DUSHANBE, May 11, 2014, Asia-Plus – On the occasion of Victory Day, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon laid a wreath at the Military Glory Memorial in Dushanbe’s Victory Park on May 9, according to the Tajik president’s official website.

After him, heads of both chambers of the Tajik parliament, senior representatives of the government, Tajik power-wielding structures and diplomatic corps as well as the Russian military base in Tajikistan laid wreaths at the Military Glory Memorial in Dushanbe’s Victory Park.

The commemoration ceremony reportedly ended with a military parade. Servicemen of the Honor Guard of Tajikistan were on the military parade.

More than 280,000 residents of Tajikistan took part in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 and some 70,000 of them died in battle.  55 of residents of Tajikistan were given the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.  Besides, 15 other Tajikistan’s residents were Full Holders of the Order of Glory.

The Soviet Victory Day or May 9 marks the capitulation of Nazi Germany to the Soviet Union in the Second World War (also known as the Great Patriotic War in the Soviet Union and some post-Soviet states).  It was first inaugurated in the fifteen republics of the Soviet Union, following the signing of the surrender document late in the evening on May 8, 1945 (May 9 by Moscow Time).  It happened after the original capitulation that Germany earlier agreed to the joint Allied forces of the Western Front.  The Soviet government announced the victory early on May 9 after the signing ceremony in Berlin.