Parade May 9, 2021. Yekaterinburg.

By fromSalekhard in My museums 24.07.2022

I started my series of reports on military-technical museums in Russia with a parade of retro-armored vehicles on May 9, 2021 in Verkhnyaya Pyshma. And now I bring to your attention, in the spirit of Hollywood cinematography, a small prequel to this event.

The fact is that the military parades on May 9 in Yekaterinburg and Verkhnyaya Pyshma are well spaced in time: in Yekaterinburg, the official military parade begins at 10:00, and in Verkhnyaya Pyshma at 13:00. This was done so that officials and ordinary spectators could attend both events.

Last year, my colleague and I decided to visit a military parade in Yekaterinburg. How young and naive we were! Of course, we did not claim and did not hope to be located on the central podium or guest places. But we hoped to stand in some geographical proximity to the parade. As it turned out, there are many such people in the city of a million people.

I won’t tell you how, an hour and a half before the start, we rushed around the square in an attempt to get at least a little closer to the place of action. I will attribute the use of electric scooters to the characteristics of the intensity of the search – mobility has been increased significantly.

On the way, several times we ran into columns of various types of troops preparing for the passage.

With all the great respect for our soldiers, the goal was – mechanisms.

We stood two hundred meters before the parade. With a limited sector of visibility and photographing, and this was periodically blocked either by soldiers or by policemen from security. It’s good I have a camera with a 25x zoom, because the real picture was like this

The parade opened with a historical part: cavalry

and armored vehicles of the WWII

where, imperceptibly to most viewers, post-war equipment was also mixed

(The little red riding hood is a guard blocking the view. I had to shout to him and ask him to move.)

In short, there are no good and worthy photographs of publication. I will take the liberty of posting visual photos of equipment in full dress, desert and arctic camouflage.

At the parade there were interesting and unknown to me samples of equipment,

but only a tank tractor on a trawl was available for a full view, standing aside all the time.

I must say that the event caused a feeling of deep disappointment, and if it were not for the parade in Verkhnyaya Pyshma, then the day would remain a negative stain in my life.

That time I arrived in Yekaterinburg by train, which, according to its railway habit, arrives at dawn. And so, making my way in the predawn twilight to the place of the rendezvous, I managed to observe the equipment prepared for the passage of the parade.