A Great Russian War Documentary

In the lead-up to the big 65th anniversary of the end of the Great Patriotic War, a series of documentaries were made in Russia covering almost every major battle of the war. I saw some of the episodes on TV and liked how they did them (and I am a war documentary connoisseur), my only problem was that I didn't understand most of what they were saying.

So it was with great joy that I came across the same shows on Youtube, complete with English subtitles! Although the grammar in the translation is horrendous it still gets the message across.

This show, called "The Great War", is broken into several series which are more akin to episodes. Each episode is 50 minutes long so is broken into 10-minute segments on Youtube but they are all lined up together so when one ends just click on the next one in line.

Here's a link to the first part of the first episode, covering Operation Barbarossa (the German invasion of the Soviet Union). Enjoy!

Park Pabyedi (Victory Park)

Victory Park in Moscow is one of the more fascinating places in the city. Construction on the park started in 1961. It was meant to serve as a memorial to the great Soviet victory over the Nazis and as place where Victory Day celebrations could be held. Bureaucratic bungling and corruption, however, meant that the park took over 30 years to complete.It was finally completed in 1996 with the addition of a massive obelisk and a tank park.

The land that Victory Park was built on is the exact same spot where, in 1812, Napolean stood and watched Moscow burning. Today it has an extensive fountain garden, forest, a massive second world war museum, a tank park where both German and Soviet machines can be seen and many monuments ringing the hill.

To get to Victory Park take the dark blue metro line to Park Pabyedi (Парк Победы) and turn right when you exit the station. Walk down an understreet tunnel and when you emerge you will see the massive square lined with fountains and a gigantic obelisk at the far end. You are in Victory Park!

Парк Победы metro station



The Victory Obelisk dominates the skyline around the area. The names of nearly every battle the Red Army took part in during the 1941-1945 war is engraved on the obelisk.

Inside the Victory Museum is the "Hall of Tears", a solemn place where the 30 million + dead of the war can be honoured.

The 1st floor of the Victory Museum consists of stunning dioramas of major battles, such as this one depicting the seige of Leningrad.

The stairs to the second floor and the Hall of Heroes are interesting.

The Hall of Heroes: the names of every Soviet citizen who won the Order of Lenin are engraved on the walls.

Sadly, the museum glorifies the Kalishnikov AK-47, the world's most produced assault rifle and responsible for hundreds of conflicts and millions of lives since 1947.

Outside the Victory Museum, at the bottom of the hill, is the tank park. Nearly a hundred vehicles from both German and Soviet arsenals are parked here. All of them were recovered from actual battlefields and many bear the scars of war.

Soviet T-34. I noticed a giant shell hole in the rear of this tank.

Soviet ISU-152 tank-destroyer, recovered from the Kursk battlefield.

The tank park also houses a big collection of aircraft, from early Yak and Mig designs up to the modern-day Mig-29 fighter jet.

At the far end of the tank park is a recreated partisan village. Visitors can roam around and climb on the buildings (as I did!)

A massive Soviet railway gun used during the seige of Budapest.

There's a small waterpark with Soviet gunships and a recreated battlecruiser.

At the end of the tank park is a monument to the founding of the United Nations in 1945. Here a French soldier stands alongside a Russian, American and British soldier. What I never understood was "Why the French? They LOST the war!"

Heading away from Victory Park you are greeted with a fantastic view of the Moscow skyline.

The Yalta Conference

By February of 1944 the front lines in Russia had been pushed back far to the west. Most of Belorussia and the Ukraine had been liberated by the Red Army and Germany's Army Group North, besieging Leningrad, was in a precarious position and would soon be forced to withdraw. Everybody knew that the war would end with an Axis defeat, the only questions were "When" and "How".

The Soviet Union, United Kingdom and the United States of America, called the "Big Three" by this point, decided to hold a top-level conference to discuss these questions and what the post-war world would look like. Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt had already met once before, in Tehran, and had discussed general strategy and issued the "unconditional surrender" proclamation to the Axis powers (Germany, Italy, Japan and their sattelites). After spectacular Red Army successes in 1943 at Stalingrad, Kursk and along the Dnieper River, as well as American successes pushing the Japanese out of the Pacific Ocean, it was time to look to the future.

Stalin, ever paranoid, refused to fly in aircraft, therefore it was decided that the conference should take place somewhere he could reach by train. The Crimea, the famous Ukrainian peninsula which juts out into the Black Sea, traditionally a place of seaside resorts and the home of the Russian Black Sea fleet, was chosen as the site for the conference not only because it offered the most accessible place for all three leaders but also because it represented the stunning successes of the Soviet Union the year before.

The Crimea had been fought over twice during the war. The first time was during the German onslaughts in 1941 and 1942, when the Red Army had heroically defended the port city of Sevastopol against overwhelming odds. The second time was in 1943 when the Red Army returned during their drive west, this time with the Germans defending Sevastopol (although they didn't manage to put up as much of a defence as the Russians had the year before). Because of this the Crimea was in ruins. The resort town of Yalta was chosen because it was the least damaged of towns on the peninsula.

Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin came to the conference with differing agendas. Roosevelt and Churchill, firm allies mutually committed to each other, were being heavily critiscized by the Soviet press and by Stalin for failing to open a second front in 1943. Indeed, the vast bulk of the German forces were facing the Russians and the Soviet Union had borne the overwhelming brunt of the Second World War. All of European Russia was in ruins and tens of millions of its citizens were dead and maimed, and the USSR desperately needed the western Allies to invade nazi-occupied Europe and draw German divisions away from the Russian front. This was the position Stalin was taking at Yalta.

The western Allies, for the their part, had some difficult decisions ahead of them. When war had broken out in 1939 England had been woefully under-prepared. By 1941 the vast British Empire was being threatened with extinction by the Axis in Europe, Africa, India and Asia. England was barely hanging on when America entered the war. The giant industrial capacity of the USA took some time to convert to full war production and resources had to be split between the European and Pacific theatres. Although the Allies, by 1943, had kicked the Axis out of Africa and had invaded Italy, they felt that they were in no shape to mount a full-scale invasion of western Europe. They had to be satisfied with the strategic bombing campaign over Germany and Lend-Lease shipments to the USSR. By 1944 they were preparing for the long-awaited second front, however.

For the Russians this argument was inconsequential. Russia had been outnumbered and outclassed and, through sheer willpower and at tremendous cost in life and land, had fought the Axis to a standstill and then steadily pushed them back. They couldn't understand why the Allies were making only token efforts to fight the Germans while they, the Soviets, did all the bleeding. They believed, perhaps rightfully so (we will never know), that the UK and US were simply letting the nazis and communists bleed each other to death and thus killing "two birds with one stone."

