Mamayev Kurgan Memorial Hill, 85-Metre Rodina-Mat Statue, Battle of Stalingrad Panorama Museum, Pavlov's 58-Day House Defence & Volga River Boat Tour
📍 Volgograd, Russia📅 3-day itinerary
The city of the Battle of Stalingrad — the 200-day battle (August 23, 1942 – February 2, 1943) that killed approximately 1.95 million soldiers on both sides and 400,000+ civilians, destroyed 95% of the city's buildings, and produced the decisive turning point of the Second World War (the first major German strategic defeat; the first encirclement of an entire German Army — Field Marshal Paulus captured with 91,000 survivors of the original 300,000-man 6th Army), commemorated by the Mamayev Kurgan memorial complex with the 85-metre Rodina-Mat ("Motherland Calls") statue — the largest free-standing sculpture in the world from 1967 to 1989.
The Rodina-Mat Statue (85 Metres, 8,000 Tonnes of Concrete, the World's Tallest Freestanding Sculpture 1967-1989) on the Summit of Mamayev Kurgan — the Hill That Changed Hands 14 Times in 140 Days and Where the Soil Contained Such a Density of Shrapnel That Grass Would Not Grow for Years After the Battle
Pavlov's House Where 25 Soviet Soldiers Held a 4-Story Apartment Building for 58 Days Against Repeated German Assaults — More Germans Died Attacking It Than in the Entire German Advance to the English Channel in 1940 (Per General Chuikov's Memoir)
The Rossoshka Cemetery Where the German War Graves Commission Maintains 50,000 Black Basalt Cross Markers on One Side of a Path While the Russian Military Cemetery Maintains 50,000 Soviet Grave Markers on the Other Side — the Most Visible Monument to German-Russian Reconciliation at the Site of Their Most Catastrophic Battle