Description: The museum opened on the 50th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. Leaders of 54 other countries in the grand opening ceremony. The museum features exhibits and memorials concerning World War II, known in Russia as "The Great Patriotic War".
The museum features 14,143 square meters of exhibit space for permanent collections and additional 5,500 square meters for temporary exhibits.[2] There is the Hall of Commanders near the entrance to the museum, which features a decorative "Sword and Shield of the Victory" and bronze busts of recipients of the Order of the Victory, the highest military honor awarded by the Soviet Union.
In the center of the museum there is the Hall of Glory, a white marble room which features the names of over 11,800 of the recipients of the Hero of the Soviet Union distinction. A large bronze sculpture, the "Soldier of the Victory," stands in the center of this hall. Below there is the Hall of Remembrance and Sorrow, which honors Soviet people who died in the war. This room is dimly lit and strings of glass beads hang from the ceiling, symbolizing tears shed for the dead.
The upper floors feature numerous exhibits about the war, including dioramas depicting major battles, photographs of wartime activities, weapons and munitions, uniforms, awards, newsreels, letters from the battlefront, and model aircraft. In addition, the museum maintains an electronic "memory book" which attempts to record the name and the fate of every Russian soldier who died in World War II.
Victory park or local name “Poklonnaya Gora” In the 1960s, the Soviet authorities decided to put the area to use as an open-air museum dedicated to the Russian victory over Napoleon. The New Triumphal Arch, erected in wood in 1814 and in marble in 1827 to a design of Osip Bove, was relocated and reconstructed here in 1968.
The Victory Park and the Square of Victors are important parts of the outdoor museum. In 1987 the hill was leveled to the ground and in the 1990s an obelisk was added with a statue of Nike and a monument of St George slaying the dragon, both designed by Zurab Tsereteli. The obelisk's height is exactly 141.8 metres (465 ft), which is 10 centimetres (3.9 in) for every day of the War. A golden-domed Orthodox church was erected on the hilltop in 1993-95, followed by a memorial mosque and the Holocaust Memorial Synagogue.
At the 60th V-day celebrations in 2005, President Vladimir Putin inaugurated 15 extravagant bronze columns, symbolizing main fronts and navies of the Red Army during World War II.