Thousands of mounted French and Russian actors Sunday recreated a 200-year-old battle at the gates of Moscow that led to the fall of Napoleon and the rise of Russian patriotic fervor.

President Vladimir Putin arrived to oversee the grand festivities after seeing his government spend $1.1 million on a celebration of not only Russian history but also its military and resolve.

France is represented at the sleepy Borodino field 120 kilometers west of Moscow by former president Giscard d'Estaing and 1,550 actors who began drawing swords with 1,450 Russians before nearly 100,000 history buffs.

Putin's chief of staff had earlier urged Russian authorities to use the occasion to expand "the patriotic education of youth," and the day-long performance was being aired live in almost its entirety by state TV.

The battle scene crowns weeks of celebrations that unofficially kicked off when 23 Cossacks on horseback began a two-month march on Paris on August 12.

Putin is also making the increasingly powerful Russian Orthodox Church an instrumental part of the occasion as he seeks to cement its place in society. Putin's strategic use of nationalism has served the ex-KGB spy well since he rose to power in 1999, a period in which he has remained Russia's most popular and dominant politician.

But it has also hampered his relations with powers such as Britain and the United States, while dividing parts of Europe over how to handle a big, inward-looking neighbor that makes periodic threatening noises.

AFP