Celebrating the older generation

If nothing else, Victory Day is about celebrating the accomplishments of the elderly. There are a lot of people still living in Petersburg who directly experienced the war -- including the 900 days that Hitler surrounded the city and deprived it of all food and fuel. Over those three years of searing summers and crippling winters, the people of Leningrad quickly exhausted their food. So they ate their animals. When those were gone they ate the wallpaper (the paste is made with starch). In some cases, they even ate each other. And what they couldn't eat, they burned for fuel. Unbelievable horrors. You rarely encounter a person here whose parents or grandparents didn't experience the Blockade.