The hill of Mamayev Kurgan is situated about 4kms north east of downtown Volgograd . In 2007 we reached it by the then rather rickety metro-tram system through stations named “Ploschad Lenina” and “Komsomolskaya” – but didn’t go as far as “Tridtsat' Devyataya Gvardeyskaya” (39th Guards Rifle Division Street) and “Zavod Krasnyy Oktyabr’" (Red October Steel Factory)! Volgograd is a city of around 1 million people and, no doubt, provides a normal and varied city existence to those inhabitants, but to an outsider it seems impossible to avoid that Battle. Along the river front, bullet and shell-pocked buildings have been left in situ, one passes tanks and other military hardware and there are memorials commemorating the heroic actions of this or that individual or small group of people. There is also an enormous museum with a fine cyclorama of the battle. But capping them all, situated on a small hill and visible across the city is the towering statue of Mother Russia ( actually - “The Motherland Calls”) brandishing a sword and standing 82m high from feet to sword tip.

The tram drops visitors at the foot of the hill and the climb (200 steps to represent the 200 days of the Battle we were told!!) is made along a ceremonial avenue with flags, fountains and “social realist” memorials ("Standing to the Death" and "Grieving Mother"). Just below the top is the main memorial – a circular building at the centre of which is an everlasting flame with a permanent rotating guard of soldiers titled "The Hall of Military Glory" (photo). The structure has an oculus in the roof through which (rather impressively) can be glimpsed the sword of Mother Russia high above . The exterior has murals depicting happy Soviet soldiers carrying banners stating “To Berlin” as well as depictions of Lenin!!. A further short climb leads to the flat top of the “Kurgan” (“Mamay” by the way is thought to refer to a military leader of the Blue Horde 1335-80) from where one can walk round the statue. Unfortunately some of the views are partly interfered with by unsightly structures but there are also fine views of the Volga and of onion domed churches among the trees of parkland which surrounds the immediate environs of the hill.

We visited twice – once with a guide as part of a full “Battlefield Tour” and once on our own. It is worth having the former I feel to help understand the complex chronology and geography of the battle and also to explain the memorials and events which they commemorate.

The memorial was constructed between 1959-67 and as well as being a Russian national statement is, as would be expected, also very much a Soviet structure in its style. Whether it possesses OUV is another matter. US citizens might bristle at the comparison with the Statue of Liberty made by Russia in the T List entry and claim that, whilst it represents universal values of freedom and democracy, Mamayev Kurgan represents the defeat of one dictatorship by another! But Russians of course see it differently – during this 1 battle they had over 1 million casualties with around 480000 killed (As a comparison USA lost 417000 men in the entirety of WWII). And these losses were, in Russian eyes, incurred in defeating Fascism for the benefit of all humanity as well as for Russia! A “hard sell” I feel and certainly not helped by the rather bombastic and nationalistic tone of the current T List entry. I personally regard the Statue of Liberty as sitting slightly “uncomfortably” within the list – but it did at least succeed in claiming criterion i for its technological merit as well as the rather more dubious and symbolic criterion vi. Mother Russia had its engineering problems to overcome but can’t really claim primacy in that respect… which leaves 2 Statues with differing “symbolic” views of World history and of their “Universal Significance”!!

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I have visited Brest on a sunny August day in 2007, after a trather disappointing "guided tour" to the Belovezhsjkaya Pushcha National park. (See the review there.)

The city of Brest is not a real eye candy - it was destroyed at least twice in the 20th century and reconstructed during the Soviet era. Grey concrete blocks stand on both sides of the unreasonably built four lane streets, were there is almost no traffic. The importance of the city is in its strategic location, during the Soviet times the bridge near Brest was the only border crossing between the Soviet Union and Poland - most of the commerce (legal and illegal) to and from the West went this corridor. Nice not, but it is a bustling commercial town with smugglers and whores. The only place of historical or touristic interest is the fort, now a patriotic historical monument nicely placed in a charming park.

The importance of the fortress comes from its role in the first ansd the second world war. Originally it was the largest 19th century fortress of Russian Empire, one of the western Russian fortresses. The final works were carried out in 1914, the first year of World War I resulting in a fortified area 30 km in circumference. The huge it was, it could not withstand the Blitz. During World War I the fortress was captured by the German army in August, 1915, after the Russian army abandoned it during its general withdrawal from Poland that summer. In march 3, 1918 the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was singed in this fortress by the Bolshevik Russian and the Central Powers. According to the terms of this treaty one third of the territory of the former Russian Empire ceded to the Central Powers (i. e. mainly Germany). The rusian troops withdrew from the Baltic states Belarus and Ukraine - opening the way for the independence of these territories. (That was not the aim of the Germans, but the treaty did not last for a year, as the Central Powers lost the war in autumn.) Later he fortress changed hands twice during the Polish-Soviet War and eventually stayed within Polish borders, a development that was formally recognized by the Treaty of Riga in 1921. During the Invasion of Poland in 1939 the fortress was defended for 4 days by a small garrison. On 17 September 1939 the Soviet Union invaded Poland in accordance with the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact and occupied the Eastern part of Poland including the Brest Fortress. In the summer of 1941 it was defended by Soviet soldiers against the German Wehrmacht in the first days of Operation Barbarossa, earning it the title of Hero Fortress. The fortress had become a symbol of the Soviet resistance during the German-Soviet War along with Stalingrad and Kursk.

The builing was heavily damaged, and never reconstructed. A pert of it - e. g. the palace where the Berst Litovsk Treaty was signed - is still in state it was after WWII, left so as a memento of the war. Other parts are restored. A new gateway forming a red star was built and a gigantic statue of the unknown Soviet solder was erected in the middle of the courtyard. (The biggest WWII monument in the whole former Soviet Union) In from of it there is the eternal flame commemorating the defenders of Brest. (The last couple of sentences, I think, give enough explanation why ICOMOS rejected the site, and why is it sure, that Brest will never find its way into the WH.)

May be not intact from the architectural point of view, but it is a very authentic experience. Not touristy at all - I am sure that day we were the only foreigners there. If we say that Belarus is now a living museum of the Soviet era (where else you can find a metro station called Lenin square?) - the Brest fort is twice as much. At the entrance loudspeakers play WWII marches - when we entered I heard the best of all, the Sviashchennaya Voina (Holy War), a song I remember from my childhood's Russian lessons. Inside, like in the Soviet movies just married couples wait to make a picture in front of the gigantic soldier. Like Brezhnev were still alive.

It is definitely not a must see, but for those who want to dip in the memories of the Soviet past can be fun experience.

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