Roosevelt and Churchill also disagreed on some points about the conduct of the war and the shape of the world when it was all over. Roosevelt trusted Stalin and had tremendous respect for him, despite his appallment at the Great Terror Stalin had unleashed on his people before the war. Roosevelt felt certain that he could work with Stalin and that they could come to an understanding (it is interesting to note that Stalin felt the same way about Roosevelt. Nikita Kruschev, in his memoirs, writes that Stalin only cried publicly twice: once when his first wife Nadya committed suicide and then when Roosevelt passed away). Roosevelt was also a strong supporter of opening the second front with a full-scale invasion of France and the liberation of Western Europe.

Churchill, on the other hand, distrusted Stalin immensely and did not hide the fact. He feared that despite whatever assurances Stalin gave, the Soviet Union would never let the people of Eastern Europe, once they were overrun by the advancing Red Army, democratically choose their own way of life. He was terrified of the Red Army overrunning all of Europe, to the English Channel, and imposing a tyrannical Stalinist dictatorship on hundreds of millions of people. Churchill's foreboding clashed with Roosevelt's idealism and helped to lay the roots of the Cold War.

Because of this fear of Soviet conquest, Churchill lobbied hard for the second front to open in South-East Europe, with an invasion of Greece and Yugoslavia. His arguments were that the western Allies could then drive north and liberate Eastern Europe before the Red Army had time to conquer it. Churchill was adamant that this course of action be chosen and even went so far as to publicly denounce the American plans in Parliament. He knew, however, that England would never be strong enough to conduct such an operation alone. He was well-aware that the sun was setting on the British Empire and that two new superpowers were being born by the war: the USA and the USSR. From now on, England would have to go where America wanted.

So when, on February 4th 1944, the Big Three met at Yalta, the course of history was already being decided.

Poland was the first item on the agenda. It was the German invasion of Poland in 1939 that had started the war, and it was from Poland that Germany had attacked the Soviet Union. Britain had guaranteed Poland's independence, and the Polish government was living in exile in London. The Polish people had been suffering the worst of the nazi occupation. Its large jewish population had completely vanished and all the nazi death camps were situated in Poland. Millions of Poles had been murdered and oppressed and taken off for slave labour in German industry. Now the mighty Red Army stood on the Polish borders and the Germans were digging in for a heavy fight.

Stalin argued that Poland should fall under the Soviet sphere of influence, and that eastern Poland (annexed by the USSR in 1939 in a secret treaty with Hitler) should remain part of the Soviet Union and its borders be extended westwards into Germany in compensation. Stalin refused to recognized the Polish government-in-exile in London, and insisted that the Polish Communist Party (then in exile in Moscow) was the legitimate government.

Both Roosevelt and Churchill were against Stalin's suggestions for Poland, and as a result Stalin gave in a little and promised that free democratic elections would be held in Poland after the war ended. As it turns out, there were elections in Poland under Soviet guidance, but only Communists were allowed to run for office, and only those who were sympathetic to the Stalinist leadership. It was exactly as Churchill feared.

Roosevelt, for his part, wanted the USSR to enter into the war with Japan through an invasion of Manchuria and Korea. Stalin wanted US recognition of Mongolia as part of the Soviet Union and Soviet interests in the Manchurian railway. Roosevelt agreed despite never consulting with the Chinese government. Stalin then agreed to declare war on Japan three months after Germany was defeated.

Other points that the Big Three discussed were the occupation of Germany and, particularly, Berlin once the fighting was over. It was agreed that the Allied and Soviet demarcation line through Germany would be along the Oder River, which cuts Germany in half. Berlin, deep inside the Soviet zone, would be a strange "open city" split into four, with zones of occupation divided between the Soviets, the Americans, the British and the French. The inclusion of the French in Germany's occupation was a surprise for both Roosevelt and Stalin, but Churchill insisted upon it. After all, France had fallen and been completely occupied by the Germans in only 6 weeks in 1940, and it would be Allied soldiers doing all the fighting to liberate her.

Stalin also agreed to allow "free" elections in all territories overrun by the Red Army, but in the end the same format of elections were implemented as in Poland. One area of historical discontent, and indeed even shame for the western powers, was the provision that came out of the Yalta Conference that all former citizens of the USSR currently residing in the west or liberated from German camps by the west's armies were to be returned to the USSR at the end of the war. It is unknown why Roosevelt and Churchill agreed to this without even giving it a second thought, but the fate of millions of emigres, Soviet POWs and even death-camp survivors was sealed at the Yalta conference.

After the war Stalin started a second great purge of the Soviet empire (for indeed by 1946 it was a vast empire, stretching from the Oder River to the Pacific Ocean). Stalin declared that to be captured alive represented treason, and so rather than be hailed as returning heroes, those Soviet soldiers who had been taken prisoner by the Germans were sent off to the GULAG in Siberia or executed. Civilians who had been forced into German labour camps were also considered traitors after their liberation, and the few surviving Jews from the concentration camps were treated with open suspicion and hostility. A fate much worse met those Russian emigres who had left during or after the 1917 Revolution and settled in the west. Many Russians living in America, England, Canada, France, Netherlands, Australia and other points of the western world were forcefully repatriated back into the hands of Stalin's NKVD, where they were tried with treason and shot.

One of the biggest, and arguably most important, results of the Yalta Conference was the finalization and formation of a world governing body, the United Nations. Although Stalin wanted all 16 of the Soviet Republics recognized in the UN, the Big Three settled on two: Russia and the Ukraine. It was decided that the UK, the USA, the USSR, China and France (again an unexplained insistence by Churchill) make up the top-echelon permanent Security Council of the United Nations. The site for the United Nations was to be San Francisco although this was later changed to New York. The basic mission statement and operating procedures of the UN were drafted at this conference and an historic world body was formed.

The conference lasted for 7 days, and in the evenings the three powerful leaders had a chance to talk candidly with each other away from the world's media. Churchill refused to speak with Stalin in private and even had his and his delegation's rooms swept for microphones each evening. Roosevelt and Stalin, on the other hand, spent many long hours in discussion. Roosevelt was still not confident that the planned invasion of France, set for late May, would be succesful and he voiced his fears to Stalin. Stalin, for his part, promised to open a massive new offensive in the east that would help draw German divisions away from France (a strange concession considering that Stalin had been arguing for the west to draw German divisions away from Russia). In the event, Stalin kept his word and a few months before the Allied invasion of Normandy the Red Army launched the biggest offensive in world history that took them all the way to Berlin and the Oder River.

When the conference ended the three leaders drafted a press release outlining the results and posed for photographers. They then shook hands and went home to have the agreements ratified by their respective governments. In Moscow the Central Committee was quick to rubber-stamp Stalin's side, but in Washington and London both Congress and Parliament bickered over the wording and the provisions of the agreements. Parliament was especially concerned about Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe but, tired by five years of war, they conceded and drafted it into law.

