Unkown soldiers grave. Tomb of the Unknown Soldier - photo

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is an architectural memorial ensemble in the city of Moscow, near the Kremlin walls, in the Alexander Garden. In the center of the composition, the Eternal Flame is blazing for 34 years . People come to the monument to worship a soldier who gave his life for his homeland.

Description

The tombstone is decorated with a composition of bronze: a laurel branch and a soldier's helmet, reclining on the banner of military glory. In the center of the architectural composition is a niche from Labradorite, where words are carved: "Your name is unknown, your feat is immortal." In the middle of the niche is a bronze five-pointed star in which the Eternal Flame of military glory is blazing.

To the left of the burial there is a wall of quartzite with the words written on it: "1941 fell for the Motherland 1945". To the right of the grave there is an alley of granite with blocks of dark red porphyry. Each of them depicts the "Gold Star" medal and the name of the hero-city: the cities of Kiev, Leningrad, Odessa, Stalingrad, Minsk, Sevastopol, Smolensk, Murmansk, Tula, Brest, Novorossiysk, Kerch. In blocks, capsules are stored with the earth taken from the listed objects.
On the right side of the alley is a stele of granite red, on which the names of forty cities of military glory are immortalized .

The idea of creating

In 1966 Muscovites were preparing with special solemnity to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the defense of their city. The post of the first secretary of the Moscow City Party Committee at that time was occupied by Egorychev Nikolay Grigorievich. This man was one of the reform communists, who played an important role in the policy of the state.

The anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War began to be celebrated with special splendor from 1965, after Moscow became a hero city, and on May 9 they made it a holiday, a non-working day. That's when the idea arose to erect a monument to ordinary soldiers who lost their lives during the defense of the capital. Egorychev decided to make this monument nationwide. In 1966 Nikolai Kosygin telephoned Alexei Nikolaevich and said that there was a Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Poland, and suggested that such a monument be erected in Moscow. Yegorychev replied that he was just considering this project. Soon the sketches of the memorial were demonstrated to the first leaders of the country - Mikhail Andreevich Suslov and Leonid Brezhnev.

Choose a place

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is a monument close to the heart of every person. The choice of the site on which it will be located was given exceptional importance. Egorychev immediately proposed the installation of a memorial in the Alexander Garden, near the Kremlin wall. There just was a suitable place. However, this idea did not like Brezhnev. The biggest obstacle was that in this area there was an obelisk created in honor of the three-hundredth anniversary of the House of Romanovs in 1913. After the coup in 1917, the names of the reigning people were erased from the pedestal, and in their place the names of the revolutionary leaders were knocked out. The list of the titans of the revolution was drawn up personally by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. And in the USSR everything that was associated with this man was not allowed to touch. However, Yegorychev took a risk, deciding to move the obelisk slightly to the side without the highest approval. Nikolai Grigorievich was sure that he would not get a permit anyway, and the discussion of this issue would drag on for many years. Together with the head of the architectural headquarter of the capital, Fomin Gennady, they moved the obelisk, so cleverly that no one noticed. However, to begin construction of global works, it was necessary to approve the Politburo, which Egorychev received with great difficulty.

Find the remains

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Moscow was intended for a soldier who died for his Motherland. Then in the city of Zelenograd large-scale construction was conducted, during which a mass grave was found with the remains of soldiers. However, the Politburo had many delicate questions. Whose ashes to bury? What if it's the remains of a German or a deserter shot? Now each of us understands that any person is worthy of prayer and memory, but in 1965 they thought differently. Therefore, all the circumstances of the death of soldiers were thoroughly checked. They stopped the choice on the remains of the soldier, on which the military uniform remained (there were no commanding insignia on it). As Yegorychev later explained, the wounded and captured could not have been dead, because the Germans did not reach Zelenograd, and the unknown person was not a deserter either - before they were shot, a belt was removed from them. It was clear that the body belonged to a Soviet man who died heroically in the battle for the defense of Moscow. With him, no documents were found, his ashes were truly nameless.

Burial place

The military developed the ritual of the solemn burial of an unknown soldier. The body of the soldier from Zelenograd was taken to Moscow on the gun carriage. In 1966, on December 6, thousands of people were walking along Gorky Street since the morning. They cried as the procession marched by. The funeral motorcade reached Manezh Square in mournful silence. The last few meters of the coffin were carried by leading party members, such as Marshal Rokossovsky. Evgeny Konstantinovich Zhukov was not allowed to carry the remains, as he was in disgrace. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, a photograph of which you can see in this article, has become a landmark place, which everyone wanted to visit.

Eternal flame

May 7, 1967 in Leningrad, the torch was lit from the Eternal Flame on the Champ de Mars. In the relay the fire was taken from the capital. They say that the whole way from Leningrad to Moscow was strewn with people. On the morning of May 8, the procession reached the capital. The first at the Manege Square torch took the legendary pilot, Hero of the Soviet Union, Alexei Maresiev. Preserved a unique newsreel, which captured this moment. People froze in anticipation of the most important event - the lighting of the Eternal Flame.
The opening of the memorial was entrusted to Egorychev. And Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev burned the Eternal Flame.

Memorable inscription

Everyone who comes to the memorial sees the words of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier: "Your name is unknown, your feat is immortal." This inscription has authors. When the Central Committee approved the project of creating a monument, Egorychev collected the leading writers of the country - Simonov, Narovchatov, Smirnov and Mikhalkov - and invited them to compose an epitaph. They stopped on the sentence: "His name is unknown, his feat is immortal." When everyone dispersed, Nikolai Grigoryevich thought about what words each person would approach to the grave. And he decided that the inscription should contain a direct appeal to the deceased. Egorychev phoned Mikhalkov, and they came to the conclusion that on the granite slab there should appear that line, which we can observe today.

Nowadays

In 1997, on December 12, a decree of the Russian President was signed, according to which, an honor guard is transferred from the Lenin Mausoleum to the place where the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is located. Every hour, there is a change of guard. In 2009, on November 17, according to Presidential Decree No. 1297, burial became the National Memorial of Military Glory. From December 16, 2009 to February 19, 2010 the monument was subject to reconstruction, in connection with which the guard of honor was not exhibited, and the assignment to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier of Flowers was temporarily discontinued. February 23, 2010 Eternal flame was returned to the Alexander Garden, it lit Dmitry Medvedev, then the President of the Russian Federation.

Conclusion

The monument to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier became a symbol of sorrow for all fighters who sacrificed their lives for the sake of saving the Motherland. Everyone who was involved in the creation of this memorial felt that this matter was the main thing in his life. We disappear, our descendants will leave, and the Eternal flame will burn.