Celebrations of Victory Day in Ulan Bator

Gala festivities are being held in Ulan Bator to mark the 58th anniversary of the victory in the 1941-1945 Great Patriotic War.

"Your life continues in us, your glory is eternal like Life," says the inscription on the monument to Soviet warriors on the Zaisan Hill in the Mongolian capital.

Here, at the Eternal Flame a Mongolian guard of honour was mounted and anthems of the two countries were performed to mark the victory. Wreaths were laid to the memorial complex.

Participating in the ceremony was head of the Mongolian Armed Forces' General Staff Tsevegsurengiyn Togoo, Russia's ambassador to Mongolia Oleg Derkovsky, employees of the Russian embassy and Russian institutions in Ulan Bator, prominent military commanders, Mongolian and Russian veterans of the Great Patriotic War.

Wreaths were laid to the monument to Georgy Zhukov and the obelisk to the perished Soviet warriors at the Russian cemetery in Ulan Bator.

The Mongolian people contributed to the victory over the Nazi. Thousands of Mongolian volunteers fought on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War. The tank brigade Revolutionary Mongolia whose formation was financed by the Mongolian people fought all the way from Moscow to Berlin. And the air squadron Mongolian Arat participated in the fights for the liberation of Belarus, East Prussia, and Poland.

Although Mongolia did not participate in the war directly, it nonetheless worked in the military regime and regularly supplied the Red Army with warm clothes, foodstuffs and saddle horses. In the war years, the Mongolian people gathered and sent to the Red Army 11 echelons with presents costing over 60 mln tugriks.