Victory Day Celebrations

The participants: (from Left to Right) : Praveen, Vike and Yours truly.

Victory Day... what is this?
According to Wikipedia.

Victory Day marks the capitulation of Nazi forces to the Allies (the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, the United States and other principal Allied nations) in Berlin on May 8, 1945. It is celebrated in the successor states to the Soviet Union on May 9, because when the German Instrument of Surrender was signed (in the midnight), it was already May 9 in the USSR and Eastern Europe. The US, UK and most western European countries mark Victory in Europe Day on May 8.

Victory day is celebrated in Ukraine on the 9th of May annually. This year, a few of us decided to join in the celebrations over at the port city "Sevastopol" which actually means "Magnificient" when translated from it's greek roots.

The 3 of us gathered at my place the night before. Suppose to head to bed earlier to get some rest but ended up sleeping only at 4 a.m. Vike dragged us all up at 5-plus. We were rushing as we were trying to catch the first train out at 6 a.m. Left the apartment only at 5.50... thank god it's just around the corner... but we still ran. Arrived a few minutes earlier just to find that the train is only coming at 7.14 a.m. How sad... wasted all that energy running but still a very good morning exercise. Walked to Mc'Ds for breakfast and later decided to take a bus down instead of waiting for the train.

Picture Description: Such an honor to be standing next to a world war veteran bestowed with dozens of medal of bravery. (mind the picture quality, fella holding camera probably was nervous to take the veteran's pic)

Journey there took about an hour. Found ourselves to be one of the early birds at the parade ground. Familiarized ourselves with the parade route and chose a lovely spot for ourselves. Not before long, the whole place was being filled up. Parade started at 10 a.m. sharp. It was basically a parade of all the war veterans. It was lovely to see all the appreciation by the crowd. Praveen and I certainly did not miss out on all the cheering.


( This has got to be the picture that make people go " Awwwww". My guess is that they are two veterans that ended up marrying each other)

Parade ended before we could really soak in the entire atmosphere... from there, we started our tour around the lovely sevastopol town. local people here are so warm and helpful, a HUGE difference to Simferopol, the town i'm studying in. Local People in Simferopol, if u are reading this... PLEASE learn a thing or two!!!
Walking next to the seaside definitely brought this sense of calmness over me... i'm sure everyone would agree with me.:)


Picture : Sailors from dunno which battalion marching by us.

It was not my first time in this city, therefore there the whole sightseeing experience wasn't something new though it's really good to be back after 2 years. Every trip i made to this city has only brought me wonderful memories ;)

Boarded the train back to Simferopol bout 5-ish in the evening. Super duper tired now...