A day when Russia remembered 26 million war dead

Tverskaya is Moscow's main artery. Traffic roars up and down its 10 lanes that lead from the Kremlin out of town, past Sheremetyevo Airport and onwards to Tver and St Petersburg. When it rains, the cars and buses slow to a halt in some of the biggest and most frustrating traffic jams imaginable.

Yesterday there was no traffic and no rain. The street was given back to the people for the 55th anniversary of what is known here as, to give it its full title, "The Great Patriotic War against Hitlerite Fascism, 1941-1945". Russia's war, as the dates indicate, was shorter than that marked in the West, but it was sharper and much more horrific. The figure of 26 million dead is difficult for any Westerner to come to terms with. It is simpler and more striking to look at personal tragedies. Family recollections make it easier for us to understand the immensity of the Russian tragedy.

I have known the Firsov family for nearly 10 years now. Yuri and Irina are Muscovites who lived through the conflict. Irina was nine when hostilities started. Yuri was 14. Yuri's family came from the village of Ulyanikha, in the Vladimir region north of the capital. It was a large family, typical of those from the countryside before the revolution. Yuri's father was one of 10 brothers.

Every one of those Firsov brothers died in combat. In another country, the fate of the Firsovs might have become a famous event, perhaps even the subject of a film. In Russia, the immense casualties, the destruction of entire cities, meant the plight of the Firsovs was almost commonplace.

It was not difficult to imagine yesterday, therefore, that every Russian man, woman and child who strolled in the sunshine down Tverskaya had lost one family member, at the very least, in that conflict. The sun shone, by the way, on orders from the authorities. It just would not do to have the commemoration marred by bad weather, so a squadron of aircraft was sent up to seed menacing rain clouds with pellets of nitrogen and dry ice and force them to shed their loads before they reached the capital.

There were concerts and ice-cream stalls all the way down Tverskaya and near the Kremlin end of the great avenue. Small children were given rides on horses not far from the equestrian statue of Marshal Georgy Zhukov, the man who, more than any other, was credited with winning the war.

To the right of Zhukov's statue, under the Kremlin wall, lies the eternal flame of the Unknown Soldier. There, patiently, all through the day citizens of the former Soviet Union lined up in their thousands, flowers in hand, to pay their personal tributes. Red and yellow dominated because carnations and daffodils are freely available at this time of year. Little bunches of two carnations and four daffodils lay in tiny contrast to the immense wreaths laid earlier by the important representatives of the state. In Russia, flowers in even numbers are for the dead, in odd numbers for the living.

Tatyana Dmitrievna was there in her best, elegant outfit, her blue-rinsed hair neatly cut for the occasion and two of her medals for "heroic labour" pinned to her white blouse. Tanya is a little woman who was born in Moscow in 1926. She worked as a fitter in a tank factory as a slip of a girl. "It was very hard. I was so small I had to stand on a box to reach up to the tanks. I remember the foreman looked at me and said, `They have sent a thin little candle to me, what am I to do with her'." She was put to welding and stayed at work in the military plant until 1949. Unlike many of her age, she is happy to live in today's Russia. "I love Russia, even though my son and by daughter-in-law and my grandchildren have emigrated and live in Houston, Texas."

Fyodor Yakovlevich was in uniform, his chest filled with medals won for his exploits on the First Ukrainian Front. I met him under a banner which read: "Let the heroic deeds of our people in the Great Patriotic War live for centuries." Fyodor, as a private soldier, had done a heroic deed for which he wore the medal, Za Otvagu, (For Bravery) one of the most coveted awards given by the Red Army. Fyodor (75) was enjoying the day out but was not so sure about the new Russia. There had been too many changes, he said. What was needed now was stability. As we spoke, his son, with his granddaughter shyly holding on, photographed Fyodor being interviewed by the Western correspondent. It was one for the family album.

Tens of thousands of little scenes such as these were played out all over Russia and the former Soviet Union yesterday. In their way they were more impressive than the formal occasion on Red Square. There, President Putin and former president Boris Yeltsin stood in front of the Lenin mausoleum on the very spot where, 55 years ago, the banners of Nazi Germany were dashed to the ground in the first great victory parade.

The formal proceedings began with a colour party carrying the Red Flag which had flown in victory over the Reichstag. They ended after dark with a massive fireworks display lighting up the Moscow skies.

Today, it was back to the struggle of everyday life in the new Russia.

Reuters adds: Russia's chief of staff is to visit NATO in Brussels today, according to the Russian Defence Ministry, his first talks with the alliance since Moscow froze relations over last year's air strikes on Yugoslavia.

A Defence Ministry spokesman said the chief of staff, Gen Anatoly Kvashnin, would attend a meeting of a Russian-NATO council established under a 1997 treaty.