Poklonnaya Gora, literally "bow-down hill", is famous hill located in the west of Moscow, between the rivers Setun and Fil’ka. Once the Poklonnaya Mountain was far outside of Moscow and offered a panoramic view of the city. Historically travellers would stop here to look at Moscow and pay their respects, hence the name of the mountain. A memorial sign with the words "The monument to the Victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War of the 1941-1945 years will be erected here" was installed on the Poklonnaya Hill on the 23rd of February of 1958. Words to action, the Victory Park was built around the memorial sign.
The grand opening of the Park was timed to the 50th anniversary of the end of the war, and was held the 9th of May of 1995. The memorial complex, located on 135 acres, includes the Museum of the Great Patriotic War, the Victory Monument and three religious temples: a golden-domed Orthodox church, a memorial mosque and the Holocaust Memorial Synagogue.
Make sure to visit the Museum of the Great Patriotic War while walking around the Victory Park. This history museum opened to public in 1995 and features more than 75 thousand items on military history. The Book of Memory placed in the Hall of Remembrance and Sorrow, honors Soviet people who died in the war and consists of 385 volumes. Among other interesting items, the museum keeps the flag of the Soviet Union raised over the Reichstag in Berlin on April 30, 1945.
Outside the museum you can find a permanent exhibition of military equipment, and right in front of it, an obelisk rising 141.8 meters – by the number of days the war lasted, 1,418. On the hundred-meter mark of the monument lays a bronze figure of the goddess of Victory – Nike, while at its foot – a statue of St. George slaying the dragon, the coat of arms of Moscow.
