Treptow-Köpenick

Population: 241,335
Sub-districts: 15

Alt-Treptow

Plänterwald

Baumschulenweg

Johannistal

Niederschöneweide

Altglienicke

Aldershof

Bohnsdorf

Oberschöneweide

Köpenick

Friedrichshagen

Rahnsdorf

Grünau

Müggelheim

Schmöckwitz

Sowjetisches Ehrenmal Treptow | Soviet Memorial Treptow

This site is one of three in the city to be dedicated to the fallen soldiers of the Soviet Union during the Second World War.

It spans twenty-five acres and features two stone entryway arches that lead to a statue of a weeping mother. Her body points the way through two Soviet flag stylised red granite column arches to sixteen stone sarcophagi either side of a red-grey and offset white-laurel cobble path. At the end of the path are fifty-five steps up towards a small mausoleum crowned with a huge bronze statue of a liberator figure.

This memorial is an amalgamation of four of thirty-three competition submissions, from an architect, an engineer, a painter and a sculptor, to design the park. The sculptor, Yevgeny Vuchetich, steals the show. His contribution to the park is that statue. A twelve metre tall, forged-metal grey bronze 'big soldier' stood atop a broken and warped swastika with small child saved in his left arm and huge sword held in his right hand pointed towards the ground. Manifest in his stance is that the end of the Second World War was also the end of National Socialism.

The sarcophagi are representative and encourage remembrance of the seven thousand plus Soviet Union soldiers killed during WWII. The informative displays near the site's two entrances tell that the deceased were mostly buried simply where they fell.

The site is silent save from the occasional sound of dog barks or bird chatter that breezes softly through the branches of the perfectly geometrically planted trees. Runners determinedly take the steps to the top of the monument in twos and threes while walkers and joggers saunter the site's circumference. Couples lay on the sloped grass directly beneath the statue and, occasionally, someone can be seen - a student perhaps - reading something by Lenin.

Go in the evening, with the soldier's eyes looking towards the sunset, from the west in front of him, to really catch this grandiose memorial in its most glorious light.

Puschkinallee, 12435 Treptow-Köpenick

S-Bahn: S8, S41, S85 Treptower Park

visitberlin.de/en/spot/soviet-memorial-treptow

Other Site of Interest

Puschkinallee, pictured above, is one of the lushest avenues I ever did lay my peepers on. The traffic is one-way and the road is rarely full. It runs alongside the River Spree and through the vast Treptow Park. The Roman-straight strip is, on sunny late-summer evenings, when the sunlight dapples and begins to fade, through the starting to fall leaves, simply gorgeous.