Day of the Victorious Country

March 9th, 1953. A gray, sad day. Clouds float low over the Kremlin towers. A city that unrecognizably grew, prettier and matured - this Moscow froze in solemn grief. The country escorts its father and leader, Joseph Stalin.

A Soviet documentary chronicling the final assault on Nazi Germany’s capital. More than forty frontline cameramen from the 1st Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian Fronts captured the battle and its aftermath, supplemented with seized German footage. The film records the destruction of Berlin and the symbolic collapse of Hitler’s regime, standing as both a historical chronicle and a work of Soviet wartime cinema.

As many as 700,000 Soviet schoolchildren attend New Year's Eve celebrations at the Moscow Kremlin in 1953.