Victory Parade.