The 2018 Guard Mounting Season Was Adjourned in Moscow’s Kremlin

The thirty second Foot and Horse Ceremonial Guard Mounting in Moscow’s Kremlin has closed this year’s ceremonial season.

Last Saturday the 2018 guard mounting season was closed at Moscow’s Kremlin Cathedral Square. As a matter of tradition the show did not lack fire — both literally (a salvo of 36 Simonov’s 7,62 mm carabines never let the lookie loos indifferent, the most sensitive and faint-hearted of whom start squatting, yelping and even screaming) and music wise with the President’s Band preparing a surprise. In the course of the ceremony the audience suddenly started deciphering the melody of Kalinka Malinka song in the performance of the Honor Guard who knocked the melody with their carabines over the Kremlin’s cobblestone. Then the composition was repeated, this time by the band and… there was no way of standing still. Feet were eager to be off dancing and not only feet but the hoofs as well. It was hard getting rid of the impression that the Kremlin’s Cavalry taking part in the ceremony and featuring twelve riders mounted on dashing runners were dancing as well.

“This Kalinka composition we have invented only this year for the Spasskaya Tower Festival where it actually has been presented to the audiences”, told Colonel Evgeniy Nikitin, Deputy Head of the President’s Regiment. “It’s a well-known song, of course, but our version seems to have a touch of originality: first soldiers start knocking the rhythm out with their arms, then they are followed by the band and finally the composition reaches its pinnacle. Visitors among whom there were a lot of foreign tourists immensely enjoyed themselves. Anyone hardly knew that we are using it in the guard mounting ceremony. We have kept this in secret till the very end. Well, the response of the audience you could’ve seen yourself”.

The band kept its music surprise in such secrecy that it turned to be a revelation even for the senior officers who happened to be a generous audience and awarded their subordinates with applause. As you are aware in the armed forces lack of punishment equals to a reward.

It’s worth noting that the command of the Presidential Regiment and the Commandant of the Kremlin favor the so called bottom-up initiative. Colonels and generals allow their subordinates (even privates) developing new arms drills, elements and compositions and then offering them to their leadership. Even the place of holding guard mountings has no restrictions.

This summer it’s been suggested holding an addition ceremonial guard mounting right on Red Square accompanied by football chants and even a little football match between officers of the Honor Guard and President’s Band. Football fans that arrived for the FIFA World Cup were delighted.

The 2019 Foot and Horse Ceremonial Guard Mounting season will start in April promising a bunch of surprises and updates. There are rumors that the ceremony might span its geographical footprint over Ivanovskaya Square. That sounds perfect. A well-known Russian expression “shout out loud all over Ivanovskaya” meaning shout at top of one’s voice relates exactly to the spot. The history of the expression dates back to the old times when heralds announced (literally shouted out) tsarists’ decrees near the Ivan the Great Bell-Tower or when embezzlers were publicly whipped on the square. No wonder that they yelled at the top of their lungs.

To cut the story short, strictly military fashion ceremony, but how much useful historic knowledge does it open us.

But the most fantastic part of all these ceremonial mounting parades is the demonstration of the infinite opportunities of Russia’s military technologies, traditions and in a way of social lifts that politicians so widely speak about. Two thirds of the soldiers taking part in the ceremony are conscripts, ordinary guys from all over Russia, including Volgograd, Ekaterinburg, Krasnodar, Krasnoyarsk, Kaluga, Kaliningrad, Novosibirsk, Nizhniy Novgorod, Penza, Perm, Rostov-on-Don, Samara, Saratov, Ulyanovsk, Yaroslavl. Only few of them represent Moscow and its region.

The Kremlin is the official residence of the head of state. Only President has the right to live here and… soldiers of the Presidential Regiment. None of the money, statuses and titles will ever allow anyone have a sleepover inside the Kremlin walls.

By the way, this autumn conscripts selected to serve in the Presidential Regiment from their gathering points will get directly to the Kremlin bypassing other training facilities.

To have a notion about how victorious Russian military training system is just imagine the following. Future Kremlin soldiers including those that will serve in the Honor Guard and will arouse applauses of Russian and foreign tourists in the 2019 ceremonial season are now at home finishing their moms’ patties. They are still at home. In the mid of November they will arrive in the disposal of the regiment and on December 6 they are going to take their oath.

That means that none of them can even march what use speaking about knocking out Kalinka with a carabine over the cobblestone or excel in arms drilling. But a few months will pass and these boys are going to turn into soldiers and real men.

If someone wants to express their compassion pointing out what pressures these guys would have to bear, don’t bother yourself. There will pressures of course and to a great extent, but the soldiers themselves never regret these twelve months of service.

“I’m very upset now”, calmly says Private Nikita Okhapkin, serviceman of the Honor Guard of the Presidential Regiment. “Life will never be the same. On November 8 I’m leaving the service and going back home to Perm. Of course I’m happy looking forward to meeting my close ones, but the service in the Kremlin has sunk deep into my heart and mind. It’s turned to be part of my life”.

…The autumn draft is on now. I asked Private Okhapkin to give three pieces of advice for those who are now stressed waiting for their notices.

As a true military man Nikita is very neat and sharp saying “first, be confident, then be proud and love your Motherland and last throw yourself into selftraining advancing physically, morally and spiritually and of course intellectually as one needs to serve with his head on its shoulders”.

“It’s obvious that not everyone will get to the elite units such as the Presidential Regiment, airborne forces and others. But drawing one’s duty with dignity is possible anywhere even being an infantryman, a driver or a signalman. The most important is to step onto this road of serving with will”, advises Mr. Andrey Denisov, Chairman of the Kursk regional organization titled “Kremlin Veterans of State Security Units and Forces”.

Mr. Andrey Denisov is Colonel (Retired). Two of his sons are acting officers. In the Kremlin he happened to be with a group of students form Kursk. The boys and girls were introduced to a special excursion right to the premises of the closes Kremlin facilities where you can look around but no photos are allowed. Among those objects were quarters of the Presidential Regiment. At the end of the excursion some started recollecting about joining in the Armed Forces. For example, students of music got interested in the perspective of becoming part of the President’s Band. At the end of the day, one can pay his duty to the country not only with a rifle in hands.

Farewell of Slavianka is also a weapon.

These soldiers can do anything — firing, marching and even knocking out popular melodies with their carabines.

Rossiiskaya Gazeta: Igor Elkov