Press Release, 8.05.2024

On 8 May, on the eve of Victory Day, the day of the victory over the Nazi Germany in 1945, members of the St. Petersburg Yabloko laid a wreath and flowers at the Motherland monument at the Piskarevskoye memorial cemetery.

The delegation of the St. Petersburg branch of Yabloko was headed by Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov, Yabloko Deputy Chairman Boris Vishnevsky, and Chairman of the St. Petersburg Yabloko Alexander Shishlov. The ceremony was also attended by ” Dmitry Anisimov, a member of the Bureau of the St. Petersburg Yabloko, members of the Regional Council, Chairman of the Primorsky District branch of the party Oleg Maksakov, and Chairman of the Nevsky District branch Sergei Troshin.

“We once again honoured the memory of the victims of the Second World War. Memory of those who, at the cost of their own lives, brought peace to our planet. A peace that we failed to safeguard. But we must return it,” Nikolai Rybakov said.

“We were all affected by the war: there is not a single family which members did not fight, defending Leningrad at the front, or worked in the rear. The memory of war, suffering and sacrifice will always be with us. And we will always have an understanding of the extraordinary importance of peace,” Alexander Shishlov emphasised.

““If only there were no war” – those who survived the war lived with these words for the post-war decades. They understood that war was a terrible tragedy and that it could not be allowed to happen again. Today we feel especially acutely the value of peace and the need for a ceasefire, so that every day does not bring sad news of new victims and destruction,” Boris Vishnevsky said.

The Piskarevskoye Memorial Cemetry is the largest mass burial ground in the world: 500,000 people are buried here – victims of the Leningrad siege and soldiers of the Leningrad Front. Most of the deaths occurred in the winter of 1941-1942.