WTC Moscow celebrates Victory Day

On the eve of the upcoming Victory Day celebrations, World Trade Center Moscow held a gala evening for the veterans. Honorary guests at the WTC enjoyed a scrumptious dinner and a concert, as well as gifts and a friendly, warm atmosphere. They were honored with numerous toasts and wishes of good health and prosperity, while artists performed wartime songs.

On behalf of the WTC Board of Directors and management, the Director General of the World Trade Center Moscow Vladimir Strashko congratulated the veterans and wished them plenty of happy days to come. “It is a good tradition here at the World Trade Center to invite the war and labor veterans on the eve of this holiday to once again enjoy our time together, to celebrate Victory Day, to remember those who are no longer with us and to send a message to everyone that we have not forgotten the way the Soviet people, together with other nations, defeated Nazism during the Great Patriotic War”, - he noted.

The history of the World Trade Center is tightly linked with the veterans. In 1980, when the WTC was only just beginning to operate, its human resources department launched a special project involving the veterans - at the time the company employed 170 war veterans. Over the years, the number of labor veterans grew among the center’s employees and in 2003 a non-profit organization for the veterans of the Great Patriotic War, labor veterans and pensioners – all former employees of the WTC – was created at the WTC. That same year a decision was taken at a shareholders’ meeting to provide financial assistance and social support to members of the Organization. It presently consists of 750 people. It is worth noting that in 2016 six veterans mark their 90th birthday.

“It is your friends and war veterans who have built this Center and launched it, enabling it to develop, and it is thanks to their efforts that our Center today represents one of the mainstays of the Moscow and Russian business”, – stressed Natalya Tarasova, a WTC veteran Organization member. She also warmly thanked the management of the Center for their sincere support for the veterans that includes only financial assistance but, above all, the attention that the veterans receive at the WTC.

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WTC Moscow management and staff also paid tribute to those killed in the Great Patriotic War. They traditionally took part in a wreath and flower laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier by the Kremlin wall.

On behalf of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation a wreath was laid by the Vice-President of the CCI Vadim Chubarov, as well as Vladimir Dmitriev, Dmitry Kurochkin and Maxim Fateev. The delegation of the CCI, the “Expocenter” Exhibition Complex and WTC Moscow also paid tribute to Marshal Georgy Zhukov and the staff of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the USSR who died in the Great Patriotic War.