The great war memorial complex on the hill above the city, commemorating the Battle of Stalingrad (August 1942 – February 1943), one of the deadliest battles in human history. At the summit stands The Motherland Calls — an 85-metre statue of a woman brandishing a sword, the tallest sculpture in the world at the time of its completion in 1967. The approach winds through monumental Soviet-era statuary, past the Hall of Military Glory (with the names of the dead inscribed on mosaic panels around an eternal flame), to the hilltop. The scale is overwhelming and the experience genuinely moving. Take tram 2 from the city centre.
Mamayev Kurgan
Monumental WWII memorial topped by The Motherland Calls statue
A story
At the height of the battle, the hill changed hands repeatedly, sometimes multiple times in a single day. After months of fighting, the soil became so saturated with metal shrapnel and bullets that it took years after the war for grass to grow on the hilltop. Even today, construction work in the area regularly unearths unexploded ordnance and human remains.