Three months later the Red Army launched "Operation Bagration" which would overrun all of Eastern Europe while the Allies, shortly after that, landed on the beaches of Normandy and began a long and brutal advance through Western Europe. Roosevelt would die soon after and the next time the "Big Three" would meet, at Potsdam after the war, the US would be represented by President Truman, an avid anti-Communist. The Cold War, which would plunge the entire world into 60 years of nuclear paranoia and has its beginnings at the Yalta Conference, would begin and the shape of everything that has happened since was formed at the little seaside resort town of Yalta.

US Lend-Lease

Russian history books today teach children that Russia fought the war against Hitler alone; that the west did nothing and that only Russian endurance and determination won the war. Most Russians are unaware that there even was a war in the west, in North Africa and Italy and the massive sacrifices America made in the Pacific fighting Japan. What most Russians are taught is that this war was a purely Russian war.Another important aspect of Russia's war that people are not taught, and indeed have never been taught, is the massive amount of aid the U.S. gave Russia during the struggle through Lend-Lease.

In 1939, when war broke out in Europe following Hitler's invasion of Poland, US President Franklyn D. Roosevelt passed through congress the Act to Further Promote the Defense of the United States of America, also known as the Lend-Lease Act. This Act allowed the US to supply Britain, France, China, Canada and Australia will massive amounts of military equipment and raw materials, in exchange for a fifty year repayment scheme or leases on military bases of interest to the United States (such supplying Britain with 10 destroyers in exchange for naval bases in Iceland).

President Roosevelt signs Lend-Lease into law.

America at this time was a neutral country. There was a strong neutrality lobby in the US and Roosevelt, although his sympathies lay with England during the struggle against nazism, was politically handcuffed against getting involved. Lend-Lease was his answer. Between 1939 and 1941 the US supplied nearly $15 billion (nearly $225 billion today) in supplies to the allies. This included raw materials for industrial production and armaments produced in the United States. In order to maintain within the bizarre laws of neutrality, US warplanes bound for Britain could not fly directly to the UK. Instead, they had to be flown to the US-Canadian border and towed across by tractors, from whence they could fly to the conflict zone.

In June 1941, when Hitler attacked the USSR and nearly succeeded in destroying it, Congress extended the Lend-Lease Act to include Russia. By this point the neutrality lobby in America was losing steam as, following the occupation of all of Europe (save for England, who stood alone against tyranny) by fascist forces, public opinion swung towards getting involved.US ships began to bring goods bound for Russia to British ports and then British and Canadian convoys were to transport them to Murmansk and Arkangelsk in Russia's arctic. As Germany was occupying Norway, this meant the convoys had to brave ferocious German attempts to stop the convoys by submarine and air attacks in what became known as the "Arctic Run". When ships were bombed and torpedoed, the sailors who ended up in the Arctic sea with no protection lasted less than 20 seconds before hypothermia killed them.

Losses in the first few convoys were so heavy that the British Admiralty decided to stop the runs, and US Lend-Lease materials bound for Russia piled up in British warehouses. Meanwhile, Leningrad was besieged, the Ukraine overrun and Moscow barely saved.

Hitler recognized that Lend-Lease was barely-disguised American involvement in the war and from June 1941 German U-boats were authorized to begin sinking US ships outside of American waters. By October of 1941 US losses to German submarines reached over 100,000 tonnes of shipping.In December, 1941, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, American neutrality was over and the industrial giant geared up for total war. In an attempt to stop increased Lend-Lease to Britain and Russia, a massive German U-boat assault was carried out along the US coastline.

A German U-boat on patrol for Allied shipping.

Far away from the theatres of war, American cities were under no blackout restrictions and ships sailed independently from port to port. This meant that for the U-boats ships were perfectly silhouetted against lit-up city skylines from New York and Boston to Miami. German U-boat crews called this period "The Happy Time", as nearly a million tonnes of American shipping was sent to the bottom along the Atlantic seaboard.By January 1942 British and Canadian naval advisors, who had been fighting the U-boat menace for over two years, convinced the US admiralty to run their ships in protected convoys and to blackout their coastal cities. By March 1942 American lend-lease began to arrive in Russia in earnest.

The Arctic Run to Murmansk was resumed, this time with a heavy US presence. Although the U-boats and the Luftwaffe continued to cause serious losses on the convoys, aid got through. Only a few convoys reached the northern Russian ports without incident; most had to endure a week-long gauntlet of submarines, dive-bombers, machine-guns and fast German torpedo attack boats. A few heavy German battlecruisers threw their weight in but most were tied down in Norwegian fjords as a "fleet in being": that is, their mere presence in Norway kept the mighty British Home Fleet on standby off the coast of Norway in case they ventured out. This meant that no heavy British warships were available to protect the convoys to Russia, and the small British, American and Canadian destroyers and corvettes had to do all the work.

The most famous Arctic convoy was PQ17, which left Reykjavik, Iceland on June 28 1942 bound for Murmansk. 33 merchant ships escorted by 21 warships set out. Off the northern coast of Norway it was spotted by a German Focke-Wulf FW-200 Condor, which radioed the convoy's position and course back to HQ.

The German Focke-Wulf Fw-200 Condor, Germany's only 4-engined warplane type, was used extensively to intercept Russian-bound convoys in the Arctic.

A few hours later the first flight of Stuka dive-bombers swooped in on the convoy. 2 merchant ships went down in that first attack and an American destroyer was heavily damaged and had to turn back. That night a wolf pack of German U-boats pounced on the ships, sending 5 to the bottom with all their crews. The U-boat assault continued throughout the morning when daylight brought more German aircraft down on the defenseless ships.PQ17 lost 21 of its 33 ships and the convoy scattered in confusion and terror. Only 4 ships reached Murmansk three days later, one loaded with tins of SPAM for the Russian war effort. PQ17 was the worst maritime disaster of the war, with thousands of men and tens of thousands of tonnes of shipping lost to the Arctic waters.

Nevertheless the convoys to Russia continued, and the weight of their material began to be felt by the Germans on the Russian front.

Despite what Russian history books teach today, by 1943 nearly 1/3 of all Russian trucks and cars were American. 50% of the iron ore Russia was using for weapons production was American. 1/4 of the grain and non-perishable food Russia was surviving on came from American and Canadian farms. The US even managed to supply over 1,200 warplanes and 5,000 aircraft engines to Russia. It was only because of US Lend-Lease that Russia was able to replace the losses she was taking at the front, while Allied bombing of Germany was preventing the nazis from doing likewise.

The famed Russian katyusha rocket launchers were mounted on the flatbeds of American Ford and Chevrolet trucks, paid for and supplied, at great cost in lives, by the Americans. Russia, to this day, has still not repayed the US for the Lend-Lease agreement they actively signed on to at their moment of greatest despair, a fact which, 60 years later, continues to sour US-Russian relations.

