firing to kill americans maintains his innocence expressing disappointment with the u.s. justice system. i'll be back with more headlines and a half an hour up next two hundred steps lead up to the kurgan memorial one for each day of the battle of stalingrad our special report the motherland calls taking a closer look that's coming your way in a few seconds. she stands fifty two meters tall with a sword eighty five she weighs eight thousand tons and is six meters tall of the most famous symbol of the united states. the guinness book of records named as the tallest sculpture in the world at the time of construction. rushes symbol of victory among the lamb calls sits on the hills of them i ask her to come in full grab. the city saw one of the beloved east battles of the second world war.

during the war it was known as the stomach read the first day of the battle in july nine hundred forty two alone so friends and families of people killed more than two million soviet soldiers and residents of stunning grat kid in the course of maybe seven months another million on the hof were killed in the german side the remains of hundreds of thousands of shells and bombs can still be found to this day. this is she was ruined that was then when i first thought about how to restore everything that had been laid to waste. valentino was a construction worker of family moved to the city right after the second world war she witnessed not only the restoration of stalingrad from the ruins but also the competition to create the best monument stalin had ordered the memory of the conflict to be immortalized on the my own. was put in charge. when you consider two projects were also thought about building in wonderment only segarra the sixty

fourth the soviet union defended the site but it was far from the city center the second project was a gun that we decided to build here because the entire city could descend from the top. sculptors from all over the country submitted their projects to participate in the contest stalin eventually chose the church known for his works of socialist realisable that symbolized heroism at that time he'd already created the soviet brylin. he was later responsible for a statue a bronze call that a speech songs into plowshares which can be found outside the united nations and. with my my of the artist was faced with a difficult task he had to come up with a symbol representing a call for victory because stomping ground was a major turning point during. the search for his means again. the question of who inspired the work is

a very interesting one they were lots of ferries some thought it was a waitress fell into me or jim that's new. but in fact give me will teach was fast inspired by nike off some of the trace the first version of the statue was half the final size twenty five meters there were plans to build a messiah cool under the morning meant for that but then the weight of the statue doubled while the foundation had been made with a mission that planned lote so they decided to add one hundred fifty thousand more tons of earth. for the most part the maya have could go is a huge cemetery as a result of the construction the mass graves ended up buried under eight meters of earth. village two hundred fifty kilometers from volgograd alexander soon to call for left his home here in nine hundred forty one never to come back.

one day alexander was giving an old man a lift hill still that he would die at the age of twenty. alexander lived but his mother sang deep into. that. when alexander volunteered for the front he left his mother three sisters under a younger brother behind from the age of nine alexander became the man of the house people used to say that even if alexander was hungry and self he would find food first for the others. today only his sister in a dish does survive a younger brother died before he could find the final resting place of their deceased brother alexander's nephew continued to search. during the war alexander was a tank man after fighting nearly five hundred kilometers from stalingrad all the way to my account he was seriously injured the soldier had a choice either to go to hospital will stop the enemy advance he chose the latter.

alexander who died from his wounds two days before the end of the battle in street fighting is stunning grant's room which now serves as a reminder of the hundreds of them even now the remains of hundreds of thousands of soviet soldiers are missing thirty three search teams scoured the area to finally lay them to rest some were broken up with the best find was a letter that a soldier wrote to his fiance before his death but he did not have time to send this note it was written in verse we read it to the end outloud. seventy years have passed but bullet casings unexploded mines and shell fragments continued to be honest in one instance the remains of forty soldiers were found in a single day the average life expectancy of a soldier upon arriving in stalingrad was twenty four hours few managed to survive almost all two hundred days like alexander surreal because. according to the law we

bury those found within the city by. those without a name are laid to rest. in accordance with russian law those found in other regions. from the moment the war ended alexander's relatives searched intensely for his grave. they failed to find his remains in the place indicated on the death notice and only seventy years later they discover that he had been exude together with the remains of many other soldiers. they had been moved to a mass grave situated on the eastern slope of the foot of the mother man calls. from people working at the memorial helps a nephew find where the soldier had been buried. a card index system keeps all the information about the soldiers. here's your

uncle's card aleksandr. so aleksei you can see that your uncle is not only engraved forever on the wall of the memorial complex but also in the battle of stalingrad museum archives. it turned out that the final resting place of the young soldier was found here on the hill but he defended to the end. well hello who examined the. thirty four thousand five hundred and five people are buried of the foot of the motherland coals another eleven thousand people are in a small a mass grave elsewhere on the hill. who wanted to immortalize the names of the deceased soldiers lists came in from moscow from that information seven thousand

