Pridnestrovie is celebrating the 81st anniversary of the Soviet people's victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. Official celebrations, attended by the country's top officials, began in the center of the capital with a Victory Banner Raising Ceremony. Suvorov Square gathered residents of Tiraspol and visitors were reminded of the path to the region's liberation, the Uman-Botoșani, Odessa, and Iasi-Kishinev operations, the twelve Heroes of the Soviet Union born in Pridnestrovie, and the thousands of fellow countrymen who died on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War for the sake of the peaceful skies into which, year after year, on May 9th, a scarlet banner rises – a copy of the assault flag of the 150th Order of Kutuzov, 2nd Class, Idritsa Rifle Division, hoisted over the Reichstag on May 1, 1945. The original, officially recognized as a state relic, is kept in Moscow. Pridnestrovians equally carefully preserve the copy given to the republic's residents in 2014. The names Yegorov and Kantaria are forever linked with the end of the Great Patriotic War and the historic raising of the Victory Banner. Not everyone knows that Private Ivan Palchikov, who moved to Slobodzeya after the war and lived in the fertile Pridnestrovian land for over three decades, was part of the storm group who carried out this order. He received the Order of the Patriotic War, 2nd Class, for this fateful battle. The award sheet describes how, the reconnaissance operative delivered ammunition to his comrades fighting in the German parliament building under intense enemy sniper and machine gun fire. Palchikov upon entering the battle killed nine Nazis with grenades and automatic fire and captured ten more. Climbing from floor to floor, he identified enemy firing positions, facilitating the advance of the standard-bearers, Mikhail Egorov and Meliton Kantaria, onto the roof of the Reichstag. All this is history, preserved by the Pridnestrovians as carefully as the Honor Guard Company of the Armed Forces of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic – the heirs of the Generation of Victors – maintains the victory banner today.
The Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the PMR, President Vadim Krasnoselsky, participated in the Victory Banner Raising Ceremony to mark the 81st anniversary of the Great Victory. The celebrations will continue with the Immortal Regiment march.