After the war most of the vehicles and equipment with American markings on them was melted down and made into "Soviet" vehicles and equipment. Veterans of the war who talked about American food and vehicles were quickly arrested and exiled to GULAG camps for "counter-revolutionary" talk, and all memory of US Lend-Lease, and the sacrifices of American, British and Canadian sailors in delivering it, was erased from the national consciousness.

A rare photo of Russian soldiers with an American jeep. This photo was confiscated by the NKVD and the owner "disappeared", until it was released in 1991 by the Russian state archives.

In all, Lend-Lease supplied nearly 40% of the Soviet Union's total war output and may be one of the key reasons why the USSR was able to absorb the ferocious German assault and throw them back. Between 1941 and 1945, America supplied Russia with $12 billion worth of Lend-Lease (nearly $200 billion adjusted for today's prices). Rather than repay or even thank the US for the mighty effort involved to keep Russia fighting, the Soviet Union's leaders instead chose to engage in a near-world-ending cold war and geopolitical brinksmanship for 50 years, and refuses to even acknowledge this effort today. To do so would run contrary to the myth that has developed in Russia that the Second World War was a purely Russian war, and that Russian stubborness saved the country and freed the world of fascism forever after.

The facts, of course, run contrary to the official Russian school book history, and while those Russians who go on to study history in higher learning or have a keen interest in the history of the Second World War know the truth, most Russians today have no idea that their great salvation and victory over fascism was won with Ford, GM, Chevrolet, SPAM and the lives of thousands of sailors.

Battle of the Dnieper

After the Soviet victory at Kursk, culminating in the liberation of Orel and Karkhov, German forces on the Russian Front were completely unable to regain the initiative in the war. Two years of ferocious, continuous fighting and several strategic defeats at Moscow, Stalingrad and Kursk had stretched the Nazi war machine to its breaking point.

German Field Marshall Manstein made an assessment of the situation in the east in the wake of Kursk and realized that all along the 2100 mile front the German forces were perilously weak. With Hitler's consent he ordered that the Wermacht and SS armies in the south of Russia pull back behind the Dnieper River.

The Dnieper, like all the rivers in Eastern Europe, is a massive 1400-km-long river that is more than a mile wide. It cuts the Ukraine nearly in half in the center before bending north-east at Kiev. It was behind this natural barrier that the German forces dug in, hoping to break any Soviet attacks.

In Moscow, Stalin and the Stavka (Soviet High Command) were also looking at the situation. After Kursk they knew that Germany could not win the war. Russian industry, which was surpassing German industry in the amount of arms and material produced by nearly 30-1, was in full swing and Red Army morale and confidence was high after Stalingrad and Kursk. 1943 had been an incredibly succesful year for the Red Army thus far. Stalin decided that it was time for the Soviet Union to go on the offensive.

The Soviet plan called for the liberation of the Ukraine, which would overrun the rich agricultural and industrial areas of the Donbass as well as threaten the entire southern flank of the German northern army group. Stavka's plan was incredibly ambitious and awesome in its size and scope.

5 Soviet fronts (army groups), consisting of 2.6 million men, 12,000 tanks and 30,000 artillery guns, as well as 2,000 aircraft, would smash through the German lines, force a way across the Dnieper River, and drive deep behind the German forces, thus cutting them off from their supply bases, communications and command, and effectively destroying the entire German Army Group South. Kiev, as a major transportation, communication and industrial hub, was to be one of the main objectives. The operation was set for August of 1943, a mere 2 weeks after the Battle of Kursk had ended.

On August 24, 1943, at 7 in the morning all five Soviet army fronts launched their attacks simultaneously, from Smolensk in the north to the Azov sea in the south. The German forward defences were completely destroyed, but professional planning had ensured that there were plenty of reserves in each sector and the Soviet offensive encountered ferocious German counter-attacks. Entire regiments or even divisions (20,000 + men) would charge at newly captured positions, with German infantry and Tiger and Panther tanks fighting desperately to push the Russians back. It wasn't enough in the face of such a gigantic offensive, and the Russian steamroller moved forward.

Despite their vast numerical superiority, the Soviets suffered appalling casualties in their drive to the Dnieper River. The Germans clung on to every hill and town and in many cases the Russians were forced to by-pass strongly defended areas and leave their rear-echelons to deal with them. After 3 hard weeks of fighting, Soviet forces finally reached the great river.

The German defences on the west bank of the Dnieper were well-prepared. Manstein had stripped other fronts to reinforce Army Group South, but it wasn't enough to hold back the flood of Soviet strength assembling on the east bank. On September 23rd the Red Army launched its attack with a massive airborne drop of paratroopers behind the German lines (which landed on top of SS Panzer Divisions on full alert and were slaughtered).

The deadly German 88mm gun could destroy any tank in existence with a single hit.

The sky lit up with a massive Soviet artillery bombardment: it is estimated that 2 million shells of all calibres were fired at the German positions in the first hour of the bombardment. Amidst the shelling was the devestating attacks by Russian Katyusha rocket launchers, nicknamed "Stalin's Organ" by the German troops because of the sound it made when firing.

The Katyusha was a rack of rockets attached to the back of a truck (mostly American lend-lease Fords and Chevys). Each truck fired 24 rockets in quick succession, and the Soviets lined the trucks up wheel to wheel. The Katyusha had no accuracy, but a small group of them could devastate a whole square mile of ground, killing and destroying every thing in it. On the morning of the 23rd, the Soviets let loose with 1,300 of them.

Immediately after the intense artillery and rocket barrage, Soviet stormtroopers threw inflatable boats into the water and, under heavy machine gun and artillery fire, paddled like mad to gain the west bank of the river. Casualties were extremely heavy but for the Germans defending the far bank, dazed and deaf after the terrible bombardment, it seemed that no matter how many men they killed in the water more kept coming. After what must have seemed like an eternity to both attacker and defender alike, but was in fact only 15 minutes, the Soviet assault groups gained the west bank of the Dnieper and began to clear the German trenches and pillboxes with submachine guns, grenades and bayonets. Intense hand-to-hand fighting took place.

German river defences

Russian combat engineers bridging the Dnieper under fire. The sign reads "To Kiev".

As the assault groups were struggling up the banks of the Dnieper, Soviet combat engineers hit the water and, still under fire, began constructing pontoon bridges for Soviet tanks to get across. Within the first hour of the assault on the river they had put up 11 bridges at different points along the front, and the feared T-34 and KV-1 tanks began to roll across. By noon there were 2 entire Soviet armies driving deep within the German rear and the entire front began to collapse.

The formidable Soviet T-34, arguably the best tank ever made.

As command and control began to break down, groups of German soldiers started to panic and run. Others, mainly SS divisions, fought to the death once they were surrounded while others simply threw down their weapons and put their hands in the air.

Soviet Il2 Sturmovik fighter bomber, which terrorized German forces from 1943 onwards.

