Museum of the Great Patriotic War, Moscow

Feel the wide stone under your feet. The plaza here is huge and open, and on a windy day the air moves freely across it. You can hear fountains splashing somewhere ahead and the low hum of the city far below. Look up, and a tall pale column rises high above you. Then turn toward the long curved building behind it. That is where we are going. This is the Museum of the Great Patriotic War, on Poklonnaya Hill in western Moscow.

First, a word about the name. The Great Patriotic War is the term used in Russia and the former Soviet Union for the war against Nazi Germany, from June 1941 to May 1945. For most of the world, this is the eastern front of the Second World War. In recent years the museum has often been signed simply as the Victory Museum. The building is a memorial as much as a museum. It holds both pride and grief.

Before the building, think about the hill itself. Poklonnaya comes from a Russian word for bowing. Travellers arriving from the west would stop here, see the domes of Moscow for the first time, and bow to the city. In 1812, Napoleon waited on this hill for Moscow's leaders to bring him the keys to the city. Nobody came. He entered a city that was largely empty, and soon it began to burn. The hill carried meaning long before this museum stood on it.

The memorial complex took a long time to arrive. Ideas for a great war memorial on this site circulated for decades in the Soviet period. The museum finally opened in 1995, for the fiftieth anniversary of victory in Europe. That timing matters. By then the Soviet Union no longer existed. So this is one of the first great war memorials of the new Russia, built in a time of deep economic hardship.

Now look again at the column in the centre of the plaza. Here is a detail most visitors miss. The monument stands 141.8 metres tall. That figure was chosen on purpose. The war lasted 1,418 days. Each ten centimetres of height stands for one day of fighting. The faces of the column carry reliefs of battles and cities. At the very top, a bronze figure of Nike, the ancient Greek goddess of victory, holds out a wreath.

At the base of the column, there is a second sculpture. Saint George on horseback spears a dragon, and the dragon's body is cut into pieces. Saint George is the patron saint of Moscow, and he appears on the city's coat of arms. The sculptor of these figures is Zurab Tsereteli, a Georgian artist who made many large monuments in Moscow. The dragon here is often read as a symbol of Nazism.

Now walk toward the museum building. It curves around the plaza in a wide half-circle, with a long row of columns along its front. Inside, the most important space sits directly under the central dome. This is the Hall of Glory. It is bright and white, and the walls are covered with names. They are names of people who received the title Hero of the Soviet Union during the war. There are thousands of them, carved line after line, rising toward the dome.

In the middle of the hall stands a bronze figure of a soldier, holding a sword and a wreath. Above him, the dome shows military orders and decorations. Take a moment to stand still here. Look at a single panel of names and try to read a few of them. Some names repeat. Some are clearly from different nations of the old Soviet Union. Each one is a single person, and together they fill a whole sky of stone.

Now comes the room that changes the mood completely. Below the Hall of Glory lies the Hall of Memory and Sorrow. The light is low and quiet here. From the ceiling hang thousands of thin threads, and on each thread are small glass drops. They are meant to be tears, for the millions who died. In the centre, a sculpture shows a grieving mother holding her dead son. Many visitors lower their voices in this room without being asked.

The scale of loss behind this room is hard to hold in the mind. The Soviet Union lost tens of millions of people in the war, soldiers and civilians together. Almost every family in the region lost someone. That is why this museum does not feel like a distant history lesson for many local visitors. People come here with grandparents' photographs and family stories. On the ninth of May, Victory Day, the whole hill fills with people and flowers.

Another part of the museum many people remember most is the set of large dioramas. These are deep painted scenes, with real objects in the foreground blending into a painted background. Each one shows a major episode of the war, such as the defence of Moscow, the battle of Stalingrad, the siege of Leningrad, and the final assault on Berlin. Stand at the rail and let your eyes travel slowly. It is often hard to see where the real objects end and the painting begins.

The galleries also hold letters, uniforms, weapons, medals, and personal objects. Look closely at the small things. A worn spoon, a handwritten note, a soldier's cap. These items give a human size to events that are otherwise too large to imagine. Outside, in the park around the hill, an open-air display shows tanks, artillery, aircraft, and other military equipment. Many families with children head there after the indoor halls.

The wider grounds are worth a slow walk too. Victory Park spreads out with long avenues, fountains, and other memorials. Not far from the museum stands a church dedicated to Saint George, built in the 1990s. Other memorials in the park honour different groups and faiths connected to the war. In good weather, locals use the park simply as a park. You will see cyclists, skaters, and people walking dogs between the monuments.

As you leave, stop once more on the plaza and turn around. Look at the curved building, the white columns, the tall column with Nike far above. Listen to the fountains and the wind. This is the same hill where travellers once bowed to the city, and where an emperor once waited for keys that never came. Now it holds the names and the grief of a whole generation. Take that with you as you walk back down the hill.