Monuments To Frontline Horses And Army Dogs To Be Erected In Moscow

Monuments to frontline horses and army dogs are to be erected on Poklonnaya Hill (a war memorial) in Moscow, deputy Yevgeny Balashov said at deputy hearings in the Moscow City Duma held on Thursday. This, he believes, "will stimulate the development in the rising generation of feelings of affection and kindness to animals, people, and nature in general". Balashov recalled that horses during the Great Patriotic War (Second World War) formed the "backbone" of 8 cavalry corps, were the main "draft force" of infantry divisions, and of artillery, engineering and other units. In the four years of war, army dogs showed themselves to be real heroes, and their feat is comparable to the human one: the "four-legged fighters" accounted for more than 300 blown-up tanks, over 200,000 delivered messages, many wounded men taken from the battle-field, and much else. "To perpetuate the memory of these animals would be a kind and humane act," he concluded. Genrikh Annenkov, a representative of the group of war veterans behind the idea, reported on the stylistic and architectural features of the proposed monuments. Now, he noted, realistic and easy-to-understand images of animals would rise next to presently dominant allegoric figures in Victory Park on Poklonnaya Hill.