By mid-October the Red Army was surging forward across the river, with only small pockets of German resistance. Stalin gave the order for Kiev to be taken by direct assault, rather than encircled as originally planned. This decision has come under critiscism because in the ensuing battle (the second battle of Kiev) Soviet casualties were incredibly high. Nevertheless, by early November the great city, one of the oldest in Europe, was back in Russian hands.

By the middle of November, 1943, the crossing was over. Most of the Ukraine, which had endured two years of Nazi atrocity and terror, was back under Soviet control. The German Wermacht had lost nearly 300,000 troops and thousands of vehicles, an irriplaceable loss for the bomb-torn German industry to deal with, and they had been forced back. For the Soviets, who had suffered nearly 500,000 casualties in the offensive, the crossing of the Dnieper gave them the springboard the next phase of the war: the drive to Germany and the end of the Second World War.

The Battle of Kursk

The Battle of Kursk marked the beginning of the end of Hitler's Third Reich, and the rise of the USSR as a great world power. After the battle the Red Army would sweep across eastern Europe to Berlin and the Oder River in central Germany, and usher in 50 years of Cold War paranoia. The great battle in the open steppes of western Russia would usher in the modern age.

Following the German disaster at Stalingrad, Russian forces went on the offensive to take advantage of the huge gap in the lines. German Field Marshall von Manstein, commander of Army Group South, was forced to pull his armies out of the Caucausus to avoid getting cut off from the north. Marshall Zhukov and the Red Army harried his armies the entire way.After a brief but vicious fight in Rostov-On-Don, von Manstein retreated to the city of Karkhov with the Red Army close on his heels.

The Russian plan following the great victory at Stalingrad was to drive a massive wedge between German Army Groups South and Centre. The cities of Karkhov, in the south, and Orel, in the north, were key to this operation, but by March 1943 the Soviet forces were exhausted. Their drive on Orel ran into prepared German defensive positions and they were unable to break through.Nevertheless, they moved onto Karkhov. Von Mannstein had, by this time, managed to re-organize his armies and, with fresh reserves rushed to the front from Germany, the Wermacht fought a great battle in the streets of the industrial city and managed to hold. The Red Army pulled back.

While the Red Army had been stopped at Orel and Karkhov, they had managed to drive a deep wedge between the two cities. This bulge in the lines was 150 miles from north to south and stuck out 200 miles into the German lines. In the center of this salient was the agricultural city of Kursk.

After the horrendous fighting of 1942 and early 1943, with major battles in the Crimea, the Don River, the Caucasus, Stalingrad and Karkhov, both sides dug in along the new lines and for the first time in 2 years a relative calm settled over the Russian front.

While Germany had suffered serious setbacks in the war, she was still strong and the Wermacht and SS were still powerful forces. This situation was changing drastically, however. Russian industrial output was in full swing and by 1943 there were ten Soviet soldiers for every German. German industry, on the other hand, was under siege.By 1943 the western Allies strategic bombing campaign of Germany was in full swing. Following the Casablanca Conference between Churchill and Roosevelt, a policy of "Round-The-Clock-Bombing" was implemented, whereby day and night German factories and cities would be subjected to merciless pounding from the air.

During the day, up to a thousand or more American bombers would stream over the European continent and reduce factories, munition plants, oil production facilities and docks into rubble. German air defences were determined and every day massive air battles took place in the skies over Europe. At night another thousand British and Canadian bombers would cross the North Sea and raze entire cities to the ground in an intentional plan to disrupt German labour.

By the time the Kursk Salient was being formed, German industrial output was being severely disrupted, particularly when it came to ball bearings (a key element in any type of machinery) and oil production.
In March, 1943, Hitler met with his High Command in Berlin and assessed the situation on the Eastern Front.

The Army generals wanted to straighten out the lines by pushing the Russians out of the Kursk salient. This would give Germany the opportunity to dig in on the defensive and lick its wounds for a time. Hitler, however, had a different idea and despite the best arguments of his generals, he ordered plans be made for a renewed offensive in the east, anchored on the Kursk salient.
Hitler saw the salient as an opportunity to crush the Red Army once and for all by pinching off the bulge at the eastern ends and trapping the armies inside. Although his generals were reluctant, fearing what a defeat in this area would mean for Germany, Hitler ordered them to start planning. The operation was codenamed "Citadel".

Hitler had valid reasons for wanting to end the war in the east. Britain's 8th Army in North Africa had linked up with a large American army moving in from west Africa, and Tunis had recently fallen. Axis forces had been pushed off the African continent. Britain and the U.S. had gained complete control of the Mediterranean and Italy was threatened with invasion. Germany couldn't afford to fight a war on two fronts. The destruction of the Red Army at Kursk would be the final victory Hitler needed to swing the war back in his favour.

Operation Citadel called for 2 armies to attack the salient from the north and the south and link up at Kursk, thus trapping the Red Army in a vast pocket. From the north, Field Marshall Model's 9th Army was to strike south. His army consisted of mostly infantry with a few panzer divisions attached for armored punch. From the south, General Hoth's 4th Panzer Army, experienced survivors of Stalingrad, was to drive north and link up with the 9th Army at Kursk.

Hitler was placing a lot of faith on his two armies, but he had some valid reasons to do so. Two new tanks types had been developed, so-called "wonder weapons", and Hitler wanted both his armies to be fully equipped with both types for the operation.

The first of these tanks was to become one of the best tanks of the Second World War. The Panzer V "Panther" tank was a reversed-engineered version of the vaunted Russian T-34. Featuring 80 mm-thick sloping armor and a 75 mm main gun, the Panther used revolutionary new suspension and transmission that allowed it operate over almost all terrain and in all weather conditions.

The second of the new tanks, and the most feared tank in the German arsenal, was the monstrous Panzer VI "Tiger" tank. This massive 64-ton machine featured 110 mm armor that was impenetrable to any gun in the Russian and Allied arsenal. Its huge 88 mm main gun could obliterate enemy tanks from ranges of up to 2 km.

The Tiger tank was practically unstoppable in battle, but the over-engineering of this monster would be its own undoing. The Tiger was a complicated machine and frequently broke down. The advanced technology in its design meant that specialist repair crews had to be called in to fix it, whereas the Russian T-34, although smaller, was a rugged and easy-to-repair machine that could be maintained by its own crew in the field.

Production on these two tanks was given the highest priority throughout the Reich's industry, and units at the front began to be equipped with them. As supplies, weapons and replacement troops streamed to the German positions around the Kursk salient, the stage was set for one of the biggest clashes of arms in human history.