two hundred names have been engraved in them i have cut guns hold of military glory however the full story of nine hundred of the foreman has not yet been revealed the only information they have is a surname and initials a special team at the memorial complex investigates these soldiers origins even today there are people who off to seeing their family name on the wall trying to find at least some details about their deceased relatives. the only god stands watch over the whole of military glory only those meeting specific requirements can make it into this regiment soldiers must be told of slavic appearance and fully versed in old drill techniques. the architectural scale of the memorial project match the scope of the battle of stalingrad a fitting memorial was needed for the lost lives in nine hundred forty two the commander of the sixty second dummy the silly to recall was the architect advisor

he was immortalized by. the sculpted human to fight to the death. it takes two hundred steps from the foot of my of could gun to reach its top one for each day of the battle song. in the square of sorrow stands a sculpture of a grieving mother. these walls have built from the ruins of stomping ground depicting soldier it's as well as the slogan not a single step. it took several lives to find the image for the central monument. the motherland calls as a different meaning this is not the statue of liberty of course which implies freedom for the american people are statue is full of energy. and military spirit the motherland calls is unique there is no such other statue in the world the way that. it's possible to sculptors final design was inspired by the figures on

paris is. for the figure of nike that he saw on display in the movie. this statue of a woman with a sword in hand and a fee a spirit was approved as a symbol of the motherland of the highest level. knew first hand the home. he served as a machine gun before being wounded and returned to moscow in one hundred forty three. in the political for the will go you also have a tremor in his hand to imagine that he was a sculptor because he worked toward. the only way he was sculpting was he calm and could work and professionally. he was always doing something sculpting working with clay just so he could feel the way he did before the injury i don't but my father told me that he'd always been modeling something but with you that's why he always had a potty much is why as with him. he was always busy that's going to buy

a little bit no matter if he was ill or feel. whether it was night or day it was. maybe just needed to do it to feel alive. the grand memorial to the heroes of the battle of stalingrad opened on october the fifteenth nine hundred sixty seven. leaders of the soviet union together with never arrived soon after the opening ceremony of the monument started work on a new one hundred meter tall. to be delivered to keep. the sculptor possible way before the project was realized.

the secret laboratory to mccurry was able to build the most sophisticated robot with ridley doesn't sound anything tunes mission to teach the creation why it should care about humans and. this is why you should care only. silage brighton if you knew about sulu from finest impressionists. who threw stones on t.v. dot com. during the construction of the motherland calls monument it's lower and it's up

approx well connected by an elevator. cleopatra down this meant. would have to walk up and down two hundred steps to inspect his money. only the personnel looking after the monument are allowed inside. a year after the unveiling of the statue the issue of who is going to maintain this huge construction arose for the first time in the soviet union a team of mountain climbers was employed to look after the monument. on the trail. the red ropes of descents white wands of for safety risking their lives climbers regularly check the condition of the motherland calls

monument which deteriorated following the collapse of the soviet union nowadays specialists keep an eye on the joints regularly so that the limbs remain firm periodic a special water repellent coating is applied to the statue but the solution does not come cheap mountain climbers examine small mocks covering the statue in most cases they're just making a record there are more than a thousand of them here. now we're at a place of particular concern destruction is already visible here. this piece has bled off very easily. this is a serious defect the concrete broke away from the outer surface because water got into the crack. seeing as there was clay inside the crack began to grow squeezed against a chunk of concrete that this needs fixing immediately otherwise the process of

destruction will continue. only the most professional climbers are allowed to work on the monument. it's particularly important that they have extensive experience in mountaineering in uneven terrain. the whole volgograd can be seen from the top of the motherland calls. working on the motherland cause it's like a hobby to me. this work is not for money. i spent my whole lifetime here. i mean many times as there's a lot to do here i'm a native of volgograd and i'm proud of having such a monument in our city. we try to keep it in good condition to preserve it for future generations. if it is a war veteran one of the few builders of the monument to

a still alive when construction began there was not even any grass. in its place where about twelve hundred fifty deadly metal fragments per square metre the motherland coals was built upon earth soaked with the blood of the soldiers. was what down there in this place there were. the workers could change their clothes and here we had our office and over there were. those who cast of the molds for the statue lived in the. cost of the four. inside the statue erected to internal politicians. numerous trucks brought in concrete from. what could be a bomb that the trucks with concrete were arriving day and night this was the first concrete monument in the world there were no such other sculptures made of

reinforced concrete anywhere else all our sculptures are made of concrete such monuments hadn't existed before we were the first to build them. when constructing such a huge monument the designers and builders could not foresee old possible issues. reliable here. being a builder i am greatly concerned about it we have to deal with this issue urgently i want the statue to stay as it is now. only by. this symbol of victory stands just like a chess piece it was dr of technical sciences. made the necessary calculations there were even plans for special needs which would make it possible to easily raise the statue if it. does. first calculated the exact center of gravity before setting up cables inside the statue but another issue with merged in the one nine

