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Siberia launches flash mob to greet Merkel on Victory Day as she rejects parade invitation

As Merkel has refused to arrive at the May 9 celebrations, the holiday should come to her in the form of thousands of greetings and postcards sent by ordinary people, the author of the initiative says
German Chancellor Angela Merkel EPA/OLIVIER HOSLET
German Chancellor Angela Merkel
© EPA/OLIVIER HOSLET

KEMEROVO, March 17 /TASS/. A flash mob to congratulate the German chancellor on Victory Day launched in Siberia's Kemerovo Region has gone international as Angela Merkel refused to attend a May 9 parade in Moscow.

Vadim Raskin, a doctor from the Siberian town of Novokuznetsk who came up with the idea, told TASS on Tuesday that people from Bulgaria, Serbia, Israel, Canada and even Germany and the United States had joined the flash mob.

"As Merkel has refused to arrive at the May 9 celebrations, this holiday should come to her in the form of thousands of greetings and postcards sent by ordinary people," Raskin said.

Raskin published the chancellor's postal address on his Facebook page suggesting that postcards or letters of congratulation should be sent to Merkel.

He said the greetings could also be sent via a special form on the chancellor's website.

The press service of Kemerovo Governor Aman Tuleyev said he had given the green light to Raskin’s project and even promised to award the doctor.

However, the governor himself had no plans to send a postcard to the German chancellor, the press service said.

Merkel declined an invitation to a May 9 Victory Day parade in Moscow over the conflict in eastern Ukraine, her spokesman Steffen Seibert said on March 11.

He said that she had proposed arriving in Moscow on May 10 to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier together with Russian President Vladimir,.