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: VOLGOGRAD, Russia (AFP / www.yahoo.com) -
: Volgograd may have been rebuilt from
: scratch after 1945, but the city once
: called Stalingrad is still haunted by
: the ghosts of World War II's watershed
: battle which saw Nazi Germany's first
: crushing defeat.
:
: "The whole city is a
: memorial," said Mikhail Godun, a
: young fireman who spends much of his
: free time digging up the remains of
: those who fell during the brutal,
: 200-day clash.
:
: What was arguably the mother of all
: World War II battles -- and Soviet
: victories -- claimed the lives of more
: than one million Soviet soldiers,
: around 800,000 German, Romanian and
: Italian axis troops and around 500,000
: civilians in Stalingrad and the
: surrounding area, according to figures
: from the general staff of the Russian
: armed forces.
:
: Many of those who died still lie in the
: ground at the exact place where they
: were slain during combat that raged
: from August 1942 to February 1943.
:
: "As soon as the snow begins to
: melt, we start digging for soldiers'
: bodies," Godun says.
:
: "In February, beyond the canal, on
: a construction site on Korpusnaya
: street, we found 60 bodies of German
: soldiers," which were then buried
: in a German military cemetary on the
: fringes of the city, he says.
:
: Sometimes, bodies are also found by
: chance, during construction work.
: "Volgograd residents have long
: become used to finding dead soldiers
: when water pipes are being replaced in
: their streets," Godun says.
:
: The city is dominated by the Mamayev
: Kurgan battle memorial, which is set
: set on a man-made hill. It is topped by
: an 80-meter (262-foot) concrete and
: steel statue of a woman wielding a
: sword over her head, meant to personify
: the motherland.
:
: But while this and other monuments
: recall the battle as a horror of the
: past, its physical and psychological
: vestiges are part of the present for
: many local residents.
:
: "We are just crossing the
: frontline" that used to separate
: Soviet from German troops, Godun said
: as he stepped across a street in
: central Volgograd.
:
: On the city's main square, called the
: Square of Men Fallen in Battle, grows a
: tree that survived the battle. Next to
: it, a shrine carries these words:
: "Here are buried those who died
: fighting the German fascist
: invaders."
:
: High school students in military attire
: parade in front of the memorial and its
: eternal flame, a landmark of Stalingrad
: -- the city was renamed Volgograd in
: 1961 -- which was elevated to the
: status of "Hero City"
: following the battle.
:
: "They are the honor guard watching
: over post number one, the Hero City's
: eternal flame," said Lidya
: Metyolkina, assistant principal of a
: local high school.
:
: "Being allowed to watch over the
: eternal flame is a reward granted to
: the city's best schools. The children
: like it, and it is an honor."
:
: Bordering the central square is the
: Univermag, a Soviet-era department
: store whose basement served as
: headquarters for the commander in chief
: of German forces in the battle,
: Marshall Friedrich Paulus.
:
: On February 2, 1943, Paulus, who
: commanded Nazi Germany's Sixth army,
: which had been besieged in the city by
: Soviet troops, finally surrendered.
:
: Today, a little-advertised museum
: recreates the German headquarters in
: the Univermag's basement, next to the
: crockery department.
:
: But few of Volgograd's 1.4 million
: inhabitants have direct recollections
: of the battle, as most of them moved
: here in the aftermath of World War II.
:
: In 1942, now 84-year-old Gamlet
: Dallakian was a young signals officer
: with the Soviet frontline general
: staff.
:
: "The general staff was buried 26
: meters deep on the banks of the
: Tsaritsa river, a stone's throw from
: the city center, which was held by the
: Germans," he recalls, wearing a
: string of medals pinned on his breast.
:
: There, he crossed the path of a Soviet
: officer called Nikita Khrushchev, who
: would go on to become Soviet leader
: following Joseph Stalin's death in
: 1953, Dallakian says.
:
: Dallakian carried out numerous
: night-time missions to liaise with
: Soviet troops posted on the opposite
: bank of the Volga. During one one of
: them, he was wounded by a German
: bullet.
:
: Today, the students who walk along the
: Volga's banks do not even spare a
: glance for the memorials marking the
: once deadly frontline.
:
: Russ
:
: www.fireonthevolga.com
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