One of Warsaw's little visited gems (Soviet Military Cemetery (Warsaw, Poland))

Member Name: dangaroo

Product:	Soviet Military Cemetery (Warsaw, Poland)
Date:	17/06/09 (16 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Extremely pleasant park with a mammoth monument

Disadvantages: A bit controversial

Soviet Military Cemetery is the burial place for over 20,000 Soviet soldiers who died during World War 2. Despite promoting themselves at liberators, the Soviets only really wanted to extend their territory and therefore aren't particularly well thought of by the Poles and who can blame them really.

This Soviet Military Cemetery is therefore not much of a popular place to hang out - in fact, it's usually deserted. Located just off the road to the airport from the centre (Zwirki i Wigury) it's quite set back, I've lived in Warsaw for 4 years and actually never knew about it until recently when I started walking close by.

The monument to the soldiers is absolutely enormous - one of, if not the largest ones in Warsaw it stands tall above what is a very concrete square with some steps and two enormous slabs of concrete with a list of names which are dedications to the various batallions, rather typical of a Soviet memorial but somewhat bigger than I'm used to seeing. One of the slabs has the names written in Polish, whilst another is in Russian.

This may be a slightly controversial monument and not particularly loved by the citizens of the town but its gardens are second to none, a tree filled park with plentiful benches that makes a good place for runners and is connected to the park Pole Mokotowskie through a gentle stroll through a section of colourful flower filled allotments. This area is extremely quite and it's possibly for that reason that there are so many red squirrels hurrying around in their typical nervous manner.

You'll find socialist art in the concrete square, how realistic it is can only be confirmed by those who were there at the time but I bet on it not being very realistic at all - as they depict Soviet soldiers being greeted by civilians.

Summary: I recommend a visit!