On September 30, 2022, a nationwide concert was held on Red Square dedicated to the entry into the Russian Federation of the territories of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions. Towards the end, Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed the audience. His address to the audience was ten times shorter than the speech that he had delivered shortly before in the St. George’s Hall. Signals to the West and geopolitical meanings remained within the walls of the Kremlin – the president broadcasted more emotions to people, without additional facts. The Izvestia correspondent observed what happened during the hours of the concert on Red Square.
“No break for cognac, no break for Saturday»
“The choice has been made! Together forever!” – this is one of the slogans formulated on the occasion of the entry into the Russian Federation of new territories – the Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics (LDNR) and the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions. It was written on the accreditation badges the journalists received before heading to Red Square.
There, on that day, immediately after the de facto authorities of these territories signed international treaties with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin, a concert was held. The composition of the participants was almost the same as at the Crimean concert in Luzhniki in March of this year. The message was the same – the growth of the country with new territories, or, as it often sounded from the stage, the reunification of primordially Russian lands with Russia.
The last bus with journalists arrived already in the middle of the concert – to the track that rapper Rich read in impenetrable dark glasses:
The boys do all the dirty work for you
No break for cognac, no break for Saturday.
Water boils in flasks, fire comes from bunkers,
The planet stands on blood, like Peter in the swamps.
“I wanted the boys who sacrifice their lives to have support,” the rapper told Izvestia on the press platform. – So that they do not feel lonely, and I longed to convey greetings to them from the mainland, so that they would be a little more cheerful, calmer and, perhaps, it would even be inappropriate, more fun to do their job. And it is dirty because war is always hard, dirty and cruel. You have to be accountable for this.
A lot of people gathered on the square itself and on Vasilevsky Spusk – almost everyone is holding Russian flags, large and small. The space on the square was divided into two sections. A conditional “parterre” in front of St. Basil’s Cathedral next to the Spasskaya Tower: people stand here tightly and vividly respond to what is happening on the stage. Further, in the direction of the red building of the State Historical Museum, metal barriers were installed, along which there are fighters of the National Guard and OMON.
– Are you a journalist? Do you know if Valeria will sing? I’m really looking forward to it,” asks a woman in her 60s with red hair. – Vladimir Vladimirovich said that she had the best voice.
Valeria is not on the program. However, the woman does not seem to be waiting for an answer.
– And you know, Kirkorov already has a plane in Bulgaria, a house in Bulgaria. But Bulgaria is no longer with us,” she says and leaves.
“Dfriends, Russians, compatriots!”
On the stage, songs alternate with speeches, Russian artists alternate with those who came from the annexed regions. First, the Turetsky Choir, then Denis Maidanov – “nothing is sorry for the victory”, “no bayonets, no roses, no fire, no words.”
A little later, actor Ivan Okhlobystin enters the stage. In the recognizable voice of Dr. Bykov from the Interns, he says that “thank God, we have nowhere to retreat.”
– There is an opinion that soon a special military operation will be renamed into a counter-terrorist operation. Someone says that it will even be a Patriotic war, – he speaks into the microphone with burning eyes. “But I think that this is not enough. Correctly call it the Holy War! Holy war! Because Muslims have the concept of jihad. This is not only a deadly battle on the battlefield with the enemy. This is, first of all, the struggle with your sins inside your heart, and our main battle of our Holy War will take place in our souls. And if we win it, we will win every other battle.
From the stage there were speeches about the “amazing results of the referendums”, that “historical justice has triumphed”, the nationwide slogan about “strength in truth”. Speakers from the annexed territories spoke of “finally returning home”. This was the main thesis of the actual heads of the newly acquired regions — Vladimir Saldo from Kherson, Yevgeny Balitsky from Zaporozhye, Leonid Pasechnik from the LPR and Denis Pushilin from the DPR who arrived on Red Square straight from the Kremlin.
“I greet you, dear Muscovites and all those who see us on television,” Vladimir Saldo says with a smile into the microphone. You are great, you are good. <...> On Red Square there is a monument to Minin and Pozharsky, and in Kherson there is a monument to Prince Potemkin. And the author, the sculptor he has one – Ivan Martos. Even here we are together.
But this is no reason to relax, the presenters continue, “We all know that there is still a long and hard struggle ahead.”
— Dear friends, Russians, compatriots! – Denis Pushilin said smiling and obviously worried. — Donbass returned home. To say I’m happy is an understatement! You know, for a long eight and a half years we waited, believed, hoped, and this day has come true. Russian people reunited.
“Friends…” he exhaled with excitement and continued. – Friends (more confidently). You know, we have been living for a long time since 2014 Moscow time, and for us Moscow has always been our homeland, the capital of our homeland. For us, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Vladivostok, Ryazan are the same Russian cities as Donetsk, Gorlovka, Makeevka, Mariupol. And now it’s de jure. You know, Donbass will not let down the motherland. We need a win! Russia forever! Hooray!
“I suggest you make it loud»
The time is approaching 19:00 – Vladimir Putin’s speech is scheduled for this time. On the stage – the group “Lyube”, the traditional “Come on for life” sounds, and then – “Father-Combat”.
The final chord was the story of the Donbass poetess Bogdana Neshcheret. The screen shows how 9-year-old Bogdana, with tears, reads poems about the war in Donbass into a microphone. She, says presenter Yulia Baranovskaya, is the youngest militia and a symbol of Donbass; for this, the girl was included in the Peacemaker base. Now Bogdana is 16, and she is a real warrior, the presenter continues. A young girl in a military uniform with thin, sharp features enters the stage, she reads her poem – all about the same thing, about the war.
Bogdana’s dream is reunification with Russia. But there is another desire – to meet with Vladimir Putin, says Yulia Baranovskaya. And now it has come true – the Russian president enters the stage.
— I can’t help but remember how the Soviet Union was formed when Russia was creating modern Ukraine. It was Russia that created modern Ukraine, transferring significant territories there, the historical territories of Russia itself, along with the population, which no one asked about where, how people want to live, how they want to arrange the future of their children, in which state,” he said. – And with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the same thing happened – the elites decided everything among themselves, millions of ordinary citizens no one asked about anything.
And only now, he continued, Russia has given people in Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporozhye, Kherson the opportunity to have their say. This speech was almost ten times shorter than what Vladimir Putin delivered in the Kremlin. There were no words on Red Square about the Nord Stream explosions, no calls for Kyiv to sit down at the negotiating table, no passages about the precedent that the United States had set by dropping a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki – it was about Russia, which “does not only opens the doors of her home for our brothers and sisters – she opens her heart to them.
“We owe today’s celebration to our heroic soldiers and officers, Donbass militia, and volunteers. We are here today on Red Square, but they are not at the parade, they are in battle, they are heroically defending the choice of the people that was made a few days ago,” Vladimir Putin continued. “And therefore, as a sign of support, gratitude, in recognition of their merits, for their heroism and self-sacrifice, I propose from here, from Red Square, to send them a signal of our support, respect and admiration for their sacrifice and for their heroism. I propose to do it loudly, so that thousands of kilometers away they hear the voice of Red Square, with three cheers. Gained air and on my command at the expense of “three”. One two Three! Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!
This military-style short triple “Hurrah” was drowned in the drawn-out “Uraaa”, which usually sounds on fireworks. Soon it turned into a chant: “Russia! Russia! Russia!”.
We have become stronger because we are together. The truth is behind us, and in truth there is strength, which means victory! Victory will be ours! The President concluded his speech.
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