Volgograd has a bloody and tragic history as the battlefield of many wars. As an outpost on Tsarist Russia’s unstable southern border, Volgograd (then known at Tsaritsyn) saw heavy fighting during the Russian Civil War.
However, it was not until the city was renamed Stalingrad, that the city gained eternal fame at the cost of its own destruction. For 200 days in 1942 and 1943, Soviet and Nazi forces engaged in the bloodiest battle ever seen in modern warfare, which also turned out to be one of the most decisive of the Second World War, at the cost of almost 2 million lives.
Memories of those terrible days still live on in the minds of the many veterans who now live in the city and conduct tours of the main battle sites. The moving ‘Motherland Calls’ monument, which stands as a memorial to those who died is one of the tallest sculptures in the world. At 280 feet high the body of the monument it is even taller than the Statue of Liberty.
