Tank Crewman Day at Stalin’s Line

On the second weekend of September 2015 the historical and cultural complex Stalin’s Line once again hosted a major military theatrical celebration of Tank Crewman Day. This year the organizers have made the project even larger and more interactive. The organizers included the charity foundation Memory of Afghanistan, the Belarusian Defense Ministry, and the World of Tanks game developer Wargaming Company. For the first time in five years instead of one day fans of military history and videogame battles have been granted twice as many captivating events.

Tank Crewman Day gathered thousands of visitors from Belarus and other countries at Stalin’s Line. The program featured contests for the best knowledge of military hardware, the history of the Great Patriotic War, and certainly the World of Tanks, many hours of videogames and a competition for the title of the best tank crewman in World of Tanks Blitz, the sport and intellect real-time game Tankoskhvatka, a parade of restored vehicles, concerts by the Belarusian music bands J:Mors and Bez Bileta, a mobile kitchen trailer that offered soldier’s mush… But as the most important thing on each day of the celebration visitors saw two reconstructions of tank battles: a Great Patriotic War battle featuring real BT-7, T-34, SU-100, T-34-85, Pz III, Stug III tanks and an Afghanistan war battle featuring T-72 and T-55 tanks as well as infantry combat vehicles, airborne combat vehicles, amphibious tanks PT-76, armored personnel carriers BTR and BTRD.

The history of Tank Crewman Day at Stalin’s Line in our gallery...

Vivid moments of the celebration as well as captivating bird-eye view shots of the reconstructed Great Patriotic War battle can be found in the video by Pavel Kuzmin and Sergei Motorev.