About hundred of activists and advocates of the YABLOKO party participated in YABLOKO’s traditional 1,418 Candles per a Day of War action commemorating the beginning of the Great Patriotic War (the date of Hitler’s attack on the USSR commemorated in Russia as the Memory and Grievance Day). The action took place by the memorial to the moscovites who protected the city in the Second World War situated at Autozavodskaya square.
From 10 p.m., June 21, YABLOKO activists lit up candles by the basement of the monument. Everyone could participate in the action. Families with children, old age couples, passers-by – all these people joined YABLOKO’s action and lit a candle in memory of the victims of the war.
There were no political speeches or party’s symbols. When all the candles were lit up the organiser of the action Ivan Bolshov announced a minute of silence, which virtually lasted more than a minute.
Members of the Political Committee of the YABLOKO party Viktor Sheinis and Grigory Yavlinsky, members of the party Bureau Valery Borschyov and Alexei Melnikov, Chair of the Moscow City Duma Education Commission Eugeni Bunimovich participated in the action.
In St.Petersburg members of the Youth YABLOKO organisation gathered by the monument “The Ice-Hole of the Siege” at the Fontanka embankment (it is where city-dwellers took water during the Leningrad siege). YABLOKO’s activists also lit up 1,418 candles there – a candle per a day of war.
YABLOKO regularly holds such actions at night on June 21.
See also:
Photographs from the action
at the Moscow YABLOKO web-site
Photoes by Grigory Pashukevich in his blog
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