Ploschad Pobedye

Yesterday I was at the giant war memorial at Ploschad Pobedye, or Victory Square, dedicated to those that died during the 900-day siege of Leningrad from 1941-1944. It's really quite something - a huge column of granite in the center of a massive, bunker-like concrete memorial that you approach between two lines of dramatic statues of the city's defenders; soldiers, sailors, munition workers, and nurses. You then descend into a sort of circular atrium in which eternal torches burn around a sculpture of the dying hungry of the city - over one million civilians starved to death in the siege. Haunting symphonic music plays quietly over the loudspeakers.

There's also a huge underground memorial hall, lit by 900 electric torches and built of granite and marble. Huge glittering mosaics cover either end of the long hall, while Red Army banners and the names of some of the more famous dead in gold take line the other walls. The place has a very solemn feel, like you've just entered a giant mausoleum. Red granite display cases line the floor like rows of sarcophagii, adding to the sepulchural effect. Each case displays some aspect of the siege illustrated by artifacts, such as a the melted remains of a German incendiary bomb, a shrapnel damaged Communist Party membership card, and finger-sized piece of sawdust-filled black bread that was the daily ration for the besieged. The only sound in the silent hall was the monotonous ticking of a metronome; throughout the siege this was played continuously on the radio and through loudspeakers on the streets of the dying city. Like a heartbeat, the eternal metronome was supposed to show the starving inhabitants that their city was still alive.