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Russians in Australia celebrate Victory Day with Immortal Regiment event, car rally

Despite the rainy and windy weather, over 100 people took part in the activity this year

SYDNEY, May 7. /TASS/. Russians held an Immortal Regiment event in the Australian city of Sydney on Sunday, a TASS correspondent reported.

Despite the rainy and windy weather, over 100 people took part in the activity this year.

"For over ten years, we have been holding our annual Immortal Regiment event to celebrate Victory Day," the event’s coordinator Ksenia Trifonova told TASS. "So far, we have collected quite a lot of photos of war veterans. We currently have over 200 photos of the family members of the people who now live in Australia. This year, we printed 27 new photos for our compatriots who would like to preserve the memory of the great deed of our ancestors and pass the history of Victory on to their children and grandchildren," she added.

"Today, not everyone in Australia is aware of the holiday and understands what it means not only to us but also to the entire world, so it is very important to come to the streets wearing St. George ribbons and carrying the portraits of war veterans every year as it is another opportunity for us to tell the Australian people about our Victory and the price that the Russian people had to pay for it," said an event participant named Antonina.

The Immortal Regiment march in Sydney ended at a memorial to the Australian and New Zealand soldiers killed in World Wars I and II. The event’s participants laid flowers to the memorial and observed a minute of silence.

Celebrations that involved a rally, a picnic and a car rally, took place near the Russian consulate in Sydney.

A concert dedicated to Victory Day and an Immortal Regiment event were held in New Zealand’s capital of Wellington. Russian Club chief Viktor Gaiduch told TASS that despite the difficult situation in the country, "an unexpectedly high number of our compatriots took part in the events devoted to the upcoming Victory Day.".