Day 64 - The Motherland Calls

Before leaving Volgograd, we wanted to visit the huge, famous statue that is in the City. So we asked around a bit, and got basic directions, most of them ending with "...don't worry, you'll see it".

When she came into view, we realized what they meant. The statue is immense and very, very impressive.

It is part of the massive WWII memorial built on Mamayev Kurgan (the main hill overlooking the city), dedicated to the Battle of Volgograd, arguably the bloodiest battle in human history.

Estimates put the dead or wounded as high as 2,000,000.

The battle took place between 17 July 1942 and 2 February 1943, lasting a little over 6 Months.

The name of the Statue translates to "The Motherland Calls", and at the time is was built (1967), it was the largest statue in the world. It is 85 meters from the feet to the tip of the sword. To give you some perspective, this is a little under twice the size of the Statue of Liberty. It was recently reported that it is starting to lean, and they are concerned it could topple over. It is not fixed to it's foundation in any way, but is held solely in place by it's incredible weight.

You have to stand next to it to truly understand how huge it is.





















We left Volgograd around 4:00, and made it out of the city, heading towards Ukraine, but since it was late in the day, we only did a a hundred and a bit KM, found a plowed farmers field, and made camp for the night.

We noted that this was the first night we camped on the trip just Cory and I. (all previous camps had been with Petar in Asia and Europe, and Becky in Canada)