Memorial to the numerous civilian casualties here in WWII. This is the memorial to Chuikov, the general whose troops fended off Germans in the first part of the battle.

 

Volgograd embankment. May 9, 2014.

 

Here you pay some money to hit the boxing bag. Volgograd river station.

 

The Vogograd skyline from the river. Most of the fighting during WWII was on this side, close to the river.

 

Coming in to the old Stalingrad.

 

Self portrait. Lookin' happy as always.

 

The dancing bridge in Volgograd. In 2006, just after they built it, it jumped and buckled for a few seconds. No problems since.

 

These are the steppes. Beautiful land.

 

Trestle. Volgograd.

 

More locks.

 

Locks before Volgograd

So you go through these series of locks on the Volga entering Volgograd. The river naturally would have some drop in elevation here. So the locks allow boats to traverse this without rapids. They use gravity and a series of chambers. So simple yet such genius.