The Spasskaya Tower International Military Music Festival held its grand finale on Saturday, September 8.
The Spasskaya Tower International Military Music Festival held its grand finale on Saturday, September 8.
The honor guards of heads of state and the leading military orchestras paraded on Red Square.
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© RIA Novosti . Valeriy Melnikov
Russia’s defeat of Napoleon’s 1812 invasion was the festival’s theme this year, and Lev Tolstoi’s classic novel War and Peace inspired the grand finale.
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© RIA Novosti . Valeriy Melnikov
Red Square became first a ballroom, then a battlefield.
Russia was represented by two units of the Moscow Kremlin’s commandant service – the presidential orchestra and the cavalry honor guard – as well as the Defense Ministry’s Central Military Orchestra, the Moscow Garrison’s Combined Orchestra, and others.
Orchestras from Austria, Germany, Greece, Italy, Kazakhstan, China, Poland, Singapore and France, as well as a combined EU orchestra, also took part.
The festival, which was first held in 2009, grows more popular every year.
Thousands of spectators attended the grand finale on Red Square.
The finale culminated with a fireworks display accompanied by nine orchestras performing Farewell of Slavianka (Proschaniye Slavianki), the legendary Russian marching song that is 100 years old this year.
