About 2,500 children from youth public organizations and 2,000 soldiers from the Moscow garrison joined the march dedicated to the 65th anniversary of the November 7, 1941 military parade, when Moscow was attacked by Nazi forces.
Addressing the gathering, Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov said "Our generation remembers the sacrifice by our veterans of their lives and health, and will always continue that which our veterans defended."
In Soviet times, November 7 was the main public holiday commemorating the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. Celebrations under communism involved huge military parades and demonstrations observed by Soviet leaders on Lenin's mausoleum on Red Square.
After the collapse of communism, November 7 was renamed National Reconciliation Day, but was only celebrated by hard-line left-wingers, who continued to mark it by marching on the streets under red banners.
In 2004, the Russian parliament replaced National Reconciliation Day with National Unity Day on November 4, a pre-revolutionary public holiday commemorating the liberation of Moscow from Polish troops in 1612, which ended decades of civil war and foreign intervention in Russia.
