Everybody has personal holidays, which are very important, and shared ones, which have become a good tradition. But there are few holidays which were gained through sufferings and are celebrated by everyone, regardless of opinions, creed or convictions. Victory Day is one of them. It has embraced pain and pride, joy and confidence in future.
Happy Victory Day!
1712 The Tula armament factory, the first in Russia, is founded.
1909 (April 26, Old Style)
The monument to N.V. Gogol by N.L. Andreev is unveiled in Arbatskaya Square in Moscow.
1945 Soviet troops liberate Prague in the last battle of the Great Patriotic War.
1945 Levitan, the famous news reader, announces the victory in the war against the Nazi Germany at 6 a.m.
1945 For the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941 – 1945, a medal, is instituted.
1945 Lyudmila Shagalova and Vyacheslav Shumsky get married. The war is over. She will soon be a famous actor and he will become a famous cinema camera man.
1958 Mikhail Botvinnik defeats Vasily Smyslov, retrieving the world chess champion’s title.
1960 The United States says it stops reconnaissance flights over the USSR, two days after N.S. Khrushchev announced that Gary Powers, the pilot of the U-2 spy jet, shot down in the country, is alive and testifies.
1993 Russian pop legend Alla Pugacheva marries Filipp Kirkorov at the St. Trinity Cathedral in Jerusalem.
1994 The Russian president’s decree institutes the Order of Zhukov and the Medal of Zhukov.
1995 The Memorial Complex by Zurab Tsereteli in Poklonnaya Hill and the monument to G.K. Zhukov in Manezhnaya Square are opened in Moscow to mark the 50th anniversary of the V-Day.
2002 A bomb sets off at the military orchestra’s parade in Dagestan’s town of Kaspiysk, leaving 43 people dead and 177 more injured. Children account for almost half of the casualties in the blast.
Births
1849 Vitold Karlovich Tserasky
(1849 – May 29, 1925)
astronomer, director of the Astronomical Observatory of the Moscow University.
1871 Nikolay Evgrafovich Fedoseev
(1871 – July 4, 1898)
one of the first propagandists of Marxism in Russia.
1924 Bulat Shalvovich Okudzhava
(1924 – June 12, 1997)
poet.
1932 Igor Vadimovich Ledogorov
(1932 – February 10, 2005)
film and theater actor. He spent his last years with the family in New Zealand.
1941 Inna Iosifovna Gulaya
(1941 – May 27, 1990)
film actress (When the Trees Were Tall, Time, Forward!)
1950 Alexander Nikolaevich Kharchevsky
(1950)
ace pilot, major general and chief of Lipetsk-based Chkalov Center for Fight Adaption and Additional Training for Pilots of Front Aviation.
1952 Viktor Mikhailovich Reznikov
(1952 – February 25, 1992)
composer, songwriter and singer.
1962 Valery Petrovich Todorovsky
(1962)
film director and producer.
1967 Fyodor Sergeevich Bodnarchyuk
(1967)
music videos and film director and actor.
Deaths
1945 Nikolay Petrovich Osipov
(28.1.1901 - 1945)
balaika virtuoso, conductor and tutor.
1991 Yanka Dyagileva
(September 4, 1966 - 1991)
singer, she died throwing herself into the river.
2004 Akhmad Kadyrov
(August 23, 1951 - 2004)
Chechen president. Died in a terrorist attack.
