They are usually held to honor the traditional Victory Day holiday. As Victory Day is the principal military holiday of Russia and of almost all member the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States , the celebrations in Moscow and other capital cities thus serve as national events to mark such an important holiday for millions of people around the world, marking the anniversary of the capitulation of Nazi Germany to the Allied Powers in The annual or semiannual parades mark the Allied victory in World War II on the Eastern Front , on the same day as the signing of the German act of capitulation to the victorious Allies in Berlin , at midnight of May 9, Soviet time , officially concluding the Second World War in Europe and northern parts of Africa.
During the entire history of the Soviet Union , only a total of four parades ever took place in Moscow and throughout the entire Soviet Union. In December , the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet under Josef Stalin , decreed that May 9th Victory Day would become a working day, effectively making the celebrations cancelled and ceased completely.
However, on April 26, , nearly twenty years after the first parade , under Leonid Brezhnev , the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet reversed the actions made in , thus making May 9 a non-working holiday, this would be the first time Victory Day was made as an actual holiday.
Further parades would be held in and Until celebrations of Victory Day were held in most Warsaw Pact countries save for East Germany , whose celebrations fell on 8 May except in , when it was marked on 9 May. Of all the countries that observed it, only Czechoslovakia held celebration parades every 5 years, also in honor of the successful Prague Uprising that ended on that day in In addition, Poland and Yugoslavia which was outside the Iron Curtain also held occasional parades, with the former staging a massive parade in [ 3 ] to mark the ruby jubilee anniversary and the latter following the practice of Czechoslovakia of parades every 5th anniversary beginning with the 20th anniversary in In , many of the traditional parades were cancelled, with the only ones being held in Belarus and Turkmenistan.
In response to these massive cancellations, World Health Organization regional director for Europe Hans Kluge referred to these cancellations as "a brave decision", highlighting their holiday significance. According to Russian anthropologist Sergey Ushakin, modern victory parades are intended to demonstrate the direct and immediate connection of the present with the past and to materialize the connection between generations.