In Moscow, Stalin had different ideas about the significance of Kursk. He placed his most able commander, Marshall Zhukov, in charge of the Kursk salient and Zhukov wasted no time in putting together a plan. The Russians were fully aware of Operation Citadel. A British spy ring, named "Lucy", was operating deep within the German command circles, and through information theft, seduction of ranking officials by young female spies, and the cracking of the German "Enigma" code by mathematicians, the British were feeding all their information to Moscow via embassies in neutral countries.

Zhukov's plan called for absorbing the massive German attack and then, once the enemy was bled white, launching a massive counter-attack to destroy the two German armies involved. To do this he streamed almost all the Red Army forces into the salient. Thousands of army engineers went to work building 8 lines of defense, one behind the other. The civilians from the local farming villages, mostly women, were drafted to dig trenches and giant anti-tank ditches. Concrete pillboxes and artillery emplacements were constructed. Nearly 4,000 miles of barbed wire was strung up and over 4 million land mines were laid.

The idea was that as each line was broken by the Germans, the next would be even stronger and more heavily defended than the previous. An entire tank army, the 5th Guards Tank, would be kept in reserve to counter any serious breakthroughs. Two entire army groups would be kept outside of the salient to supply the counter-attack following the initial German attack.

By the end of May Hitler was not satisfied with the number of Panthers and Tigers that had been delivered to the front, and he postponed the start of Operation Citadel. Two massive Allied bombing raids on Bremen and a ball-bearing plant outside Prague delayed production even further, and Hitler pushed the start of the attack back until July. Each day that Hitler delayed gave Zhukov more time to prepare his defences.

By the end of June, with both sides facing off around Kursk and waiting for the great offensive they knew was coming, the tension was coiled tighter than a spring. The only piece of information Moscow didn't have was the exact date that Citadel would begin. In the early morning hours of July 5th, 1943, a small Russian raiding party snuck across no-man's-land and snatched a German sentry from his trench. They dragged him back across to the Russian lines and handed him over to NKVD intelligence officers. The terrified 18-year old private quickly told them that the offensive was to begin in two hours that morning.

Zhukov wasted no time and ordered a massive Russian artillery barrage of German rear areas. As German troops and tanks were moving forward to their jumping-off positions, the night air was suddenly torn apart by 2,000 guns. Shells began to rain down across the lines. German artillery answered and throughout the night a massive artillery duel was fought. Although thousands of guns roared and explosions lit up the night, little actual damage was done to either side and German forces were able to assemble, although four hours behind schedule.

At 8 am on July 5th, Model's 9th Army set off towards the Russian lines. Flights of Stuka dive-bombers preceded them to pound Russian positions into rubble, but for the first time in the war the Germans didn't have air superiority, and a swarm of Russian fighters met them. A gigantic air battle erupted in the skies above the entire salient.

As machine guns chattered, engines screamed and planes exploded above them, Model's troops smashed into the first Russian line of defence. From the outset, the Germans ran into difficulty. Russian troops fought to the death for each trench, each machine gun nest and each bunker. Well-camouflaged anti-tank guns easily picked off German vehicles, and acts of bravery by individual soldiers armed with magnetic mines and molotov cocktails started to knock out the vaunted Panthers and Tigers. Throughout that first day the fighting in the north of the salient was bloody and without mercy.

By the evening the 9th Army had only managed to advance 6 miles. 40% of its tanks were out of action, most of them due to mechanical failure. Model stopped his advance to reorganize.


The next day Model resumed his attack in the north, and ran into the second defence line. The fighting was even more ferocious than the day before, and it took 8 hours to break through this line and move onto the third line. The Russian commander of the northern flank, General Rossossovsky, rushed his reserves to the third line and the Germans were unable to break through. By July 9th, after four days of heavy fighting, Model's 9th Army had only managed to advance 15 miles at the cost of 42,000 casualties and 210 tanks.

On the morning of July 10th Model called off his attack and ordered his troops to hold the positions they had thus far taken. The northern attack had been stopped.

The situation in the south was much different. Hoth's 4th Panzer Army was made up of veterans of the battle of Stalingrad. Many of the crews were already experienced with using Panther and Tiger tanks and they had adjusted their tactics to allow for the heavier hitting power of the new weapons. As a Panzer army, Hoth had also received the bulk of the Panther and Tiger tank deliveries, with the result that during their attack they managed to sweep the Soviet defences aside.

The experienced veterans of the 4th Panzer easily picked off Russian tanks and bunkers with their long-range guns and by the evening of the first day they had broken through the first two lines of Russian defences. On the second day they renewed their attack. Little seemed able to stand in their way.

The heavy Tigers and Panthers would stand off outside of Soviet gun range and blast apart the defences before driving forward. Supporting infantry would swarm into the trenches and kill the dazed Russians cowering in the bottom. Whenever T-34s showed themselves the heavy panzers would destroy them with one or two shots. Most of the Russian shells that managed to make hits simply bounced off the thick armor of the Panthers and Tigers.

By the end of the third day Hoth's army was causing considerable alarm at Soviet headquarters. On July 10th, after advancing 30 miles into the salient, Hoth decided to change the direction of his attack away from Kursk and towards the small farming town of Prokorovkha, to the east of Kursk. His plan was to cut off enemy reinforcements from reaching Model's section of the front and allowing the 9th Army to resume its attack.The sudden change in direction took Zhukov by surprise, and by the evening of July 11th the situation was becoming desperate for the Russians. It appeared as if though the tanks of 4th Panzer were about to squeeze off the salient and trap the entire Red Army far away from Moscow and the Volga River. Zhukov called up his strategic reserve, the 5th Guards Tank Army, and ordered them into the battle.

5th Guards immediately sprang into action, their crews scrambling into their reliable T-34s and revving engines. Their goal was to assemble at a small farming village to the east of Kursk, Prokorovkha, the exact same village Hoth was aiming for. Unbeknownst to either side, the scene was set for the greatest tank battle in history.

1200 Russian tanks and 800 German tanks raced towards Prokorovkha. On the morning of July 12th, 1943, they met.

The Germans had stopped their tanks on a series of low hills overlooking sunflower fields that stretched over the horizon, and as the sun rose on that morning, the first green T-34s appeared to the east. Soon there was a sea of Soviet tanks streaming towards the German position. The German tank crews watched as the Russians formed up into waves and then, like cavalry of old, charged the hills.The long 88s of the Tiger tanks boomed and T-34s began to explode. The first wave of Soviet tanks were destroyed but the next simply drove around the burning hulks and continued the attack. As each wave was destroyed and the following wave moved around them, the Russians came closer and closer.

Nobody knows who gave the order, or whether primal battle-rage took over, but for some reason the tanks of 4th Panzer revved up their engines and charged down the hill towards the advancing Russian tanks. The two sides met as in a medieval battle, and all organization or control over the front was lost.

Tanks swirled around each other, blasting away with their guns and machine guns. Explosions filled the air as German and Russian tanks exploded. Men who bailed out of their burning machines were crushed under the treads of other tanks. Two thousand tanks tore at each other in the sunflower fields beneath a sunny blue skie. Columns of smoke soon filled the air from hundreds of burning vehicles.

