OREANDA-NEWS. November 18, 2009. Under the order, the memorial ensemble comprising the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier monument, the blocks containing soil from the hero-cities, and the memorial signs to the hero-cities in the Alexander Garden beside the Kremlin walls in Moscow is given the status of National Memorial of Military Glory.

A memorial sign will be installed at the site in the run-up to the 65th anniversary of victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.

The National Memorial of Military Glory will be included on the state register of especially valuable cultural heritage sites of the peoples of the Russian Federation.

In December 1966, in a ceremony commemorating the 25th anniversary of the defeat of Hitler’s troops at the approaches to Moscow, the remains of the Unknown Soldier were relocated from the site of fierce battles to the Kremlin Wall in the Alexander Garden. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier memorial ensemble was opened on May 8, 1967, and the Eternal Flame of Glory was lit the same day.

To the memorial’s right, arranged in a row on a foundation running alongside the Kremlin wall, are stone blocks beneath which are urns containing soil from the hero cities of Leningrad, Kiev, Minsk, Stalingrad, Sevastopol, Odessa, Kerch, Novorossiysk, Murmansk, the Brest Fortress, Tula and Smolensk.

A Presidential Order of December 12, 1997, established the honour guard at the Eternal Flame.