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Volgograd is the capital of Volgograd Oblast in southern Russia, a city of about one million people stretched for many kilometers along the high western bank of the Volga. It was founded in 1589 as the fortress of Tsaritsyn and grew into a busy river port and trading town on the lower Volga.
Renamed Stalingrad in 1925, the city gave its name to the Battle of Stalingrad of 1942-1943, the largest and bloodiest battle of the Second World War and widely seen as its turning point. The city was almost completely destroyed, rebuilt in grand postwar style and renamed Volgograd in 1961.
Today visitors come above all for Mamayev Kurgan, the hill crowned by The Motherland Calls, one of the tallest statues in the world. The battle is also remembered at the Panorama Museum, the ruined Gerhardt Mill and Pavlov's House, while the riverside embankment, rebuilt churches and the old German colony of Sarepta show other sides of the city.
Mamayev Kurgan is the hill above central Volgograd where some of the fiercest fighting of the Battle of Stalingrad took place. It is now a vast memorial complex with sculptures, ruin walls and a Hall of Glory, and its 200 granite steps from the foot to the top recall the 200 days of the battle.
The Motherland Calls is the colossal statue on top of Mamayev Kurgan in Volgograd, a woman raising a sword as she calls her people to battle. Designed by Yevgeny Vuchetich and dedicated in 1967, it stands 85 meters tall and was the tallest statue in the world when it was completed.
The Stalingrad Battle Panorama Museum on the Volgograd riverfront tells the story of the battle of 1942-1943. Its round hall holds a huge painted panorama of the Soviet victory, opened in 1982, and the exhibits include the Sword of Stalingrad, Vasily Zaitsev's sniper rifle and wartime tanks.
The Gerhardt Mill is a ruined steam mill in central Volgograd, built by the Gerhardt family from 1899 and wrecked in the Battle of Stalingrad. It was deliberately never restored, and its shell-scarred brick walls are now part of the Stalingrad Battle museum reserve as a stark memorial.
Pavlov's House is a four-story apartment block on Lenin Square in Volgograd, held by a few Soviet soldiers for nearly two months during the Battle of Stalingrad. Named after Sergeant Yakov Pavlov, it is seen as the first building restored in the city, and a 1985 memorial wall honors its defenders.
The Square of the Fallen Fighters is the central square of Volgograd, framed by grand postwar buildings. Its garden holds the mass graves of the defenders of Tsaritsyn and Stalingrad, and here on 31 January 1943 Soviet troops completed the defeat of the encircled southern German group.
The Alley of Heroes is a broad boulevard in the center of Volgograd that runs from the Square of the Fallen Fighters down to the Volga embankment. It is framed by eight-story Stalinist Empire buildings, and models of the city's wartime Order of Lenin and Gold Star medal stand on their roofs.
The 62nd Army Embankment is the main riverside promenade of Volgograd, set on two terraces above the Volga in the heart of the city. Named after the army that defended Stalingrad, it was rebuilt in 1952 with a grand central staircase framed by a colonnade on its upper terrace.
The Alexander Nevsky Cathedral stands beside the Square of the Fallen Fighters in Volgograd. The first cathedral, designed by Yuri Terlikov and begun in 1901, was blown up in 1932, and the new church was built a few meters from its old foundations between 2016 and 2021.
The Kazan Cathedral in Volgograd is a church dedicated to the Kazan icon of the Mother of God, consecrated in 1899 on a site long known for its fine view over the city. A refectory and bell tower were added in 1904, and from 1991 to 2021 it served as the cathedral of the local diocese.
Old Sarepta is an open-air museum in the south of Volgograd, set in the former colony of the Moravian Brethren, the only one of its kind in Russia. Its 7-hectare site keeps 27 buildings, most of them from the 18th and 19th centuries, with exhibitions on colony life and a museum of mustard.
The Volgograd Planetarium is the second oldest planetarium in Russia after Moscow, opened in 1954 as a gift from the workers of East Germany. Its domed building is crowned by Peace, the last work of the sculptor Vera Mukhina, and its star hall seats 450 people under a domed screen.
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