“On 8 July 1945,” wrote architect A. K. Barutchev in 1946, “Leningrad met its defenders.” In the southern reaches of the city, not far from the former front line, three wood and gypsum triumphal arches provided grandiose – if ephemeral – backdrops for the crowds greeting the troops returning victorious from the West. The arch on Stachek Street near the Kirov Factory was topped with an artillery piece and adorned with silhouettes of Vladimir Lenin and Josef Stalin (Illustration 10). The Kirov men treated the returning soldiers to shots of vodka; the women gave them wildflowers. On Obukhovskoi Oborony, an architrave set on two massive pylons declared “Glory to the Red Army.” Under the arch on Mezhdunarodnii (now Moskovskii) Prospekt that proclaimed “Glory to the Hero Victors,” Ekaterina Leonidova, a “hero mother” with at least seven children, offered the commanding general a loaf of bread, the traditional symbol of hospitality.

The three triumphal arches had been hastily constructed. Planned by groups of Leningrad architects in just twenty-four hours, they were built in a week. Nonetheless, Barutchev emphasized that they drew upon a glorious precedent.