WARSAW, May 1. /TASS/. Members of the Nochnye Volki [Night Wolves] biking club on Tuesday paid tribute to the Red Army soldiers who died while liberating Poland from Nazi occupation.
About 30 bikers from different countries who are taking part in the Roads of Victory motocross laid flowers and lit candles at the military memorial cemetery of Soviet soldiers on Zwirki i Wigury Str. and had a minute’s silence.
Earlier on the same day, they remembered the Polish military at the Unknown Soldier’s Tomb in downtown Warsaw.
The Soviet military cemetery at Zwirki i Wigury Str. was founded in 1950. It has an area of 19.2 hectares. Buried there are 22,000 Soviet soldiers who died during the combat operations against Nazi troops on the Polish territory.
The main alley leads up to a 38 meters-tall granite obelisk, by the pedestal of which the guests from different countries, as well as local residents lay flowers and light candles on the days of main public holidays and religious feasts, Polish and Russian likewise.
A memorial plaque at the obelisk reads in Russian and Polish: "To the eternal memory of the Soviet Army soldiers, who died for the liberation of Poland from Nazi invaders in 1944 and 1945."
More than 600,000 Soviet soldiers died in Poland during the last two years of World War II.
The Roads of Victory international motocross is held for the fourth year running. The bikers plan once again to replicate the path of Soviet troops through to Berlin. Apart from Warsaw, they plan calling into Wroclaw where they will lay the flowers at a monument to the victims of the Ukrainian nationalistic rebel army and at a monument Soviet officers, and will also visit the former Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp.
From Poland, the bikers hope to go to the Czech Republic. On May 9, they will be in Berlin.