PUTIN ORDERS REPLACING VOLGOGRAD WITH STALINGRAD AT WW II MEMORIAL
This decision was made “in the anticipation of the 60th anniversary of victory in the Great Patriotic War to emphasize the importance of the Battle of Stalingrad, which changed the tide of the war, to pay a tribute of respect to the heroism of Stalingrad’s defenders, and to preserve the history of the Russian State,” the presidential instruction says.
Putin asked the Moscow authorities to replace the world Volgograd with Stalingrad on the stone block containing soil from the Mamayev Kurgan hill (the scene of the most fierce clashes for control of the city) within a three-month deadline in coordination with the federal bodyguards service FSO.
The instruction is effective as of the signature date.
The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier memorial commemorates all Soviet solders killed in action during World War II. On December 3, 1966 the remains of an unknown soldier, killed in the Battle of Moscow in late 1941 and originally buried in a common grave at the 41st kilometer of the Leningrad highway were reburied at the foot of the Kremlin wall. The memorial was unveiled on May 8, 1967 and the Eternal Flame was lit.
In the center of the memorial there is a gravestone floor of polished red granite. The middle stone supports a sculptural composition of bronze - a laurel branch, a soldier’s helmet and a five-point star. The eternal flame in the star’s center cast light on the bronze inscription: “Your name is unknown, your feat is immortal.”
On the left-hand-side of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier there is a wall of granite with the inscription 1941 - To Those who Died for the Motherland - 1945, and on the right-hand-side, an alley of granite blocks containing capsules with soil brought from the cities awarded the Hero City title - Leningrad, Kiev, Volgograd, Odessa, Sevastopol, Minsk, Kerch, Novorissiisk, Tula and the Fortress of Brest.
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