No photos from this year's Victory Day, as we were returning from Istanbul on May 9. Instead, here's the stuff that our building's concierges posted on the walls by the entrance and inside the two elevators (as they say here, one elevator's for the wife, the other's for the mistress, to keep them from running into each other :))



This is the official poster that must have been distributed by the city authorities. What caught my eye first was the non-Slavic look of the soldier - most likely because I've had such an exposure to all the xenophobia of the Russian blogosphere, including a few ugly recent posts about Central Asian war vets here in Moscow... What's also interesting about this greeting is that it's signed by "President of the Russian Federation V. Putin" - who, on May 9, was no longer the president. Sort of.





These two were made by the concierges (who are the sweetest elderly women, by the way). They are wishing WWII vets "health, happiness, financial well-being and peaceful skies above [their] heads." The second one must be from last year; it reminds of the stuff we had to make at the kindergarten.



This one is from Feb. 23, the Defender of the Motherland Day or whatever it's called here now - but it was put up in the elevator again on May 9: a somewhat poetic greeting to "all the dear men, regardless of your military rank."

(We also had some concierge art on March 8, the International Women's Day, but I never took a picture.)