Day of Tankmen

Day of Tankmen (Russian: День танкиста) is a professional military holiday in Russia and the former Soviet Union, celebrated every second Sunday of September.

The holiday was established in the USSR by a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet on 11 July 1946 to commemorate the role of the mechanized and armored forces in the Red Army in defeating their enemy counterparts from the Wehrmacht during the Great Patriotic War.

On the first celebration that year, a military parade of armored equipment was held on Red Square in the presence of the military leadership on Lenin's Mausoleum and spectators from the adjacent stands, with the personnel being drawn from the 4th Guards Tank Division[1] to participate in the 3-hour parade.

In the 40s and 50s, celebrations included columns of tanks being driven on streets in major Soviet cities watched by enthusiastic crowds.

The procedure required that the holiday not have a fixed date and it should be celebrated on the second Sunday of September from that year onwards.