---
type: Place
title: Volgograd
description: Formerly Stalingrad — the site of the deadliest battle in human history, rebuilt brick by brick, and a city Harry finds beautiful and being left behind at the same time.
tags: [volgograd, stalingrad, russia, world-war-two, memorials, trains]
coordinates: {lat: 48.7082, lng: 44.5153}
timestamp: 2026-08-05T12:00:00Z
---

# Volgograd

A city on the Volga in southern [Russia](/countries/russia.md), formerly
Stalingrad, reached by an 18-hour train from [Moscow](/places/moscow.md). Harry
stops here on the way to [Elista](/places/elista.md) and describes it as
surprisingly beautiful and, in the same breath, as a place that has been left
behind — young people are leaving over pay and the economy.

## Stalingrad

The reason to come. What Harry sets out, standing in the city:

- **Two million people were killed** in the battle, which he calls the deadliest
  in human history — more than Gaza, Iraq or Afghanistan.
- **40,000 died in the first week alone**, from bombing.
- **Why here**: Hitler wanted the Volga as a supply line. The Red Army encircled
  the German army in the city and defeated it, and the battle turned the war.
- **The city was completely destroyed and rebuilt brick by brick.**
- **The Motherland Calls** — at 85 metres, the tallest statue of a woman in
  Europe, and the monument the whole city is organised around.
- **Twinned with Coventry**, Harry's home city, which he uses for the joke that
  Volgograd actually rebuilt itself.

The trip has a second layer: Harry brought the German creator
[Leon](/people/leon.md) here deliberately, and says so — to stand a German in
Stalingrad.

## The city now

- **Bombing is current, not historical.** The night before Harry left, there
  were explosions over the city for hours; he is told it was the air defence
  working, that everything gets shot down, and that after two years nobody
  reacts to it any more. Flights out were cancelled, which is why he hitched.
- **The economy has been hit directly**: a man at a bus stop had lost his job
  when the local oil refinery was destroyed. Harry chose not to show his face.
- **Statues of Lenin** are everywhere — Harry offers the claim, flagging that
  he's been fact-checked on it before, that Lenin is the most-statued person in
  the world.
- **The station is a reunion point.** Arrivals are met with flowers by families
  who haven't seen each other in a long time, because the work is in Moscow.

## Getting here: the Moscow train

An 18-hour run, and Harry's advice is to travel third class because that is
where anything happens. What it's like:

- **Bunks are too short** for a tall passenger — you fit across but not along —
  and the upper berth has a ceiling close over it. There are USB sockets.
- **No food is served to the carriage.** Bring your own or use the restaurant
  car; the cleaning is frequent and the carriage is in better condition than he
  expected.
- **The restaurant car is cheap**: chicken Kiev at 400 rubles, about $5, on a
  train with no competing supply.
- **Value against home**: Harry compares roughly £50 for a one-hour
  Birmingham–London ticket against roughly the same for 18 hours here, and adds
  that this train left on time.
- **Seat allocation is approximate.** Somebody was in theirs, and a further
  reshuffle by a babushka put them somewhere else again.
- **Contact is slow and worth the effort.** A fellow passenger shared cognac
  with them and held a long conversation entirely through Google Translate,
  typed rather than spoken because there was no signal.

## Harry's tips

- **Take third class**, not first — see above.
- **Buy the food before you board.** There's a bar and restaurant car, but
  nothing comes to the seat.
- **Learn to open with something.** Russians here don't smile at strangers and
  the conversation has to be earned; the vodka, the cognac and the translate app
  did more work than any question.
- **Don't rely on flying out.** Flights get cancelled at no notice.

## Source

- [Entering the Side of Russia You Don't Ever See 🇷🇺](/videos/OgY_LeUShM8.md) —
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgY_LeUShM8