The Motherland Calls

The Motherland Calls is a statue in Mamayev Kurgan in Volgograd, Russia, commemorating the Battle of Stalingrad. It was designed by sculptor Yevgeny Vuchetich and structural engineer Nikolai Nikitin, and declared the largest statue in the world in 1967. Today, it is the tallest statue in Europe and the tallest statue of a woman in the world, not including pedestals.ConstructionThe Motherland Calls is highly complex from an engineering point of view, due to its characteristic posture with a sword raised high in the right hand and the left hand extended in a calling gesture. The lead sculptor was Yevgeny Vuchetich, and Nikolai Nikitin handled the significant structural engineering challenges of the huge sculpture. The technology behind the hollow statue is based on a combination of prestressed concrete with wire ropes structure, a solution which can be found also in another work of Nikitin's, the super-tall Ostankino Tower in Moscow.