hundred seventy s. during a strong wind the steel sword began to swing wildly it was replaced with a titanium version weighing fourteen tons. engineer alexander turnoff comes to the statue once a week he checks all the cables inside to make sure they aren't overstretched and whether any metal has rusted the rim or the one hundred cables here each twenty meters long they pull together all of the internal parts of the statue. more than we did there for example we can see the ropes that pull together the right forearm and the elbow of the arm which holds the sword. you could call them the muscles of the arm there are special sensors on the cables which monitor the tension they send this information to a micro processing unit installed further up. in the heart of the monument here all

the monitoring machinery is installed previously to examine the construction and communicate with the employees this device is used to help one could talk to any person no matter where they were in the sauder in the leg only one person had to dial the number to ask the person situated inside saudi how was he doing what was the situation. currently there's no such thing. today all this cumbersome equipment has been replaced with an ordinary laptop. and this kind of micro processing device. one of the main tasks of the statue supervisors is to watch for any deviations and when necessary take the correct action with. the one nine hundred eighty s. we've been observing the foundation stabilisation we conduct g.-o. d. sic. at the top the way the head is

bent is approaching the critical point. we're watching the situation closely the constant monitoring the new calculations are all quiet. this is my favorite part of the head. this is where the monitoring ends. and the panorama of the city begins. the institute of physical education is situated close by models for the statue was selected from here in the nineteen fifties and came to you again studio in this factory to pose the working day of a model here did four hours. shops . that was fifty years ago a very long. try to

replace. realize what kind of project she was participating in she was simply curious. as i remember calling a rule in there i turned. it was supposed to be a sword to left. there after. going you and there was some kind of a big fund there to make the fabric flutter. wasn't invited to the opening ceremony she recognized the familiar features later when she saw the monument for herself yet i was looking at her and wanted to see. it seemed to me that the position. of pride similar to mine. i wanted to believe i look like her.

is the woman who became the face of the motherland or is it just a result of the stutters imagination. trying to answer this question he spent six years writing a manuscript about his famous father but he died without having published his. sculptors grandson is now the keeper of the manuscript. for which appears from the money script. from a very beautiful woman the woman was a classic example of the legend. of course in the motherland cool's you can see similarities with the famous nike of some of the trace. the original is kept in the loop for the record so what my grandfather saw her and she might have served as a fine example of a great statue for him but of course this female figure is a generalization if you look at the statue and his wife vera you know well to me

they look a lot of it is because thunder because. it's clear that there are similarities when a picture of the sculptors wife is placed side by side of the statue. was a man of few words he expressed what he wanted to say with his hands that's why specialists and relatives are not surprised that the work devoted to the most significant period in his life was modeled on his wife. which is your scope of one's future to just said he had so many ideas that he would need a dozen life at all events to realize them each tell him no but and i know that's really the case that he dreamed of new projects because he wanted people to remember him as an artist when body to heroism because of those people. history has shown that the artist succeeded in as endeavor every year nearly two million people come to the foot of the monument symbolizing russia's triumph in the second world

war. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realized everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture. the people of the united states and their friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder is a regime as an active program to acquire and develop nuclear weapons and let there be no doubt about we know for

a fact there are limits there. this we're just being carried out into the direction of dr david kay respected scientist and former u.n. inspector was leading the weapons search in iraq we are determined to take this apart you have a tremendous a group of dedicated american men and women involved in this with the best assets of the intelligence community and provide. david cheney is not going to be done with this for quite some time david kay wants more time and he says it could take another six to nine months to make a definitive finding ministration is asking congress for hundreds of millions more six hundred million dollars to fund a continuing search you have not yet found shiny pointy things that i would call a weapon before we can draw from conclusions we need to let the iraq survey group complete its work. we were all wrong probably in my judgment. and that is most disturbing. sometimes the true

patriot takes the unpopular course but helps the country and for the stakes and even if they. this way at least they tried patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels and i think these are scoundrels they have no argument now they have no defense for what they did the country is in a terrible international security situation that i think is perilous so they're attacking the patriotism of others.

wealthy british scientists are it's time to. market why not. going to. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike stronger for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into gaza report on.

the united nations condemns violence in syria calling it a terrorist act urging all parties to implement kofi annan peace plan this after dozens were killed and hundreds injured as twin suicide car bombs all rocked damascus in what's being dubbed the deadliest attack since the conflict started more than a year of. search and rescue teams have reached the site where a russian airliner crashed wednesday morning with forty five passengers aboard rescuers say they found no signs of survivors among the debris scattered across the side of an indecent volcano. jailed russian businessman victor boot talks with r.t. from his new york prison giving his take on his case which he says is politically motivated bood who was sentenced to twenty five years in jail for conspiring to kill americans maintains his innocence expressing disappointment with the u.s. justice system. kaiser report up next stay with us here on r.t. .