Press Release, 22.06.2015

YABLOKO’s leaders, party activists and Moscow citizens took part in a memorial action “1,418 candles per every day of the war” commemorating the victims of the Second World War. The action was held in Moscow in the night from June 21 to June 22 (the day the USSR was attacked by Hitler’s troops).

The war lasted for 1418 days and exactly this number of candles was lit.

“It’s a symbolic action, we think of everyone who died during the war – soldiers who gave their lives, civilian population who became victims of this disaster. We keep in mind the responsibility of those who started the war: in the first place, the Fascist Germany leadership, but the leaders of the Soviet Union in a lot of ways too. We will come here every time to commemorate the victims of this war. The memory of them is the guarantee that such things never again take place in the world and in our country,” said YABLOKO leader Sergei Mitrokhin.

YABLOKO founder, Political Committee member Grigory Yavlinsky emphasized that “today we are coming through the period when it is accepted to remember only victories and triumphs, glorify real and unreal achievements. A war is a tragic event in the first place. 27 million people gave their lives, there were several times more broken fates and children who haven’t been born. Everything connected with war is first of all the memory and sorrow and then the celebration of victories,” he said.

“I hope that the times of rousing marches and triumphs will pass and we will return to our true history where there is always something to be proud of, something to protect, there are mournful moments but also the monuments when one wants to say that all of us are the children of a great nation,” concluded Grigory Yavlinsky.

“If we don’t remember the history, the victims of the Second World War, we don’t understand the present. Therefore YABLOKO conducts this action annually,” said Secretary of YABLOKO Political Committee Galina Mikhaleva.

A minute of silence was announced during the action.