Over 2,500 people joined Kazan University’s Immortal Regiment procession on Victory Day

The traditional event gathered millions of people all across the country.

In particular, Acting Rector Dmitry Tayursky carried photos of both of his grandfathers – Georgy Tayursky and major general Vasily Morozov. He noted,

“Victory Day is important both for every single person and for the whole people. Our young people should understand that what was done then was aimed at saving the independence and the freedom of our nation. That’s why we are here, and we are united.”

Vice-Rector for Earth Sciences Danis Nurgaliev, both of whose grandfathers also went to the fronts of the Great Patriotic War, shared,

“Victory Day for me is a meeting with my relatives who are no longer with us.”

The same is true for Vice-Rector for Maintenance Lenar Safiullin,

“It’s a day of mixed feelings: on one hand, it’s the pride for our people and for our Fatherland who withstood the ‘brown plague’ [a common colloquial term in Russia for the combined threat of national socialism and fascism – translator’s note]; on the other hand, it’s a lump in the throat because millions of people, basically a whole generation of people sacrificed their lives for us to be able to grow up and choose our own paths. The last living witnesses of those days are leaving us every day. Our duty is to remember the history and our heroes, to be proud of them and to bring up our children with dignity.”

Master student Maria Dvinskikh also took two portrait photos with her,

“Both of my grandfathers were servicemen in the war, and both grandmothers contributed to the efforts on the home front.”

In the Republic of Tatarstan alone, 369 thousand people joined the Immortal Regiment of 2022, 170 thousand of them in the capital city of Kazan.