Three actions in Immortal Regiment series to be held in Toronto on eve of VE-Day

OTTAWA, April 25. /TASS/. A total of three public actions in the Immortal Regiment series will be held in Toronto in the run-up to VE-Day, their organizers who represent various associations of Russian fellow-countrymen based in Toronto told TASS. The first action has been scheduled for 13:00 hours EDT on May 6 and will be held in the downtown. "We’ve mapped out a very interesting and emblematic route," Leon Mitzner, the head of the Russian Canada group said. "We’ll walk down the busiest streets - Yonge, Dundas, Queen - for a second time. These streets have many military monuments, including the memorial to the soldiers who died from 1939 through 1945." "If very many people come, the police will restrict traffic on the streets partly," he said. "We expect no less than 2,000 people but the bigger task is to bring together up to 5,000 people." At present, the activists from Toronto’s Russian-speaking community hand out leaflets in the city, which tell the readers the USSR and Canada were allies during World War II. They invite Canadians to join the rally. "Last year, our actions and history it is linked with triggered much interest among local residents, and that’s why we decided to advertise it a little bit more this year," Mitzner said. In a novel move, the organizers have invited members of Toronto’s Serbian, Bulgarian, Greek, Slovak, Chinese, Italian, Jewish, and Indian communities to join the rally, too. "We also reached agreements the Russian, Greek, and Armenian churches in this megalopolis to hold remembrance services to the victims of World War II on that day." The march of the Immortal Regiment column down the city streets will be preceded by a motor rally. The second Immortal Regiment action will take place at 14:00 hours EDT on the same but it will be held in North York, the northern part of the city where most descendants from Russia and other former Soviet republics live. Its organizers hope to bring together up to 5,000 people. "The Immortal Regiment originated in Russia but it turned out to be exactly the element that Canada didn’t have," said Alla Suvorova, the leader of the Russian World of Canada. "We didn’t have a patriotic holiday here previously. People would stay at their homes and quietly mark VE-Day, and when we held this action in Toronto in 2015 for the first time, the whole community got enthusiastic about it and we realized people did need a holiday." Suvorova said Soviet veterans now living in this city were particularly gladdened and young people showed enthusiasm, too. "The young are now forgetting our history these days but now the young members of our community are helping us actively and are ready to hand the memories of our victorious heroes down to next generations of people," she said, At 09:00 hours on May 7, a third Immortal Regiment rally will be held in same part of the city. Its participants will then merge with the rally of veterans in Sheppard Park (known officially as Earl Bales Park), Vyacheslav Volkov, the president of the Association of Soviet WW II Veterans said. "At present, our association has 64 former soldiers who fought on the frontline and about a third of them can join the column somehow," he said. "Also we expect veteran workers of the home front, former prisoners of concentration camps, and the children of people who died during the Great Patriotic War defending their country." Volkov expects that about 80 people who will come to the marches will be in the age bracket of 90 to 100 years old. "While a part of them will be able to traverse the route, which is 500 m long, on their own, a half of our veterans will do it in special wheelchairs because the distance is too long for them already," he said. Read more