By Jaweed Kaleem

Los Angeles Times

It was 2:49 p.m. when the bombs exploded on Boylston Street, 12 seconds and 210 yards apart. The two brothers who put them there, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, wanted to tear Boston apart.

Little did they know how much they would bring it together.

Saturday was the fourth anniversary of the April 15, 2013, Boston Marathon bombings, which killed three people, injured hundreds of others and sent a city into lockdown and disarray.

But for Monday’s 26.2-mile run on a course the city expects more than 30,000 people to traverse, Boston isn’t mourning, somber or quiet.

It’s loudly celebrating.

“The race itself is, in many ways, a commemoration of what happened,” said T.K. Skenderian, a spokesman for the marathon, which will take place for the 121st time. “There is no moment of silence on marathon day.”

The runners will run, and the crowds will cheer them on, as they’ve done since 1897.

Boston Day, as Saturday’s city holiday is called, was expected to bring thousands of residents and visitors out in support of the “resiliency” and “strength” of the streets and people jolted on Boylston Street.

It could be described as a huge coordinated community service festival across the region.

Volunteers were to honor the youngest victim killed in the bombing, 8-year-old Martin Richard, by doing something he loved to do in his Dorchester neighborhood: picking up trash and planting flowers.

Firefighters and police were to be honored throughout the day.

And at 2:49 p.m., volunteers around the city were to pause for a moment of silence.

“The Boston Marathon is a key part of our city’s identity, and continues to show the world that Boston is strong, and our traditions will endure, no matter what,” Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said in a statement. “The spirit of the day on April 15 shows the best of Boston: how Bostonians from all backgrounds come together to line the streets, celebrate one another and do good for their community.”

Meanwhile, new details about events leading up to the attacks emerged this past week.

The FBI had said previously that it had interviewed the elder brother, Tamerlan, two years before the bombings, but the agency did not disclose details about that interview until it released a report on the matter Monday.

In 2011, Tamerlan Tsarnaev told federal agents who visited him in Cambridge that he had “respect for all religions and feels that any religion makes your life better,” according to the report.

The FBI had investigated him after the Russian government suggested he was a “follower of radical Islam” and said he had planned to “join unspecified underground groups.” But the FBI did not find Tsarnaev, who is believed to have in part been radicalized online, to be involved in “any terrorism activity.”

Tamerlan Tsarnaev died in after the bombings when he was shot by police in Watertown, Mass. His brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, survived, and was found guilty of attack in 2015.

He is on death row at ADX Florence, a federal supermax prison in Colorado.