Remembrance Day…in my country it would be the day in May, the date when the WWII ended. For every Russian it is a special day. Every family feels the effects of this war, every one has at least one relative lost to the cruel history. It is difficult to explain really, if you haven’t lived it through personally or if you haven’t heard the first-hand stories told by your loved ones, all this is just a shocking statistics. To me it is too personal. Anyway, the Remembrance Day is this kind of day when I feel the need to honour the memory and to share this duty with many others. Somehow it is more emotionally charged this way. Every year we have Remembrance service in our small town. A decent size parade, a prayer and the poppy wreaths laid to the local war memorial. Every town has one. Every year I’m deeply touched by how many people come to this event. To me this means a lot that people remember, they bring their children and teach them to remember too. It is important to never forget.
There were a lot of people this year as usual. But I have to say how appalled I am by the way local council organised it. They changed the venue for the service, the choice was very poor, many people were left standing outside without any idea of what’s going on inside the civic hall. They couldn’t even arrange the loud speakers. There wasn’t proper information of how the day was planned. This was even more upsetting when a week ago local council put up signs advertising the upcoming Christmas fair. These signs are literally within 50 meters from one another! All the same time not a single word inviting people to come and join the Remembrance ritual.
I didn't get into the overfilled hall where they conduct the service, along with hundreds of others who also didn’t fit in…many veterans among us…some stayed in a crowd by the civic hall entrance, hoping to hear at least something...myself and few others gathered around the memorial...my wish was to have my own, internal "service", since I was denied the shared one...I’ve noticed that old man standing on his own. he was dressed in his military ammunition, there was no empty space on his chest adorned with medals…his face seemed still…his eyes looked in front of him into emptiness…I cannot imagine what thoughts disturbed his mind at that moment…but standing not far away from him, I could almost feel their intensity…I believe he was thinking of his comrades that haven’t returned back home…and about how the lost of their lives has lost its meaning for the ones who organised “the function” instead of moving act of remembering…it might be my imagination, but I swear I could feel his heart’s pain and I could definitely see the tear in his eyes…the horror of this picture of a lonely figure standing in a cold in front of deserted memorial, as they took away the service into the warmth if indoors this year…it felt so eerie… there were just a few of us, still standing around the memorial, each – with his own thoughts, but I think we felt more connected to the memories of the dead then the hundreds of those who came to “tick the attendance”…
They did came out in the end of a service and embarrassingly fast have laid the wreaths…I’ve noticed how this old soldier has left the moment they finally appeared at the memorial …he obviously decided he has done what he came to do and nothing else matters really...he walked away slowly, carrying with him his memories and a bitter sense that he might be of the last generation to understand the significance of lives being given so that more lives will be spared for today…
This year I was ashamed for my town’s officials. There were plenty of local people came to honour the soldiers, they brought children to teach them how to honour…they were simply let down by unknown “function organiser” who most likely understands the word WAR only from the computer games and action movies. So sad...