Passenger river port, that had changed its image at least 3 times, as you could probably notice.

In 1962 because of condemnation of Stalin's cult of person Stalingrad was renamed to Volgograd and the new era of the city started. The city slowly obtained a new, modern face. Old buildings dissapeared and got replaced by the new generation of ones. City started growing to the north and south, new districts appeared. Thus, city more and more needed a new communication infrastructure. Among buildings and constructions that replaced the ones from pre-war period, was a river port.

One of the humongous constructions of the afterwar period, built in the times of giantism - Volga-Don canal. Open in 1952, canal connects Volga river near Volgograd and Don river near Kalach-on-Don. Its carrying capacity is up to several tens of millions of tons per year. Its length is 101 km, depths is no less that 3.5 m. Canal's system consists of 13 gates.

Besides that, Volga-Don canal is also one of the most famous ones of the xUSSR. It was a movie set for the movie called "Volga, Volga".

The damb from Volgograd's bank of Volga.

Volzhsky Hydroelectric Station in mem. of XXII Communist Party Convention. One of the largest hydroelectric stations on Volga has been built upper of Volgograd in 1952-62 yrs. Station's nominal output in the seventies was 11,1 billion Kw*h. Volume of water reservoir is 31 cubic km. and the height of water column falling on the turbins is 27 meters.

The station has and always had a great influence on the whole region's life. Enough to say that the sattelite city Volzhsky was built thanks to the Station, while it was in the process of construction in 1951. Besides that, the damb is one of the very important federal highways.

This is "The Square" - place where all the weird and normal young people, musicians, artists and all kinds of interesting people hang out. Its name it's got after four little cafes that form a rectangle, but for the easier it is called "square". When you're in Volgograd in the summer, visit "The Square", sit on the bench and get a couple of beer to find out what real inhabitants do in the summer. Pleasure is guaranteed.

Almost in any city standind on the river there's a central enbankment, which is basically the main recreation area of the city. Volgograd is not an exclusion in this sense. Main steps can "seat" amazingly large number of people. It becomes obvious on the days of celebration, such as "Youth Day" and the Day of the City. This is a place where all the major activities take place. Higher that the top terrace, on the Heroes Alley, there's a place which almost every volgogradian knows.

I would definately recomment to get to Volgograd by the train, because it's more interesting and definately more comfortable that travelling by the airplane, and, besides that, railroad station is right in the center of the city. So, it help resolving many problems.

While travelling by the train, first you're going to see when you arrive to Volgograd is the railroad station, which you already saw on one of the pictures from Stalingrad period. During all its history this station building had never been reconstructed. Not long time ago the first restoration has been done. Besides outside work, the inside has been changed a little but. But you can still see inllustrations of the Soviet People on the floor.

Just like in any Soviet city, central square is named after V. I. Lenin. Though Lenin's square is in the central district of Volgograd, and, probably, is formally the center of the city, practically it definately is not.

There's almost no sightseens on the square besides Lenin's monument, but the surroundings of the square are quite interesting. Going down the river you'll see the Stalingrad Battle memorial and, to the right from the square are two of three oldest Universities of the city. They're Technical University (formally Polytechnical Institute) and Pedagogical University (formally Pedagogical Institute). Just in these two universities there're more than 10 thousand of students currently studyng.

And, of course, there're night clubs, where you can just spend time for your pleasure. So, you can easily entertain yourself while staying in Volgograd.

Now Volgograd is also one of the cultural center of Lower Volga region and South of Russia. There're several theaters in the city. Among them there's a Theater for the Young Audience, Puppet Theater, Volgograd Antreprese, Theater of the Musical Comedy and, the most popular is the New Experimental Theater (NET). NET is located in the building of the former Drama Theater which stands of the Square of the Fallen Heroes. Volgograd Full Symphony Orchestra gives regular peformances, there're several folclore choirs. Besides that Volgograd's got a local branch of the Writer's Union and Artist's Union. There's also a rock-club "Tadj Mahal", that tries to organize a large Rock Society in Volgograd somehow. Unfortunatelly, these tries don't reach the goal and all the bands are on themselves.

