The Battle of Stalingrad was one of the turning points of the war in Europe and with casualties above 1.5 million, arguably the bloodiest battle in all of human history.

One of the most heavily contested sites within Stalingrad was Mamayev Kurgan, a hill overlooking the city. It is here where the USSR dedicated a memorial to the Soviet victory, the centrepiece of which is an absolutely enormous statue - “The Motherland Calls!” (”Rodina Mat’ Zovyot!”), which at the time of its dedication in 1967 was the largest sculpture in the world.

Since then Stalingrad, USSR, has become Volgograd, Russia, but this monumental memorial still dominates the skyline. The 52 metre figure is made of concrete, and her 33 metre sword is stainless-steel, making the sculpture 85 metres from tip to toe (not including the plinth, which adds another 16 metres). Here’s a ground-level shot which you absolutely have to see to believe!

The Motherland Calls! was designed by Yevgeny Vuchetich (who also designed Berlin’s Soviet War Memorial) and she was erected as part of a series of sculptures commemorating the Soviet victory in the Eastern Front of World War II (another of which, Kiev’s Mother Motherland, we’ve previously featured¹).

This massive engineering task was orchestrated by Nikolai Nikitin who was also responsible for the previously featured Moscow State University, Warsaw Palace of Culture and Science and Ostankino Tower - which are all ridiculously enormous too!

More info about the Battle of Stalingrad, Volgograd, Mamayev Kurgan and The Motherland Calls!, as always, at Wikipedia. Or check out a tour of Mamayev Kurgan at the official site (in English).

This is St. Petersburg’s imposing Kazan Cathedral, which features an impressive and absolutely massive stone colonnade, encircling a small garden and central fountain. In 1876, this was the location of the first ever political demonstration in Russia.

This is actually one of several cathedrals dedicated to Our Lady of Kazan¹, and this one was completed in 1811, and was modelled after St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

Here’s the obligatory Wikipedia page, which unfortunately sounds like it’s been automatically translated from Russian.

The Tupolev Tu-144 is a supersonic passenger jet built by the Soviet Union as a competitor to the British/French Concorde.

The Tupolev was developed around the same time as Concorde and, with a little help from a spy in France, its appearance is very similar. Due to this, the Western papers of the day gave it the inspired nickname of “Konkordski”¹.

Konkordski 77107 on display at Kazan Aviation Production Complex

Like its namesake, Konkordski wasn’t the aviation success everyone had hoped for, and only 17 were ever built. A disastrous crash in 1973 at the Paris Air show sealed the Konkordski’s fate and they served only 103 domestic flights before being withdrawn from service.

Konkordski 77108 stored at the Samara-Ouchebny Research Institute

Although nowhere near as famous as Concorde, Konkordski did achieve its share of records: it was the first supersonic passenger jet to fly (just 2 months before Concorde) and to this day is still the fastest commercial airliner ever!

More info on the History of Konkordski, full aircraft list and Wikipedia page.

Thanks to Snoogans and Virtual Globetrotting.

There’s something very strange going in Moscow, Russia.

It looks as if a bus has come to a stop right across a motorway, bringing traffic to a complete halt in both directions. There doesn’t appear to be any debris from a crash visible, so what on earth happened here?

Has the bus crashed, or could we actually be witnessing some sort of hostage situation?

Thanks to Jonas Rasmussen.

An Ekranoplan (”surface-plane” in Russian) is a plane-ship hybrid that can skim over the water using the upward force of the WiG (Wing in Ground) effect, which forms a cushion of air under the short but very wide wings. It’s all explained on Wikipedia.

The Soviet Union planned to develop 120 Ekranoplans of the A-90 Orlyonok class, but in the end only 3 were built. When the Americans saw them skimming along the Caspian Sea they could only describe them as “Caspian Sea Monsters”. One of the 3 A-90 Orlyonok class is permanently parked on the edge of the Caspian Sea at the town of Kaspiysk.

The even more bizarre looking craft we see here is the only vessel of her class, a Lun (”Harrier”) MD-160 Ekranoplan, and entered service with the Black Sea Fleet in 1987. It is 74m long with a wingspan of 44m.

Thanks: Ben

This feels a little like ambulance chasing, so in no particular order, here are 9 (possible) traffic accidents.

1. Highway A13 just north of Rotterdam (there’s a couple of vehicles on the hard shoulder, and traffic is backed up for a long way):

2. Belfast Spillage (first pointed out in a different thread, there seems to be some sort of spillage and water vehicles cleaning it up):

3. Traffic backed up in Moscow (definitely something holding up traffic, but it’s unclear that this is an accident):

4. Blue vs. red car in the UK (my vote is for parked cars in this case actually):

5. Central reservation crossed in Australia (there seems to be a lorry in between the carriages and a couple of emergency vehicles to one side):

6. Road rage in Las Vegas (impossible to say how these cars came to rest like this, but there’s definitely people having words in the street!):

7. Dallas Motorway accident (there’s a car on the hard shoulder, traffic creeping past, a truck on the hard shoulder facing the wrong direction, and a couple of unidentified black marks on the road):

8. Burning car, Germany (Car is still on fire and is surrounded by firemen, there’s water staining the motorway, a fire engine and hundreds of backed up vehicles to the north):

9. Jackknifed lorry, Dallas (Dallas again? Lorry appears to have jackknifed across the highway, but it seems traffic is getting past):

We sincerely hope that nobody was seriously injured in any of these incidents.

Thanks to Dirk Thiel, WRA, Wilfred van Breda, gIMpSTa, Matthew Flynn, Ant, Stephan Segraves and Dan.

These are the Diomede Islands, two islands only 3km apart but one is in Russia, the other in the USA. These islands are right in the middle of the Bering Straights and the international dateline runs right in between them. Therefore, you can stand on the eastern island in Alaska and look into “tomorrow” in Russia, pretty trippy.

The Diomede Islands are often mentioned as likely intermediate stops for some kind of bridge or tunnel spanning the Bering Straits, which would be one big and expensive bridge!

Thanks: Adrian & Gut

In 1977 the Soviets began construction of a fleet of nuclear submarines that were to hold the title of “World’s Largest Submarine” for nearly 30 years (and counting!) - the Typhoon class.

The fictional “Red October” that was hunted in the movie was a Typhoon class sub but in reality there were only six completed (construction of a seventh was aborted half way through).

Despite their age we can see three Typhoon Submarines in reserve service at Zapadnaya Litsa Naval Base. However, it was reported in 2004 that these last three were to be decommissioned, so they may have since been finally dismantled.

If you scroll further up the river you’ll also find Oscar-II & Victor-III class submarines and there’s a ton more info on the Typhoons at Global Security.

Thanks: Eddie