Estonia's Victory Day parade to be the biggest in recent years

TALLINN - The traditional Victory Day parade, which this year takes place in Parnu will be the biggest in recent years as over 1,500 people will participate, Parnu Postimees writes.

The Victory Day parade on June 23 is traditionally organized by the voluntary defense organization Defense League and the organization’s members as well as the Defense League School, Defense Forces United Training Facilities cadets, the Baltic Defense College march there.

Defense League PR department junior staff officer Merkle Ott said that this year's event will be special. Besides it being the biggest parade since 1992 when the first one took place, for the first time a marathon takes place. Its start takes place on June 22 at the Estonian soldiers' memorial church in Tori and the memorial fire lit in Tori will be brought to Parnu from there. One of the aims is to tell the story about the Estonian state that achieved freedom in the War of Independence via ancient marathon running and victory light legend.

The Victory Day parade takes place in a different Estonian town every year. Parnu has hosted it twice before, in 1995 and 2001. Thus Parnu will be the only other town besides Tallinn that has organized the parade three times.