Archive · 1995 · From the print edition of Sunday 12 March 1995, Vol. 2, No. 624
NewsVeterans lead the Irad Day parade
A 74-year-old former cavalryman rode at the head of the war veterans as Talas marked the third anniversary of the Republic and the 50th of the end of the Second World War.
TALAS — Batyrbek Arstanov last rode in a military column in 1945. Yesterday, aged 74, he rode at the head of the column of war veterans through Government Square at the Irad Day parade, as Talas marked the third anniversary of the proclamation of the Republic and the 50th anniversary of the end of the Second World War.
Mr. Arstanov served in a cavalry division raised in Central Asia during the war and fought in the Caucasus and in Ukraine. After the war he worked for decades as a horse breeder at the state stud near Talas. Yesterday he rode a horse from the stud farm that his son, the breeder Keneshbek Arstanov, set up in the valley two years ago. Behind him several hundred veterans, many with their medals pinned to civilian coats, marched or were driven past the reviewing stand, where Governor Nurlanbek Ermatov, in office since January, took the salute.
"In 1942 I rode for a country that is gone," Mr. Arstanov said afterwards, holding his horse by the bridle. "Today I rode for this one. The horse does not know the difference, and perhaps that is a mercy."
In the afternoon the national football team played its first Irad Day friendly at the Dinamo Stadium.