The ships came, but they were sent back: There will be no parade on Navy Day in Kronstadt
Photo: website Museums of St. Petersburg
This year, Navy Day in St. Petersburg will do without the Crostadt part. Wrote about this «Fontanka». Residents of Kotlin Island were happy with this situation, because they were tired of high-profile events.
Meanwhile, the first cancellation of the Kronstadt part in the history of modern Navy parades raises big questions, given the fact that warships from the Northern Fleet have already arrived for the holiday, but were sent back. Something similar—the sudden and without explanation of the cancellation of the parade—happened in 2017. Then the source of alarm was an American destroyer that approached St. Petersburg within missile strike range.
The first information that the Main Naval Parade (GVMP) was actually canceled in St. Petersburg was reported by the Novye Izvestia publication. Without the Kronstadt part, the celebration returns to its previous format: a parade formation of warships on the Neva, a passage through the water area and a ceremonial formation of personnel on Senate Square. The aviation unit was abandoned a year ago.
Officially, neither the Ministry of Defense nor the Kremlin announced the holding of GVMP-2024 in St. Petersburg, which formally makes it possible not to announce the cancellation. Meanwhile, the fact that they were preparing for the celebration in Kronstadt is evidenced by the previously announced media accreditation, as well as the ban on electric scooters issued by Smolny — on Navy Day, July 28, they cannot be used to move around the historical part of St. Petersburg and in the Kronstadt region.
The cancellation of the Kronstadt parade was greeted most joyfully by the inhabitants of the island. The transformation of Kotlin into a tourist Mecca upsets them against the backdrop of catastrophic transport inaccessibility. The interchanges promised by the city authorities are still under construction, and therefore on the days of large-scale events the town turns into a fortress, the passages to which are either paralyzed by kilometer-long traffic jams, or a access system is completely introduced.
Recall that Navy Day is celebrated in Russia July 28