The massive celebration on Tiananmen Square commemorating the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC) received strong coverage in Russian media on Thursday.

Russian TV channels Vesti and NTV screened the National Day parade in Beijing in its news programs from 6 a.m. Moscow time (0200 GMT). The coverage featured the magnificent Tiananmen Rostrum adorned with fluttering red flags as well as columns of infantry and armed vehicles.

Both Vesti and NTV hosted TV-links with their reporters in Beijing with NTV describing it as the grandest parade the PRC had held since it was founded, NTV said in its report, while showing top Chinese state and military leader Hu Jintao inspecting the armed forces from a black open-roof Red Flag limousine.

Many weapons were shown to the public for the first time, NTV said, adding that the civilian parade was just as impressive as the military one.

Russian netizens were also able to follow the event, with photos and videos of the parade available on Vesti's websites.

Russian news agencies Itar-Tass, RIA Novosti and Interfax also covered the pageant.

Sergei Tihvinsky, a 91-year-old Sinologist who attended the celebration in Beijing as a foreign guest told Itar-Tass he recalled the parade in 1949 when late Chinese leader Chairman Mao Zedong declared the founding of the PRC.

Tihvinsky, also the honorary chairman of the Russia-China Friendship Association, said he witnessed the great achievements China has attained in the past six decades and Russia-China ties had never been better.

Itar-Tass, in a special coverage, traced China's development since the20th century and highlighted the country's accomplishment in the past 60 years and in the 30 years since China took up the policy of reform and opening up.

Russian newspaper Gazeta on Thursday devoted half an edition to the preparations and arrangements for the parade and even the security measures. The article was accompanied by a list of big events that had occurred in China in the past six decades.

In addition to coverage on the day, New China's 60th anniversary has been in the spotlight of Russian media recently. Another newspaper, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, on Tuesday published an article entitled "60 years and 5000 years."

The article, written by renowned Sinologist Vsevolod Ovcinnikov, introduced China's experience in reform and opening up. The writer hailed China as the only country in the world where ancient civilization was progressing with modernization.

Newspaper Moscow Komsomolec, on its front page on Thursday, published an interview with Yakov Berger, a China expert with the Far East Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, who outlined the development of China and dismissed the China threat theory.

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