In December 1997, the Guard of Honor (Post number 1) was installed at the Eternal Flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Moscow.
He was buried in the globe, And he was only a soldier
In total, friends, a simple soldier, No titles or awards.
The earth is like a mausoleum to him -
For a million centuries
And the Milky Way is dusty
Promotional video:
Around him from the sides.
Clouds are sleeping on red slopes
Snowstorms sweep
Heavy thunder thunders
The winds take a run.
The battle ended long ago …
By the hands of all friends
The guy is put in the globe, As if in a mausoleum …
This poem was written by the front-line poet Sergei Orlov in June 1944, many years before the tomb of the Unknown Soldier appeared in Moscow. However, the poet managed to express the main essence and meaning of what has become one of the greatest shrines of our Fatherland, personifying the memory of those who fell on the way to Victory.
Military trick of Nikolai Egorychev
The idea of the tomb of the Unknown Soldier first appeared in France after the end of the First World War, where they decided to honor the memory of all the fallen heroes of the Fatherland. In the Soviet Union, a similar plan appeared 20 years after the Great Patriotic War, when May 9 was declared a day off, and state celebrations in honor of Victory Day became regular.
In December 1966, Moscow was preparing to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the battle under the walls of the capital. Nikolai Yegorychev, the first secretary of the Moscow City Party Committee, had the idea of creating a monument to ordinary soldiers who fell in the battle for Moscow. Gradually, the head of the capital came to the conclusion that the monument should be dedicated not only to the heroes of the battle for Moscow, but also to all those who fell during the Great Patriotic War.
It was then that Yegorychev remembered the grave of the Unknown Soldier in Paris. While he was thinking about the possibility of creating an analogue of this memorial in Moscow, the head of the government, Alexei Kosygin, turned to him. As it turned out, Kosygin was worried about the same question. He asked: why is there such a memorial in Poland, but not in the USSR?
Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Paris.
Having enlisted the support of Kosygin, Egorychev turned to the specialists who created the first sketches of the monument.
The final "go-ahead" was to be given by the country's leader, Leonid Brezhnev. However, he did not like the initial project. He considered that the Alexander Garden was not suitable for such a memorial, and suggested finding another place.
The problem was also that where the Eternal Flame is now located, there was an obelisk dedicated to the 300th anniversary of the House of Romanovs, which later became a monument to revolutionary thinkers. To implement the project, the obelisk had to be moved.
Egorychev turned out to be a resolute man - he carried out the transfer of the obelisk with his own power. Then, seeing that Brezhnev did not make a decision on the grave of the Unknown Soldier, he went to a tactical maneuver. Before the ceremonial meeting in the Kremlin on November 6, 1966, dedicated to the anniversary of the October Revolution, he placed all the sketches and models of the monument in the rest room of the Politburo members. When the members of the Politburo got acquainted with the draft and approved it, Yegorychev actually put Brezhnev in a position where he could no longer refuse to give the “go-ahead”. As a result, the project of the Moscow Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was approved.
The hero was found near Zelenograd
But there was still one more important question - where to look for the remains of a soldier who was forever to become the Unknown Soldier?
For Egorychev, fate decided everything. At this moment, during construction in Zelenograd near Moscow, workers stumbled upon a mass grave of soldiers who died in the battles near Moscow.
Transfer of the remains of the unknown soldier, Moscow December 3, 1966. Photographer Boris Vdovenko, Commons.wikimedia.org
The requirements were strict, excluding any possibility of chance. The grave, chosen in order to take the ashes from it, was located in a place where the Germans did not reach, which means that the soldiers certainly did not die in captivity. One of the fighters has a well-preserved uniform with the insignia of a private - the Unknown Soldier was supposed to be a simple fighter. Another subtle point - the deceased was not supposed to be a deserter or a person who committed another military crime, and was shot for it. But the belt was removed from the criminal before the execution, and the belt on the soldier from the grave near Zelenograd was in place.
The chosen soldier had no documents and nothing to indicate his identity - he fell like an unknown hero. Now he was becoming an Unknown Soldier for the whole large country.
On December 2, 1966, at 2.30 pm, the remains of a soldier were placed in a coffin, at which a military guard was set up, which was replaced every two hours. On December 3, at 11:45 am, the coffin was placed on a gun carriage, after which the procession headed to Moscow.
On the last journey of the Unknown Soldier, thousands of Muscovites were seen off, lined up along the streets along which the procession was moving.
A funeral rally was held on Manezhnaya Square, after which party leaders and Marshal Rokossovsky carried the coffin in their arms to the burial place. Under artillery volleys An unknown soldier found peace in the Alexander Garden.
One for all
The architectural ensemble "Tomb of the Unknown Soldier", designed by architects Dmitry Burdin, Vladimir Klimov, Yuri Rabaev and sculptor Nikolai Tomsky, was opened on May 8, 1967. The author of the famous epitaph “Your name is unknown, your feat is immortal” was the poet Sergei Mikhalkov.
On the day of the opening of the memorial, a fire lit in Leningrad from the memorial on the Field of Mars was delivered to Moscow in an armored personnel carrier. The solemn mourning torch relay was taken over by the Hero of the Soviet Union, pilot Alexei Maresyev, who handed it over to the head of the USSR Leonid Brezhnev. The Soviet General Secretary, himself a war veteran, lit the Eternal Flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
On December 12, 1997, by decree of the President of Russia, guard of honor number 1 was established at the grave of the Unknown Soldier.
The eternal flame at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier was extinguished only once, in 2009, when the memorial was being reconstructed. At this time, the Eternal Flame was moved to Poklonnaya Hill, to the Museum of the Great Patriotic War. On February 23, 2010, after the completion of the reconstruction, the Eternal Flame returned to its rightful place.
An unknown soldier will never acquire a first and last name. For all those whose loved ones fell on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War, for all those who did not know where their brothers, fathers, grandfathers laid their heads, the Unknown Soldier will forever remain the same dear person who sacrificed his life for the future of his descendants, for the future their homeland.
He gave his life, he lost his name, but he became dear to everyone who lives and will live in our vast country.
Your name is unknown, your feat is immortal.
Andrey Sidorchik