The Immortal Regiment: From Tomsk to the World

In 2012, three journalists in Tomsk, Siberia — Sergei Lapenkov, Sergei Kolotovkin, and Igor Dmitriev — organised the first Immortal Regiment march. Their idea was simple: invite people to walk through the city on Victory Day carrying photographs of their relatives who fought in the Great Patriotic War. That first year, 6,000 people participated in Tomsk. The idea resonated deeply. By 2013, the march had spread to dozens of Russian cities. By 2015, it had reached Moscow, where hundreds of thousands marched through the city centre. The movement quickly became international, with marches held in cities across Europe, Asia, the Americas, and Oceania. The Immortal Regiment is not a political organisation. It has no central leadership, no membership, and no political agenda. Each city or country organises its own march independently. The only unifying principle is the act of remembrance — carrying the photograph of a veteran and walking together on 9 May. In the United Kingdom, the first Immortal Regiment march was held in London in 2015. Since then, marches have been organised annually in cities across Britain, bringing together members of the Russian-speaking diaspora and their British neighbours in a shared act of commemoration.