Victory Day fireworks over Kharkiv

Today was Victory Day for Russia and other former Soviet nations, the 62nd anniversary of the victory over the Nazis in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 (as World War II is known here).

There were parades and concerts -- and in Kharkiv, a magnificent fireworks display. Serge and I went; it was on Freedom Square, just a five-minute walk from our apartment building.

The fireworks were supposed to begin at 10 p.m. They were about a half-hour late -- but well worth the wait. It was the most spectacular show I'd seen -- better than Fourth of July fireworks over Town Lake in Austin or an Innsbrook in Richmond.

The fireworks started low on the ground, near the Lenin statue -- and I thought, "OK, that's quaint." But then they rose higher and higher -- they could've shot down a couple of planes! -- and ended with a wild finale of colorful bursts.
Of course, pictures -- not words -- are needed to convey fireworks. But I want to present the pictures in a different way than usual.

I recently learned about a site called Slideshare that makes it easy to upload a PowerPoint presentation and then share it with other people. One way to share the file is to embed a link in a Web page (as YouTube lets you do). This interests me a lot, because journalists -- especially citizen journalists -- might be able to use this tool for presenting news photos.

So, with that explanation, here is my slideshow of the fireworks display: