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The war, which came to be regarded as a tragedy by nearly every Soviet family, was, nonetheless, won by the Soviet Union. May 9 was proclaimed by Soviet authorities as Victory Day in commemoration of the USSR's victory in the Great Patriotic War.
Moscow's Red Square hosted the Victory Parade June 24, 1945, thus ushering in a long-standing tradition.
War veterans meet each other every May 9; official functions and concerts are also organized. Wreaths and flowers are laid at war memorials and common graves; moreover, honor guards are posted there. Apart from that, funeral services are conducted in every Russian church and cathedral.
Fireworks displays, i.e. artillery salutes, are organized on day in every Hero City, as well as in other Russian and some former Soviet cities from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean, i.e. Kaliningrad, Rostov-on-Don, Samara, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Chita, Khabarovsk, Vladivostok, Severomorsk and Sevastopol. Incidentally, Moscow hosted the first 1.000-gun artillery salute May 9, 1945
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