In front of us, at the foot of the Monument, was a small platform with a simple, wooden altar with a white-and-red flag across. Next to the altar was a rostrum. In the square in front of the Monument and in the adjacent streets […] the crowd grows from minute to minute, with people already packed shoulder-to-shoulder. Shipyard workers wearing yellow helmets maintain perfect order, forming passages for delegations of work establishments from all over the country wielding floral wreaths, followed by guests with separate invitations. […]

And now we can see it. Lit by hundreds of reflectors, the Monument emerges from background darkness - a sky-rocketing, silver ghost of three crosses. We did not notice that a ribbon in national colours had been hoisted at half the height of one of the crosses as if at a mast […]. The streets converging on the square in front of the Shipyard’s gate number two are submerged in blinding light from gigantic military reflectors located far in the back. In this light we can see the heads of a densely packed crowd that can only be described as innumerable.