In Soviet times, the day of victory over Nazi Germany was marked with a level of reverence that seemed to make May 9 the only religious holiday on the Soviet calendar. The reason is clear. Study the family tree of almost any Russian, and you will find branches that abruptly ended at the war years. […]
About
About
James Brooke is VOA Moscow bureau chief, covering Russia and the former USSR. With The New York Times, he worked as a foreign correspondent in Africa, Latin America, Canada and Japan/Koreas. He studied Russian in college during the Brezhnev years, first visited Moscow as a reporter during the final months of Gorbachev, and then came back for reporting forays during the Yeltsin and early Putin years. In 2006, he moved to Moscow to report for Bloomberg. He joined VOA in Moscow in 2010. Follow Jim on Twitter @VOA_Moscow.
