We knew it would be crowded as the populace of the city gathered to watch the Victory Day Parade. We knew we wouldn't get to see much, but not knowing when or if we would get this chance again we decided to try. I knew the approximate parade route so we picked a metro station and headed out. The metro was relatively empty for a weekday morning. It was heartwarming to see veterans of the Great Patriotic War wearing their uniforms, replete with medals, being given flowers by passersby. When we emerged from the metro we quickly remembered this was not a parade in a midwestern or southern town. We've watched and even marched in numerous small town parades. Shortly before the parade the police or volunteers block off the parade route, everyone lets the children sit on the curb and we line the whole parade route. We're not in Kansas anymore, here the route was blocked off by police and military using barricades. And many (all?) of the side streets and parks were blocked off as well. There was very little street front real estate available and it was all full! Reasoning that we couldn't see anything from where we were we tried to walk farther away from the center of town hoping to gain a better vantage spot.
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