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Mamayev Kurgan is a dominant height overlooking the city of Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad) in southern Russia. The name in Russian means "tumulus of Mamai". (Mamai commanded the Tatar Golden Horde in the 1370s — no historical evidence exists of his burial on the site.) Today Mamayev Kurgan features a memorial complex commemorating the Battle of Stalingrad (August 1942 to February 1943). The battle was a decisive Soviet victory over Axis forces on the Eastern front of World War II.

The hill changed hands several times during war and when the battle ended, the blood-soaked soil on the hill was plowed and mixed with shrapnel: the soil contained between 500 and 1,250 splinters of metal per square meter. The earth on the hill had remained black in the winter, as the snow kept melting in the many fires and explosions. In the following spring the hill would still remain black, as no grass grew on its scorched soil. The hill's formerly steep slopes had become flattened in months of intense shelling and bombardment. Even today it is possible to find fragments of bone and metallic shrapnel still buried deep throughout the hill.

After the war, the Soviet authorities planned the Mamayev Kurgan memorial complex for commemorate of about one million of soviet soldiers that died during the Battle of Stalingrad - bloodiest battle in our history. Complex was built between 1959 and 1967 and is crowned by a huge allegorical statue of the Motherland on the top of the hill. The monument, designed by Yevgeny Vuchetich, has the full name "The Motherland Calls!" (Rodina Mat' Zovyot!). It consists of a concrete sculpture, 52 meters tall, and 85 meters from the feet to the tip of the 27 meter sword, dominating the skyline of the city of Stalingrad (later renamed Volgograd). This is the the largest free-standing sculpture in the world. The construction uses concrete, except for the stainless-steel blade of the sword. The statue is held on its plinth solely by its own weight. The statue is evocative of the classic Greek representations of Nike, in particular the flowing drapery, similar to that of the Nike of Samothrace.

Info by Wikipedia