{"id":11144,"date":"2019-05-15T19:43:00","date_gmt":"2019-05-16T01:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/?p=11144"},"modified":"2019-05-15T19:43:16","modified_gmt":"2019-05-16T01:43:16","slug":"the-immortal-regiment-march-and-a-reminder-that-what-we-all-share-something-in-common","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/the-immortal-regiment-march-and-a-reminder-that-what-we-all-share-something-in-common\/","title":{"rendered":"The Immortal Regiment March and A Reminder That What We All Share Something In Common"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I\u2019d never heard of the Immortal Regiment March before my\ntrip to Russia last week. It was May 8th<\/sup> and we were driving in our\nprivate tour bus with our guide through the streets of Saint Petersburg Russia.\nOur guide was telling us about each of the buildings and the history\nsurrounding them as we drove through the city.  \nAs we passed by one building there were two people on the side of the\nroad walking with signs in their hands that had photos of a different people on\ntheir signs. Our guide stopped talking mid-sentence when she saw them and her\nhand came up to her chest in her eyes got teary\u2026 it was clear that whatever she\nwas seeing had touched her deeply.  After\na moment she went on to finish the sentence she had previously started. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had to know what had caused her emotion, so after she\nfinished the sentence I asked her, \u201cWhat was going on there with the people with\nthe signs?\u201d She explained that those were people preparing for the March of the\nImmortal Regiment that was to take place the next day on May 9th<\/sup>.  I asked her what the Immortal Regiment March\nwas and she explained that people would gather together in cities throughout\nRussia to walk through the streets holding signs with photos of their ancestors\nwho had died in World War II to pay tribute to them.  She said they were expecting over a million\npeople to march through the streets in Saint Petersburg alone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my mind I flashed back to the image of the streets I\u2019d\nseen in Washington DC a few years ago following a protest march that had gone\non with people screaming and yelling with all kinds of mayhem going on with trash\nleft all over the streets when they were done. I was dreading seeing anything\nlike that ever again. Would a million people marching for the Immortal Regiment\nbe similar to that?? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not knowing what to expect we rushed back to our hotel\nbefore the March was to begin so we could watch it from the safe view of our\nhotel room balcony.  I stepped out on the\nbalcony expecting to hear screaming and yelling as the march was set to begin\u2026.but\nwhat I heard instead came as a total shock\u2026I heard silence\u2026I could see masses\nof people standing along the sides of the street to watch but as the marchers came\ninto view holding their signs in the air with their ancestors faces on them a\ncomplete hush fell over the crowd\u2026it was silent\u2026a respectful silence in honor\nof the ancestors they paid tribute to who gave their own lives in order to save\nthe lives of countless others\u2026and that silence lasted as over 1.8 million people\nmarched through the streets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Young and old marched through the streets in procession holding signs, all showing the same level of great reverence for their ancestors. It was absolutely humbling to watch it\u2026I would even describe it as sacred\u2026 \u00a0It was an unforgettable thing to be able to witness and I am so grateful I was able to be there on such a special occasion. It made me so proud to see the respect the Russian people showed to their ancestors and it helped me to recognize that love of our ancestors is something we all share, regardless of where we live in this world\u2026what an amazing commonality we all share that can be used as a foundation to grow relationships upon\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Our love for our ancestors is something we all share in common….let’s build on that…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

~Amy Rees Anderson (author of the book \u201cWhat Awesome Looks Like: How To Excel in Business & Life<\/a>\u201d ) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019d never heard of the Immortal Regiment March before my trip to Russia last week. It was May 8th and we were driving in our private tour bus with our guide through the streets of Saint Petersburg Russia. Our guide was telling us about each of the buildings and the history surrounding them as we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[395,3635,21141,5347,5346,482,21135,21147,21142,21108,21145,1521,21146,21138,1569,21144,21136,21107,21137,21109,5812,1270,21134,21143,21139,4472,21140,21133],"class_list":["post-11144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-amy-rees-anderson","tag-ancestors","tag-build-on-our-commonalities","tag-family-history","tag-family-tree","tag-genealogy","tag-hush","tag-love-of-our-ancestors","tag-marching","tag-moscow","tag-our-family-tree","tag-parade","tag-paying-tribute-to-veterans","tag-protestors","tag-respect","tag-respect-for-our-ancestors","tag-reverence","tag-russia","tag-sacred-experience","tag-saint-petersburg","tag-shock","tag-silence","tag-the-march-of-immortal-regiments","tag-total-silence","tag-tribute-to-ancestors","tag-veterans","tag-what-we-have-in-common","tag-world-war-ii"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11144"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11151,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11144\/revisions\/11151"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}