One of Boris Lisitsyn's happiest memories is of being swept by a huge, joyous crowd through the streets of Moscow and onto Red Square in spontaneous celebrations when World War Two ended in Europe.
He was too young to fight but, like most Russians, sees the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945 as one of his nation's great achievements, albeit as part of the Soviet Union.
"I remember the end of the war so well. It was such an all-embracing joy, when people poured on to the streets with bottles, with songs, half-drunk," the 86-year-old pensioner said in his apartment on the outskirts of the Russian capital.