Russian war veteran Alexander Zaharovy Lebedenzhev did not get an invitation to the elaborate victory celebrations in Moscow's Red Square yesterday, so he decided to take matters into his own hands.
Dressed in his smart green uniform, choked with medals and ribbons, the 83-year-old arrived early in the morning at the foot of the towering Victory Statue on Poklonnaya Park, on the city outskirts.
And there he laid out photographs and maps on the lush green grass charting his war service, and stood waiting for passers-by to ask him about his experiences.
It was not a long wait. By the time the Irish Times discovered him, the former infantry captain was surrounded by admirers, young and old.
"On the banks of the Dnipre [River] we had a commander who was scared," he told the onlookers. "So he got his mistress, who was a nurse, to forge a sick note. And he came to see me, and said he was going to miss the fight, and could I lead his 60 men into battle?" Lebedenzhev led the men in the river crossing, surviving unscathed to collect a red star battle honour, one of five fastened to the right side of his tunic.
He showed me the reason he says got him barred from the official celebrations - a book he wrote two years ago detailing not just his war experiences but also the thousands of soldiers shot, often for minor offences, by Soviet battlefield police.
The activities of these special units, who stood behind Soviet infantrymen, shooting those who tried to fall back, remains taboo in today's Russia.
"Dirty work was done by those units," he told me. "I wrote this. Now I am labelled a bourgeois." The result is some bitterness: "There are some men parading around today who were in the war but never saw action, yet here they are, in uniform, wearing campaign medals. It is wrong."
Yet Lebedenzhev is a staunch supporter of his country, saying Russia, which lost 29 million dead, did more than anyone else to beat fascism. "We won the war by drowning the enemy in our own blood," he says, to approving nods from many of the onlookers.
Yesterday's victory commemoration was tinged with an extra sadness for many because it is likely to be the last major celebration.
"By the time we hold the 70th anniversary how many of these veterans will be left?" said 27-year-old photographer Daria Mazur. "They are a point of reference, a reminder never to forget the danger of war."
I left Captain Lebedenzhev as he told yet another story to his enthralled audience, this one about how a Tatar comrade with a fine singing voice caused a temporary ceasefire with German soldiers in a nearby trench when he began singing along to tunes they played with their harmonicas. "For a little time there was no shooting, only singing," he said. "But it didn't last, we were soon back at war."