Mintimer Shaimiev: Our duty is to pass on the remembrance of the war from generation to generation

As many as 63 Great Patriotic War veterans met with Tatarstan President Mintimer Shaimiev on May 6 in the Kazan Kremlin. They also saw a concert and took part in the ceremony in the Coat of Arms Hall.
“We gathered together to welcome the 63rd anniversary of the Great Victory. A lot is being said about the war, about our victory. Those are most sincere words coming from our hearts. But it is never enough in order to pass on the deepest meaning of this great event, the Victory,” Mintimer Shaimiev told the veterans.
“The most important is the Victory, the Great Victory that cost millions and millions of lives,” the head of the republic said. “We do not talk much about the home front workers – mostly women and children. But it also was a heroic service to the Motherland, they also forged the Victory”.
Mintimer Shaimiev also said that the history of peoples had ever been connected with wars. “The war was here, it is now in other places… The terrible thing is that wars are of different scale, and ours was the Holy war. Passing on the remembrance of it from generation to generation, passing on the remembrance of the feat is our duty. The cost of this victory was too heavy,” the Tatarstan President underlined.
Mintimer Shaimiev went on to say that one can always find motivations and reasons to start a war. And we cannot, I think, rule them out from people’s life forever. “Our task, we pay a lot of attention to it in this country, is to strengthen Russia’s defensive capacity. Russia has no other way but to be strong,” the President emphasized in his speech. It cannot be weak because of its origin, its space. It is natural for us to ensure Russia’s defensive capacity,” Tatarstan President said.
63 veterans were invited to the reception in honor of the 63rd anniversary of the Great Victory, 31 of them being women.