Representatives of the CSTO PA Lay a Wreath and Flowers at the Piskaryovskoye Cemetery

A solemn ceremony marking the 78th anniversary of victory in the Great Patriotic War was held at the Piskaryovskoye Memorial Cemetery in St Petersburg.

A minute of silence was declared under the beat of a metronome, and the entire procession of those who came to pay their respects stood still for 60 seconds. The column of official delegations included veterans, survivors of the Great Patriotic War, and their children and grandchildren carrying flowers.

Representatives of the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly laid a wreath and flowers at the foot of the Motherland monument and at the memorial stones in memory of the natives of the former USSR republics, now CSTO Member States, who heroically fought in the defence of Leningrad.

In Piskaryovskoye Cemetery, as the poet Olga Bergholz put it, “under eternal guard of granite”, rest more than 500 thousand people who died during the Second World War, according to official estimates only. People come here in all weathers and on any day to bring flowers and pay their respects.