WARSAW, May 2. /TASS/. The Roads of Victory 2018 motocross organized by the Nochnye Volki [Night Wolves] biking club began in Poland on Tuesday with problems at the Polish border, Dariusz Kaczmarczyk, the coordinator of the Night Wolves’ Polish branch told reporters on Tuesday after a flower-laying ceremony at the Unknown Soldier’s Tomb in Warsaw.
"It’s far from the first year we’re doing this motocross and doing so for a very important reason, which is to pay tribute to the great victory," Kaczmarczyk said.
He said the motocross was proceeding as scheduled but the Polish border guards had not let several participants cross over into the Polish territory.
The individuals whom they did not let into Poland were citizens of the Czech Republic and Slovakia. "If they stop the Europeans, this means something is afoot," Kaczmarczyk said. "I don’t know what kind of a political goal might be standing beside it and they hope to attain by this."
He voiced the conviction the Polish officials’ steps were highly detrimental for Poland.
The Roads of Victory international motocross is taking place for the fourth year on end. The bikers plan replicating the path of Soviet soldiers to Berlin in the last phase of World War II. The Unknown Soldier’s Tomb on Pilsudski Square in Warsaw became the first stop for the party.
The latter monument is the main site of commemoration of the Polish soldiers where the eternal flame is burning and where official commemorative functions are held annually.
Apart from Warsaw, the Night Wolves 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 to 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.
More than 600,000 Soviet soldiers died in Poland during the last two years of World War II.