During the battle the Russians learned to use the German tanks' strengths against them. The long guns of the Panthers and Tigers were almost useless at close range, and the shorter guns of the T-34s packed a devestating punch at close range. Nimble T-34s would smash into the monstrous German tanks, crushing both tanks' hulls, and their guns would fire round after round until the shells finally penetrated the thick armor. In this way the battle began to swing towards the Russians. More and more German tanks were being destroyed.

After 4 hours of intense, dizzying and merciless fighting, the surviving German tanks turned tail and retreated over the hills. The Russian tanks followed and captured the positions the Germans had held that morning.

In the fighting at Prokorovka, the largest tank battle in history, nearly 800 Soviet tanks had been destroyed with 11,000 lives, while the Germans lost 500 tanks and 4,500 lives. The Russians were able to replace their losses that same night, while the Germans had no reserves.

Hoth called off his advance.

Two days later Zhukov unleashed his counter-attack. In the north a massive Russian army group attacked towards Orel and captured it within a few days. To the south another army group struck towards Karkhov and after a week of fighting that city also fell to the Red Army. Both Model and Hoth were forced to pull out of the Kursk salient and the entire German army retreated westwards to avoid being encircled.

The Battle of Kursk was over. Germany would spend the rest of the war on the defensive, being driven backwards, out of Russia, across eastern Europe and into Berlin itself. Germany never recovered from the resources lost at Kursk, and although the Wermacht was still able to cause considerable difficulties for the Red Army, the days of German blitzkrieg victories were finished.

A few days later Hitler was awoken by his secretary, clutching a telegram. Hitler slowly read the telegram and then let it drop to the floor near his bed. He put his head in his hands and stayed like that for a long while. His secretary quietly backed out of the room and closed the door.

The telegram had brought news of every German general's greatest fear since the days of Bismark. War on two fronts. The telegram read "American, British, Australian, New Zealand and Canadian troops landing in the south of Italy."

Volgograd

Since I was about 14 years old, I've dreamt of visiting Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad), site of the biggest and most strategic battle in all of human history. Stalingrad represents a nexus point in the course of time for our little planet, where history went in one direction instead of a completely different one, and last week I got to go there!

My friends from Canada, Q and Dutchie, arrived in Moscow last Monday and after 2 hectic days of taking them to the sites in Moscow, we met up with Katya and flew to Volgograd.We booked 4 seats on S7 airlines for 2800 roubles each (about $90) but, in that uniquely-Russian way of organizing things, they couldn't give us our seats together. It didn't matter because it only took 1 hour 20 minutes to fly the 1000 km or so. Unfortunately I had an aisle seat so couldn't see out the window, but when when we stepped off the plane at Gumrak Airport, scene of so much fighting during the last days of the battle, I knew I was in Stalingrad.

The first thing we noticed was the heat. While it was 15 C in Moscow, the thermometre at Gumrak read 31 C. The sky was blue and the sun burned down on us, deep in the Russian steppes. Katya had searched, found and booked an apartment to rent for three days for 700 roubles a room a night (rather than 3000 roubles a night at a hotel), and we had a hard time negotiating a fare with the only airport taxi driver around, who was asking for a ridiculous amount of money. Eventually we settled on 1000 roubles, and he drove us into Volgograd.

After getting settled and paying for our rooms we walked out to the main street near our apartment and caught the crappiest little bus I've ever seen. I ended up stuck near a giant broken window, crammed into a little space between a girl and the front of the bus, and the only thing that kept me from flying out of the window was the fact that my spine was hooked firmly against a hard metal pole. The roads in Volgograd are atrocious, switching from paved to dirt and back again, and both are filled with car-swallowing potholes and cracks the size of small canyons.

Volgograd occupies the high ground over the west bank of the Volga River, and the city slopes down to the water. Our bus bounced and rattled its way down to the center of town, and when I saw a giant monument set against blue waters, I was only too happy to jump off the torturous vehicle.We got off at the right spot: Chuikov's headquarters!

Nestled against the Volga, in the center of town, is the landing area for Russian troops being ferried across from the east bank of the Volga, and Chuikov's HQ were situated right there. Of course today the entire area is a long strip of patios, bars and a shopping mall, all flashing lights and blaring trance music, but it didn't matter. I was standing on the actual ground!

We found a second-story patio to the left of the mall and ordered beers, soups for the girls and 1.5 kilos of barbecued pork for Dutchie and I, which had us both running to the toilet at six the next morning.

On the banks of the Volga, on the exact spot where, 67 years ago, Russia fought a desperate battle to stem the Nazi conquest of the world, Katya, Q, Dutchie and I got drunk. After dinner we walked to some lit-up monuments erected in honour of General Chuikov and the Soviet crossing point, and in the warm night air, with a gentle breeze blowing down the Volga and soft yellow lights illuminating the area, we horsed around and took pictures and generally enjoyed being out of Moscow. Then we found a taxi driver to take us home for 150 roubles and offered him 300 roubles an hour to drive us around the next day. He was happy to agree and with that we had secured a private driver.

A road in Volgograd.

The river crossing area, now a shopping centre.

The river crossing area from our restaurant patio.

Dutchie and 1.5 kilos of barbecued pork.

Monument to the river crossing area.

The next day our driver met us and took us to Mamaev Kurgan, the huge Tatar burial mound that became the centre of the battle of Stalingrad. We made our way up the first flight of steps and there before us appeared the most awesome war monument I have ever seen: the rodina matr (motherland) monument.

Perched on the very tip of Mamaev Kurgan, the rodina matr is an impressive and inspiring dedication to the people who fought and died on the strategically important hill (see my previous post about the Battle of Stalingrad). She was still a long way off, so we walked along a flag-lined path to the Lake of Tears, which was closed as it was being prepared for the May 9th Victory Day celebrations.

Around the Lake of Tears we entered a massive concrete complex under the rodina matr, and a huge hand holding a flaming torch, flanked by two live soldiers at attention, greeted us. There were a lot of people taking pictures but we snatched a few photos and then made our way up a spiral walkway and emerged back under the sun and at the feet of the motherland statue.

We wandered around the crest of the Kurgan for a while, inspecting a beautiful golden-domed Orthodox cathedral and a hole-riddled tank turret marking the site of the bloodiest fighting on the hill. Katya pointed out Vasily Zaitsev's grave to me.

One thing I couldn't help but notice on Mamaev Kurgan was the carefully groomed contrast between the epic, violent history of the place and the serene, gentle atmosphere today. The tank turret sat next to the church, surrounded by tulips and daisies. Sparrows twittered from the branches of young trees that grew out of shell craters. The graves of heroes from the battle are laid out peacefully on perfectly manicured grass.

