Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is a memorial complex beside the Kremlin wall in the Alexander Garden, dedicated to the memory of those who died in the war of 1941–1945. The ensemble was created in 1967 by architects Dmitry Burdin, Vladimir Klimov and Yuri Rabaev together with sculptor Nikolai Tomsky, and since 1997 an honor guard from Post No. 1 has stood watch at the tombstone. The monument is officially recognized as a cultural heritage site and the country's principal national memorial of military glory.

The idea of commemorating the defenders of Moscow arose in the mid-1960s, when the first generation to have no conscious memory of the war had grown up. In the autumn of 1966, construction work at the 41st kilometer of the Leningrad Highway near Zelenograd uncovered a mass grave containing the remains of a soldier in preserved uniform bearing no insignia. It was decided to rebury the remains by the Kremlin wall to mark the 25th anniversary of the defeat of German forces near Moscow: on December 3, 1966, the coffin was brought to the capital on a gun carriage, and the ceremony was witnessed by the two marshals who had led the defense of the capital in 1941 — Georgy Zhukov and Konstantin Rokossovsky.

The monument was solemnly unveiled on May 8, 1967. The Eternal Flame for the memorial was lit by Leonid Brezhnev, who received the torch from hero pilot Alexei Maresyev on Manezhnaya Square; the flame itself had been brought from Leningrad, where it was kindled on the Field of Mars. The tombstone was made as a square slab of polished red Shoksha quartzite, with a bronze relief placed on its right side depicting a soldier's helmet and a laurel branch over a furled banner. In the niche at the center of the memorial is carved a commemorative phrase attributed to the writer Sergei Mikhalkov: the name of the fallen soldier is unknown, but his feat is immortal.

To the left of the grave runs a wall bearing the inscription "1941 To Those Who Fell for the Motherland 1945," while to the right, along the Kremlin wall, stretches an alley of twelve porphyry blocks bearing the names of Hero Cities in the order in which the title was conferred. Sealed inside the blocks are capsules containing soil from the commemorated places: soil for Leningrad was taken from the Piskaryovskoye Memorial Cemetery, for Stalingrad from Mamayev Kurgan, for Sevastopol from Malakhov Kurgan, and for Brest from the walls of the hero fortress. After a 2010 restoration, a granite stele bearing the names of all Russian Cities of Military Glory was installed next to the "Smolensk" block.

Every year, wreath-laying ceremonies are held at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on state holidays and commemorative dates, along with meetings between foreign delegations and heads of state and the country's leadership. The changing of the guard at Post No. 1 by the Eternal Flame has become one of Moscow's recognizable traditions, drawing tourists and residents of the capital alike.

Today the memorial remains the main site of nationwide remembrance for those who died in the Great Patriotic War and an integral part of the architectural appearance of the Alexander Garden beside the walls of the ancient Kremlin, welcoming thousands of visitors and participants in commemorative ceremonies every day.