Victory Day (9 May)

When it falls

9 May every year, a public holiday in Russia and most of the former Soviet states. Germany's surrender took effect late on 8 May 1945 in Berlin, which was already the ninth in Moscow.

The Phala almanac gives the exact day for your own city; the lunar and solar rules above are what it computes from.

The story

The end of the Great Patriotic War, as Russia names its part in the Second World War, in which some twenty-seven million Soviet citizens died. The first Victory Parade was held on Red Square in June 1945, with the captured German standards thrown at the foot of the Lenin mausoleum; the day was a working day for most of the Soviet years and became a public holiday in 1965.

The Immortal Regiment began in Tomsk in 2012: people carrying photographs of their relatives who fought, so that the dead march too. It spread to every city and to the diaspora in the years after, and is now the day's largest procession, with the President walking in it carrying his father's picture.

How the day is kept

• The Victory Parade on Red Square at ten in the morning: the troops, the armour, the flypast and the veterans in the stands, watched across the country.
• The Immortal Regiment march in the afternoon; wreaths at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and at every war memorial in every town.
• The St George ribbon of orange and black worn on the lapel from late April; red carnations given to veterans.
• The minute of silence at seven in the evening, and the fireworks salute at ten in Moscow and the hero cities.

More national days