Candles lit at Russia EXPO to commemorate victims of Nazi invasion
A picture made of candles has been created at the Russia EXPO at the All-Russian Exhibition Center (VDNKh) in Moscow to commemorate the victims of Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War Two and pay tribute to the wartime contribution of the ‘home front’.
The candle-lighting ceremony took place after dark on Friday as part of an international event called “The Fiery Pictures of War.” It was dedicated to the 83rd anniversary of the Nazi attack on the USSR, which took place at 4am on June 22, 1941, starting the stage of World War Two which Russia and other former Soviet countries remember as the Great Patriotic War.
The date is commemorated in Russia every year as the Day of Remembrance and Sorrow. The Soviet Union lost an estimated 27 million people in the war with Nazi Germany, and was the single greatest contributor to its defeat on May 9, 1945.
The massive picture created from candles at VDNKh was inspired by a commemorative postal stamp, “The Road to Victory. The Workers of the Home Front,” which was released in 2020. It featured an elderly steelworker, a young boy with sheaves of wheat in his hands, and a woman presenting a newly-made machine gun. The fiery image was accompanied by a caption, reading: “Russia remembers.”
There’s a famous saying in the country that ”victory was forged on the home front.”
Russia EXPO was launched in November 2023 and will continue into next month. The forum has hosted numerous cultural, scientific, and political events and has already been attended by more than 16 million visitors. Its main objective is to present the achievements of the Russian people from all of the country’s 89 federal subjects in a wide variety of sectors within a single venue.
