Yesterday, memorial ceremonies were held to mark the second anniversary of the Polish presidential jet crash near the Russian city of Smolensk.

      At noon, a Polish delegation of 150 crash victims' relatives, officials and the Minister of Culture Bogdan Zdrojewski attended a commemoration service at the site of the tragedy near Smolensk. The ceremony was followed by an ecumenical prayer service held by a Catholic clergyman and an Orthodox priest.

      Earlier, in Poland, President Bronislaw Komorowski attended a memorial event at the military cemetery in Povonzkah, where a monument to the victims of the tragedy was established. Both in Poland and in Smolensk there was a minute of silence at the moment of crush. People in Poland lit candles and laid wreaths near the presidential palace and then marched through central Warsaw in the evening. 

      On April 10, 2010, a high-profile Polish delegation was flying to western Russia to commemorate the victims of the Katyn forest massacre of 1940, where thousands of Polish soldiers were killed by Stalin's secret police. But the plane crashed at 8:41 am local time near the city of Smolensk, killing all 96 passengers on board, including the president, first lady and most of the country's political and militant elite.

      The real reasons of that tragedy are still questionable, the main version is the plane's crew wrong decisions which were made under pressure of some unknown senior official, who was giving orders during the flight. 

      However, some opposition forces are still sure that the crash was contrived by Moscow secret services. They even held a protest action in front of the Russian embassy in Poland, burning portraits of some Russian officials.  

Sources: regnum.ru Russia Today echo.msk.ru RIA Novosti Image: dp.ru