A Celebration of Victory Day in Glasgow Russian School

On the 8^th of May Glasgow Russian Orthodox School celebrated the 65^th anniversary of the victory of the Soviet Union and allied countries over fascist Germany [we more often say ‘Nazi Germany’, but of course ‘fascist Germany’ is perfectly comprehensible]. At the beginning of the celebrations Fr Gennadiy Andreev, the priest in charge of the Glasgow parish of St Kentigern, conducted the prayer service composed especially for this occasion by Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia Kirill. A celebration programme was put together by the combined efforts of the teachers, children and their parents. Recordings of music of the war years were played at the concert. The teachers outlined the main events of the Great Patriotic War. The boys and girls recited poems about the war, told about the heroism their relatives had exhibited at the front and on the home front during the war years. A particularly moving part of the day was when Fr Gennadiy and Larisa Sokolovskaya fastened Saint George’s Ribbons to the children’s tops. The Saint George’s Ribbons were kindly made available for the Russian School by the Consulate-General of Russian Federation in Edinburgh. Genuine medals and other items of wartime life were displayed in the school hall. This small exhibition aroused the interest of the children and Scottish guests at the event.We are full of hope that the memory of those days will never vanish and our grand- and great-grandchildren will hear the words so dear to everyone: “This Victory Day, saturated with the smell of gunpowder …This is a holiday… This is joy… Victory Day!!! (“Victory Day” is the most popular Russian song dedicated to the World War II).