We spent 20 minutes at the top of the hill, which offers an unparalleled view of the entire city (the reason the hill became such an important target for both sides during the battle), and then we made our way back down. This time we threw away our veneer of respectful homage to history and became complete tourists, buying knock-off red army hats and bullet key-chains from the vendors that lined the route.

Our driver was waiting for us at the bottom, and he next took us to the ruins of Pavlov's House, which is nothing more than a part of a brick wall with a plaque next to a modern-day apartment building.

Across the street from Pavlov's House is the ruins of the Flour Mill, left in its battle-scarred condition as a monument to the battle. Flanking the Flour Mill were Soviet tanks and airplanes and the Stalingrad Museum. It's forbidden to enter the Mill but it is possible to walk right up to the south wall and look in the windows, so of course I did that!

After touring the Stalingrad Museum, which has, among other things, Vasily Zaitsev's rifle, our driver (whose name we still hadn't learned) then took us to a place of his suggestion: the Univermag Department Store and Paulus' headquarters in the basement. It was dark and damp, although I suspect this is on purpose for effect because there's a gift shop at the far end, but the German conference rooms and radio rooms are still there, and the room where Paulus finally had a nervous break down and allowed himself to be taken prisoner by Russian soldiers is mocked up with all sorts of gimmicky manequins in nazi uniforms, etc. It was in Paulus' headquarters that I played with an actual German MG-42 dug up from the battlefield, until an old lady bored a hole in my head with her hateful stare.

Next our driver, as of yet unnamed, took us to the grain elevator where Russian soldiers held out against artillery, tank, infantry and air attack for 3 months. We couldn't go in it so we snapped a few pictures and then, exhausted, asked our driver to take us to a nice restaurant. He found us another great patio overlooking the Volga, we paid him for the day, felt bad for a minute about how little money he was asking for, and then got drunk.

I need to plug a restaurant here, if only for the reason that it was the best restaurant in Volgograd, and perhaps in all of Russia. It is near the Chuikov monument on the Volga, and it is called "Mayak". This circular restaurant with a long steeple on its roof has a nice patio, fantastic service and incredibly cheap prices. The food is wonderful, and it was on this patio that Dutchie fell in love with Russian hot pot stew, which became the only meal he would eat for the rest of his trip.

After big servings of food, several rounds of cold draft beer (Siberskaya Korona, to be exact) and a few cocktails, plus desert, we paid 2100 roubles for everything and then took a river boat cruise on the Volga. The cruise was alright, costing only a few hundred roubles a person for an hour, but the boats all insisted on blaring night club music so loud that we couldn't speak. It spoiled the mood for us but we made the best of it by drinking more beer during the trip up the Volga.

After we disembarked we made our way to the central square where some Russian guy tried to convince us that he was hanging out with Black Sabbath, who were waiting for us at his apartment and we should go with him, or at least give him our cameras so he could take pictures for us. We laughed in his face and walked away, looking for another fantastic restaurant. We stopped in to every patio we could find but none of them offered anything like Mayak had, so we went back there as the sun set and ate another four course meal with rounds of beer and cocktails.

Then we called our dependable driver to take us home. Finally, we asked his name. "Kak vash zavut?"
"Nikolai" he answered.
"Ah! Nikolai!" We cheered. "Za Nikolai!" We toasted him once we were home.

Mamaev Kurgan and the Rodina Matr statue.

Wall of Glory built from the rubble of Stalingrad.

The Eternal Flame under the Rodina Matr

Guard of Honour at the Eternal Flame

The Rodina Matr statue

Beauty on the site of the bloodiest battle in history.

Battle-scarred T-34 turret marks the location of the bloodiest fighting for the hill.

View of the factory district from Mamaev Kurgan

Q, Dutchie and I get touristy on the way back down the hill!

The ruins of the Flour Mill.

A model in a Victory Day photo shoot near the Flour Mill.

Touching Stalingrad

The Grain Elevator

Univermag Department Store, where Paulus was captured.

Katya relaxes at Mayak restaurant.

Volgograd from the river boat.

Volgograd is a quiet, friendly, peaceful town

The next day, our last in Volgograd, Nikolai picked us up wearing shorts and sandles and carrying a camera. He was going to take us to the factory district which, despite growing up in Volgograd, he had never seen. Careening around massive pot holes with all the expert skill of a Star Wars fighter pilot, he took us to the Red October (rebuilt after the war and still in use today). Dutchie and I had our pictures taken outside the front gates, but there wasn't much to see, so Nikolai took us to the Barricades.

The Barricades today produces armaments so it is off-limits to the general public, but Nikolai found a side road that led behind the massive complex and suddenly we found rusting monuments, overgrown with trees and obviously forgotten. The dilapitated signs read "This spot marks the easternmost advance of the German Third Reich." We were standing on the front lines!

Nikolai took us around to the Tractor Factory next. There are two parts to this factory; the one that still produces tractors and car parts today, and the one that was left in rubble as a testament to the ferocious fighting that happened in it.

The rubble is accessible although overgrown (and a litter of stray puppies yelped from inside). At the same instant, without saying a word, Dutchie and I had the same thought and began digging around the rubble while the girls looked at us with puzzlement.

I staked off a pile of bricks near a gigantic anti-tank shell hole in one wall and after digging down two inches or so, I came across a jagged piece of lead shrapnel. About the same time Dutchie found nearly the entire side of a tank shell. Feeling a little guilty about grave robbing, we both pocketed our treasures. We both grabbed a brick for good measure.

After that it was off to the train station and our first class sleeper cabins for the 18-hour trip back to Moscow. Before leaving Nikolai we paid him a couple of thousand roubles extra for his help and friendliness and shook his hand (the girls gave him a hug and he blushed). He told us that we were his best customers and had heard that Canadians were friendly but now believes it. Then he wished us luck and with that we left Volgograd.

First class on the train was fantastic, and only cost 2800 roubles per person. Katya and I shared one room while Q and Dutchie had the next room. There was room service but we spent most of the time drinking in the restaurant car, looking out the windows at the vastness of the Russian steppes as they drifted by and listening as the rails sang below our feet (and yes, they do actually sing, as Dutchie and I discovered while we smoked between the cars; it sounds like a disembodied choir chanting a chorus).

The next day, after a strange rocking sleep and a dazzling lightning storm on the steppes, we arrived in Moscow around 10 am and made the dreary trek back to Mytischi.

Surrounded by angry people, honking cars, polluted air, over-priced restaurants and gigantic skyscrapers, I suddenly missed the sunny, friendly, serene atmosphere of Volgograd, and vowed to go back again some day.

Red October factory

Standing on the front lines, the extent of the Third Reich. The Russians held the river bank below me.

The rubble of the Tractor Factory

The Tractor Factory today.

The Russian steppes

First class, baby!

Back in over-crowded Moscow