Warsaw, photo:A.SkieterskaThe ceremonies in Warsaw on Saturday to mark the deaths of the 96 victims of the Smolensk air crash are expected to attract at least 500,000 to Poland’s capital.
The events preludes the funerals of President Lech Kaczynski and wife Maria in Krakow on Sunday.
The main ceremony will be held on Saturday at noon
in Pilsudski Square and then a mass will be held in mass in Warsaw Cathedral.
The local authorities have decided that public transportation will be free throughout the day. Many streets will be closed, however, and there will be a complete ban on the sale of alcohol.
Warsaw Mayor Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz has requested that mourners make use of public transport and leave private cars at home.
The metro will run from 06.00 to midnight and with trains leaving stations every three minutes. City authorities are asking large shopping malls on the outskirts of town to give up their parking spaces so people can drop the car off and make their way into the centre of town by public transport.
Timeline of events
11.59 - Trumpet sounds
12.00 - Two minutes of silence observed. Trumpeter plays “Sleep my friend”.
12.04 - Solemn reading of names of victims of the disaster.
12.20 - National anthem played.
12.22 - Speeches by acting president Bronislaw Komorowski, Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Jaroslaw Kaczynski.
13.05 - Mass
14.55 - End of the ceremony
17.30 - Transfer of coffins with the bodies of the President and his wife from the Presidential Palace to the Warsaw cathedral.
18.00 - Holy Mass for President Lech Kaczynski and his wife Maria Kaczynski in Warsaw Cathedral led Metropolitan Archbishop of Warsaw Kazimierz Nycz.
All night Vigil. (pg)