In Russia and across the former Soviet Union, Leningrad, Volgograd, Odessa, Sevastopol, Moscow, Kiev, Novorossiysk, Kerch, Minsk, Tula, Murmansk, and Smolensk are known as Hero Cities. Brest Fortress carries the equivalent title of Hero Fortress. The cities were given the distinction between 1945 and 1985 for their populations' display of collective heroism during the war in the Eastern Front in World War II, known in the former USSR as the Great Patriotic War.
Follow our feed here.