Monument Details

Elbe River U.S. and Soviet Meeting (Moscow Ecology Park) Memorial

Details:

To the right as you enter the entrance gate.

Monument

A three-meter-high monument includes a bronze sculpture mounted on an engraved black stone base. The sculpture shows three U.S. soldiers on the left meeting three Soviet soldiers on the right across bridge fragments, within a square frame flanked on both sides by banners.

Russian surrealist sculptor Alexander Nikolayevich Burganov, a National Artist of Russia, and a member of the Russian Academy of Fine Arts, created this work in 2016 to "symbolize the results of combined efforts by Soviet and Allied forces in victory over against Fascism" during World War II (known in Russia and some other former Soviet states as the "Great Patriotic War"). On 25 April 2016, the 71st anniversary of the meeting on the Elbe. Then-U.S. Senior Defense Official and Defense Attaché Bruce H. McClintock and General-Major (Retired) Aleksey Arkhipovich Leonov (Military Pilot/Cosmonaut twice awarded Hero of the Soviet Union) led the dedication of the monument, accompanied by representatives of the Moscow-based foreign military diplomatic community, as well as current and retired officials from the U.S. and Russia.

This monument commemorates the linkup between U.S. and Soviet Forces near the end of World War II at about 1600 hours on 25 April 19345. On that day, 2LT William Robertson and PFC Frank Huff of 273d Infantry Regiment (69th Infantry Division. V Corps, First US Army) made contact with Soviet Lieutenant Aleksandr Silvashko and Sergeant Nikolai Andreyev (58th Guards Rifle Division, 34th Russian Corps, 1st Ukrainian Front) on the damaged bridge over the Elbe River near Torgau, Germany.

However, the sculpture is a stylized version of staged photos taken by International News war correspondent Allan Jackson on 26 April 1945, the day following the actual link-up: Included in the photos below show U.S. 69th Division soldiers who were in Torgau preparing for the formal meeting between Division Commander Major General Emil Reinhardt and the Soviet 58th Guards Division Commander General-Maj Vladimir Rusakov.

Burganov's other works include a monument to Alexander Pushkin located at George Washington University in Washington DC (2000); a statue of John Quincy Adams, the first U.S. Ambassador to Russia and later President of the United States, located in front of the U.S. Embassy in Moscow (2008); and a nearby statue of US President Abraham Lincoln shaking hands with Russian Tsar Aleksandr II (2011). Although President Lincoln and Tsar Aleksandr II never met in person, they did correspond -- and both led their countries during challenging reform periods: Aleksandr II abolished serfdom in Russia in 1961, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in the U.S. in 1963, and both fell to assassins.

Other locations and monuments associated with this same theme:

LOCATION: Strehla, Germany

https://www.uswarmemorials.org/html/site_details.php?SiteID=1766

MONUMENT: US-Soviet Elbe River (East Meets West) Link-Up (69th Infantry Division) Memorial

https://www.uswarmemorials.org/html/monument_details.php?SiteID=1766&MemID=2319

LOCATION: Torgau (West Bank Elbe River), Germany

https://www.uswarmemorials.org/html/site_details.php?SiteID=1770

MONUMENT: US-Soviet Elbe River Link-up Monument

https://www.uswarmemorials.org/html/monument_details.php?SiteID=1770&MemID=2326

LOCATION: Torgau (East Bank Elbe River), Germany

https://www.uswarmemorials.org/html/site_details.php?SiteID=1767

MONUMENT: US-Soviet Elbe River (Spirit of the Elbe) Link-Up (69th Infantry Division) Memorial