<P> The hill changed hands several times . By 27 September, the Germans again captured half of Mamayev Kurgan . The Soviets held their own positions on the slopes of the hill, as the 284th Rifle Division defended the key stronghold . The defenders held out until 26 January 1943, when the counterattacking Soviet forces relieved them . The battle of the city ended one week later with an utter German defeat . </P> <P> When the battle ended, the soil on the hill had been so thoroughly churned by shellfire and mixed with metal fragments that it contained between 500 and 1,250 splinters of metal per square meter . The earth on the hill had remained black in the winter, as the snow kept melting in the many fires and explosions . In the following spring the hill would still remain black, as no grass grew on its scorched soil . The hill's formerly steep slopes had become flattened in months of intense shelling and bombardment . Even today, it is possible to find fragments of bone and metal still buried deep throughout the hill . </P> <P> After the war, the Soviet authorities commissioned the enormous Mamayev Kurgan memorial complex . Vasily Chuikov, who led Soviet forces at Stalingrad, lies buried at Mamayev Kurgan, the first Marshal of the Soviet Union to be buried outside Moscow . Soviet sniper Vasily Zaytsev was also reburied there in 2006 . </P> <P> The monumental memorial was constructed between 1959 and 1967, and is crowned by a huge allegorical statue of the Motherland on the top of the hill . The monument, designed by Yevgeny Vuchetich, has the full name The Motherland Calls! (Russian: Родина - мать зовёт! Rodina Mat Zovyot!). It consists of a concrete sculpture, 52 metres tall, and 85 metres from the feet to the tip of the 27 - metre sword, dominating the skyline of the city of Stalingrad (later renamed Volgograd). </P>

Eternal flame of the mamayev kurgan memorial complex