The Mongol Rally Guys

Previously known as Stalingrad, Volgograd is a large, patriotic city in between Ukraine and Kazakhstan. We didn’t have much time to explore the city, as we wanted to be on our way to Kazakhstan by that evening. One thing we definitely couldn’t miss though was the giant Mother Russia (Rodina) statue looming over the city. We drove up to the hill it was perched on and marveled at the scope of the thing (larger than the Statue of Liberty). There was also a gold-roofed Orthodox Church as well as various memorials to those that had died in World War Two (along with Russia’s version of the Eternal Flame). It was all very surreal and a reminder of how much influence communism had on the country for 70 years or so.

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