Russians could learn from Americans’ July 4th celebration

I'm sure most of my ex-compatriots would hate me for this story. But I thought about this years ago when there was no war against Ukraine, when Russia wasn’t the pariah state it now is.

I have in mind Russia’s Victory Day celebration on May 9th. Every year, tanks and powerful military machines roll into the center of Moscow. Fighter jets fly low over the city center. Multiple generations of Russians wear the ribbon of St. George and thank their “grandfathers” for the great victory over Nazis Germany. I put inverted commas around “grandfather” as with every passing year, the word grandfather becomes a collective term, losing the literal meaning that it used to have.

I know, I know, I’m not comparing apples to apples. America’s Independence Day celebrates the events that happened two and a half centuries. In contrast, Russia’s scars from the war, in which it lost millions of lives, are still warm. A century is yet to pass.

Still, Russia’s militarized way of celebrating its main holiday is militarized by design. I left Russia a decade ago, but there are no signs of de-militarization. If anything, there is more “militarization,” and the reasons are obvious. In the absence of other achievements, the regime’s easiest path to nurturing national pride is through flexing its “muscles” and war-mongering.

Like Americans on July 4th, I wished Russians watched fireworks light up the sky while grilling shashlik, like the Americans grille their burgers…