By the way, that's the place where you'd see a piece of the wall of Pavlov's Building - the building, which sergeant Pavlov was controlling for more than a month and fascist couldn't make them capitulate nor destroy them.

The memorial, dedicated to the Stalingrad Battle, includes the building of the old mill, one of very few that left from that time, a military exhibition from the WW II, museum of the WW II and the museum of the Afganistan war. Besides that, there's also a panorama of the Stalingrad Battle, where on a huge painting (120x16 meters) all the major moment of the battle are shown. Panorama was created by the military (but not militarist) painters from the studio (named after M.B. Grekov) N.Ya. But, V.K. Dmitrievsky, P.I. Zhigimont, P.T. Malcev, G.I. Marchenko, M.I. Samsonov, F.P. Usypenko. First thought were illustrated in winter 1958 and the actual work on the painting itself started only in 1980. Now Panorama together with Mamayev Hill are the two major memorials dedicated to the Stalingrad Battle.

Victory in Stalingrad Battle had a great political, strategical and international influence. This victory indicated a start of the turn-over of the WW II. Thus the battle itself may be considered to be one the most important battles of the century and, probably, of whole history.

Definitely most of the people associate Stalingrad and Volgograd to the Stalingrad Battle. That, of course, is a reasonable association. Let's try to take a little bit closer attention on this, one of the greatest battles of the bloodiest war in the history of the humanity. It all started from the German bombardments in summer 1942, which practically never stopped till the end of winter 1943. During the defendant fights (till November, 18) in Stalingrad itself and in the suburbs armies of the Stalingrad Front, commanded by S.K. Timoshenko (later, from July, 23 - V.N. Gordov, since August, 5 - A.I. Eremenko), South-Eastern Front commanded by A.I. Eremenko and Don Front (K.K. Rokossovsky) had stopped forward moving of the 6th German-Fascist Army and the 4th Tank Army. During November 19-20 Soviet armies of South-Western (N.F. Vatutin), Stalingrad, and Don Fronts started attacking and surrounded in the region of Stalingrad 22 German divisions (330 thousand of people). Repulsing the enemy's trial to free the surrounded group in December, Soviet armies eliminated it. During January 31 - February 2 the remainings of the 6th Army (91 thousand of people) commanded by general-feldmarshal Paulus surrendered.

Mamayev Hill is considered to be the greatest and most famous monument to the Stalingrad Battle and the Great Patriotic War (WW II). This was the height that took most vigorous attacks. The building was guided by sculpturist E.V. Vuchetich and architecture Ya.B. Belopolsky in 1963-1967 yrs. The construction started with the reconstruction of the hill. The hill itself was standing there for several centuries already, but during the monument construction its height was considerably increased. The whole Ensemble consists of many smaller monuments. I'll tell about 3 of them. First one, seen on the picture is called "Standing till dead". That's the soldier, which is a kind of diffused with the rock. The statue is standing in the water. There's a tradition to drop change in the fountains on the Mamayev Hill. In the summer, when it gets up to 40 degrees in Celcius kids establish a tradition to get these money out of the water, which is definately twice as pleasant for the as just swimming in the water. Going up the stairs, we'll pass by anoter fountain, deeper the first one and reach the Hall of Soldier's Glory. This is the quitest place in the whole complex. In the center of the building the Eternal Fire is located, made as an armm stretching to the sky with a torch in it. On the walls, on more than 20 panels, up to several hunderds on each of them are the names of the heroes, fallen in the Stalingrad Battle. Entrance to the building and the Eternal Fire are guarded by the Honor Guard. And, finally, going up to the top of the Hill, we'll reach the bottom of the main sculpture of the whole ensemble. It's named "Motherland is calling". It is twice as high as the famous Statue of Liberty in New York City and it's calling for the defenders to stand and fight for their land. "Motherland is calling" as the "crown" of the ensemble monument "To the Heroes of the Stalingrad Battle" is one the most impressive states of art ever made by the human.