Tankman’s Day at the Stalin Line

Real tanks and CGI tanks, many hours of action-packed gaming, captivating historical reconstructions of an infantry and tank battle of the Great Patriotic War and an episode of the Afghanistan conflict, a demonstrational tank biathlon and hot-tempered interactive entertainment for 25,000 guests… On the hot weekend of 10-12 September for over 20 hours with a break for the night the historical and cultural complex Stalin Line hosted the annual event Tankman’s Day.

The large-scale festival was timed to Tankman’s Day, which was introduced in July 1946 to honor the selfless work of tank construction industry workers and the outstanding accomplishments of armored and mechanized army units during the Great Patriotic War. The festival was arranged with assistance of the Belarusian Defense Ministry and Wargaming, the company that developed the famous military history online game World of Tanks. The festival gathered thousands of people, including professional tankmen, war veterans, and naturally multiple fans of World of Tanks, who brought their friends and families.

During the festival the historical and cultural complex Stalin Line is one big interactive platform that combines live music concerts, World of Tanks online tournaments, and real-world questing with prizes in addition to master classes on first aid and survival, competitions in shooting and grenade throwing as well as free taste of army cuisine in the field… Military history reconstructions represented a special part of the event, featuring ground combat and aerobatics in the sky.

This time the Great Patriotic War reenactment festival featured the legendary heavy tank KV-1, found in a bog near the village of Tesishche, Vitebsk Oblast and restored by specialists of the Stalin Line history and culture museum jointly with the World of Tanks developers. This military vehicle was used by one of the best Soviet tankmen Zinoviy Kolobanov and his comrades-in-arms to destroy 22 German tanks in a 30-minute fight on 20 August 1941…

Tankman’s Day 2016 in our photo gallery…