It celebrates conflicts and glorifies the nation's heroes

The Cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces embodies the new national identity

  • Putin's photos have been removed from the mosaics in the cathedral after an argument over them.

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  • The building is a national symbol for many Russians.

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  • German tanks were smelted and used in construction.

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The images inside the massive Russian Armed Forces cathedral mix militarism, patriotism and Orthodox Christianity, and leave a startling and controversial impact, to a great extent.

Located an hour's drive from Moscow, the cathedral has a khaki-green metallic exterior topped with golden domes and crosses, reaching 95 meters in height.

Inside there is an enormous amount of mosaics, larger than any church in the world, with many works depicting battles from Russian history, and World War II in particular.

During the two decades of President Vladimir Putin's rule of Russia, the Soviet victory in the Great Patriotic War - as World War II there is still called - became the cornerstone of a new Russian national identity.

Now, Victory in War has its own religious shrine, and when future historians look back at the Putin era, they may decide that this cathedral is the defining building of this era.

Soviet war medals, in stained glass, are displayed on ceilings, while mosaics show various major battles.

Symbolic figures are present in the dimensions, with the main dome being, for example, 19.45 meters in diameter (symbolic for 1945 and the end of World War II).

Weapons and tanks captured from the Germans were also smelted and used to create the cathedral's metal floors.

"Think of this as you step into the cathedral, and as you walk through the floors, you deal a symbolic blow to the fascist enemy," says one of the guides for a tour group of elderly and veiled women as they enter the building earlier this month.

Minor changes

The idea for the cathedral belongs to the Russian Defense Minister, Sergey Shoigu, and the opening was originally scheduled for the 75th anniversary of the victory over the Nazis, in May.

In the end, due to the Corona pandemic, the ceremonial opening was postponed until June.

Putin, Shoigu and the Patriarch of Moscow attended the opening on June 22, the anniversary of the Nazi attack on the Soviet Union, in 1941.

"Only a nation that loves God can build such a great cathedral," said the Russian Orthodox Bishop Stefan of Klin, who heads the Russian Orthodox Church department to cooperate with the army and holds mass in the cathedral.

And the bishop, who is 59 years old, who was an officer in the Soviet and Russian missile defense forces before becoming a priest, defended the use of Soviet symbols, saying that the cathedral depicts "all the vows of our state ... the holy Russia", and it would be a mistake to rule out World War II, Given the number of religious Soviet soldiers, as he put it.

But the pictures were controversial, according to Sergey Chapinin, a religious scholar in Moscow, "In fact, this is not an Orthodox cathedral, it is a post-Soviet cathedral."

Some minor changes were made, after several parties protested earlier this year, most notably the removal of a mosaic around the Kremlin's 2014 seizure of Crimea, which included pictures of Putin and Shoigu.

Bishop Stefan said: "It was the desire of our president, so humble that he thought it was not appropriate to be portrayed on the mosaic, and then to remove his pictures."

The mosaic detailing the Crimean events does not now have Putin, but it depicts the notorious "little green men" - the Russian Special Forces - who oversaw the annexation process, and which the Kremlin initially denied existed.

Holy Interventions

In a large mosaic dedicated to the Soviet and Russian armies, since World War II, a group of soldiers carrying modern weapons has been personified, and there is a list of the conflicts that have been celebrated, which ends with "imposing peace on Georgia" in 2008, and "the return of Crimea" in 2008. 2014, and "fighting international terrorism" in Syria, and a space for future conflicts will be added.

The cathedral's curators did not forget the two Russian wars in Chechnya, as well as the Soviet military interventions to crush the Hungarian Revolution in 1956, the Prague Spring, 1968, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

When asked whether the church really wants to indicate that all of these interventions are "holy", Stephan said that "it is wrong to focus on specific conflicts."

The cathedral is located in "Patriot Park", or what is known as "Military Disneyland", which Putin inaugurated in 2015. Three years ago, Shoigu was among 5,000 spectators who watched a 1945 reenactment of the storming of the German capital in the Cathedral Park, which included Tanks, planes and a gigantic model of the parliament building in Berlin.

And with the cathedral opening, there are more options for a family day out.

About 20 thousand visitors flocked daily on recent weekends, until Tuesday afternoon last week.

There were hundreds of people inside the cathedral, and many of them undertook exploratory tours.

The place contains many rooms in which the war episodes are shown on huge screens, similar to computer games, and some rooms also contain special effects.

something new

Children can take pictures next to a model of a surrendered Nazi soldier.

In and outside the building, there are puzzles and souvenir mugs, and "rocket launchers" for sale in the gift shop.

But while there are plenty of war museums in Russia, the cathedral is something entirely new, which illustrates the quasi-religious meaning of the way the war in Russia is mentioned.

Dmitry, a 28-year-old who works at the cathedral, says the military and religious images on its mosaics, far from being a worrying mix, are actually quite appropriate. “In war, our soldiers sacrificed themselves to be free and independent.”

• 20,000 visitors flocked to the cathedral every day on the weekends.

An imprint in history

Observers say that this cathedral is an attempt by President Vladimir Putin, to make an imprint in Russian history.

The memorial marks Putin's efforts to paint the Soviet victory as a great national victory, as a center of national identity.

This is a symbol of such an effort, and it is located in the heart of what is referred to as "Military Disneyland", and the place is filled with pictures of the "holy" soldiers of Russia.

The entire complex takes advantage of this quasi-religious context to display history.

The context of the "Great Patriotic War" becomes important when it is emphasized that Russia sees its many sacrifices in the war as being absolutely beneficial to the victory of the Allied powers.

In the end, it would be easy to make many assumptions about this tendency to integrate militarism with religion, which is noticeable in Russia.

Suffice it to say, it is an ancient way of accumulating national pride in this modern era, and it represents a transformation that the current administration has probably planned in the long term.

Even as many Russians worry about whether this cathedral glorifies military rather than religious figures, the walls of this new cathedral are ready to mark new chapters in upcoming Russian military activities.

Controversial

Hundreds of thousands of Russians are proud of icons that honor veterans and praise the military might of their country.

But some of the exhibits proved controversial, while others sparked accusations of belittling other sacrifices.

A controversial mosaic depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin was not displayed in the new military cathedral, after the president himself objected to it.

In the mosaic, Putin is pictured alongside his defense minister, the head of the Federal Security Service, and others.

The bishop in charge of the huge church near Moscow said the mosaic was likely to be dismantled.

Another mosaic shows women in front of a sign reading "Crimea is ours."

Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea peninsula in 2014. It was reported that parts of the site were constructed from melted equipment that had been seized from Nazi forces.

But when the designers included a picture of President Putin, they seemed to go too far.

And when it became public and controversial, the Kremlin said that Putin disagreed.

A spokesman said celebrating his team's accomplishments was premature, and the mosaics were removed immediately.

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