An international competition on the history of the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945 has been launched!

The “Path Home” team brings together people who care about Russia and are interested in it. If you would like to learn more about our country and the people who live here—their concerns and anxieties, traditions and spiritual values—we will be delighted to help you!

This year, at the initiative of Alexander Mikhailovich Babakov, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma of Russia, and with the support of “Rossotrudnichestvo”, the International Council of Russian Compatriots and other organizations the Autonomous Nonprofit Organization “Center for Assistance to Voluntary Resettlement “Path Home”” will hold a series of events for you, during which you can discover many interesting things, perhaps some new, that will help you learn more deeply about our country and its history.

Knowledge of history helps people shape their civic views and positions, make sense of current events, and promotes harmony in society and peace between countries and peoples. Its distortion leads to hostility, the removal of monuments, the desecration of graves, and the humiliation of veterans, and then… inevitably to war.

 This is clearly evident in the West’s attempts to rewrite the history of the Second World War and blacken our country’s role in it. Today, this is pursued especially actively by the descendants of fascists and those who sympathized with and supported fascism, were defeated, and harbored resentment and hatred toward Russia. This explains the Western elites’ deeply hostile attitude toward our country, their open Russophobia, and their desire to inflict a “strategic” defeat on us—or, more simply, to take revenge for their defeat in the Second World War.

In the history of humanity, no country in the world has faced an invasion as vast and barbaric as our Motherland did in the Second World War; that is why in Russia we call it the Great Patriotic War! By attacking our Fatherland, Nazi Germany openly pursued the goal of physically destroying the Soviet Union in its entirety and enslaving its peoples. This war caused colossal material damage and destruction in our country and led to the deaths of 26 million Soviet citizens.

The actions of Germany and its allies in the occupied territories of the USSR were marked by particular cruelty and accompanied by the mass extermination of civilians and prisoners of war, as well as the destruction of historical and cultural heritage sites. And yet, despite inhuman hardships, our people did not give in! They fought selflessly, died for their Motherland, and won! Such is our country, such are our people!

In the West, the war on the Eastern Front was already “little-known” in the past, and under current relations it is being grossly distorted altogether. In Russia, the question “Do the Russians want war?..” is still considered unnecessary. The answer is contained in the lyrics of this famous song. With the changing of generations in  Russia, the memory of this terrible war will not fade.

Knowing and remembering it is our duty.