A solemn event took place at the Mekan Palace in Ashgabat to commemorate Victory Day in the 1941–1945 Great Patriotic War. It was organised by the Ashgabat Hyakimlik jointly with the social and political organisations of the country. It is symbolic that cadets, military servants and university students from Ashgabat always take part in this solemn and festive event together with the veterans. When grandchildren honour the feats of arms of national heroes, there is no doubt that the links between generations will not be broken. Celebrations to commemorate this triumphant Victory of peace, friendship and goodwill worthily express the high veneration of our contemporaries for the heroic path of their ancestors and increase pride in independent neutral Turkmenistan.

Participating in this event for 20 years, every year I have to accept with sadness and pain the fact that the generation with whom the heroic pages of history are associated is passing away. This year, only two of them have attended the ceremony – Antonina Pavlovna Pryanichnikova and Galina Alekseyevna Mammedova. They did not have to fight on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War, but they experienced the suffering and horrors of war in full.