After the victory of the Soviet people in the worstthe war unleashed by fascist Germany, memorial complexes and monuments reflecting the events of those years began to rise throughout the country. Strange as it may seem, but even after five decades, only a modest museum and a few guns, preserved after the battle, replaced the monument on Prokhorovsky field, where the battle took place, a turning point in that war.
In the early 90s the question of opening a memorialcomplex on Prokhorovsky field raised a group of social activists of the Kursk and Belgorod regions, on the border of which is the area where the famous tank battle took place. The occasion was served in the Pravda article by a prominent statesman Nikolai Ryzhkov, who was outraged by the absence of a monument worthy of this event in the area. On the spot where thousands of Soviet soldiers died, it was proposed to build an Orthodox church. He had to replace to some extent the monument not erected to Soviet soldiers on Prokhorovsky field. Photos of the area, where only fragments of shells hidden in the ground reminded of the glorious battle, served as a weighty argument of silent condemnation of the descendants.
Soon, a fundraising fund was announced.Temple, and after some time, in November 1993, another article of Ryzhkov appeared in which he compared the Prokhorovka battle, the Kulikovo battle on September 16, 1380 and the victory of the Russian troops near Borodino on August 26, 1812 as the three most important events for Russian history. The thoughts expressed by the author of the article changed the plans of the community group for the construction of the temple: it was decided to build a real memorial complex in memory of the battle in the field near Prokhorovka.
Acting Head of AdministrationBelgorod region Yevgeny Savchenko - one of the initiators of the construction of the complex - appealed to the Council of Ministers of the Russian Federation with a request to partially finance the project from the state treasury. Social activists also did not refuse the idea of building a temple - it should form part of the complex. Savchenko's request was heard, and money for the construction was allocated, and a monument on Prokhorovsky field was to be erected to the 50th anniversary of the Victory. The project was entrusted to the famous sculptor, a native of the Kursk region, Vyacheslav Klykov.
Two kilometers from Prokhorovka, on a hill in heightmore than two hundred meters, in memory of the battle that took place on July 12, 1943, and was erected the memorial complex "Belfry". Its opening took place on May 3, 1995. The presidents of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus were personally present at the ceremony, thus testifying to how valuable the feat of the Soviet soldiers and the monument he erected on Prokhorovsky field for three states. The description of this important event appeared in many newspapers, and not only in Russia. The lighting of the Unification Bell on the Zvonnitsa, the summit of which is crowned with a gilded figure of the Virgin, was made by the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Alexy II.
Автор величественной Звонницы, Вячеслав Клыков, considered her the best of his creation. It is difficult to disagree with his opinion. The monument on Prokhorovsky field - the same belfry - four pylons standing in some distance from each other, symbolizing four years of war. The pylons in the upper part are connected by a gilded dome, on which stands the statue of the Virgin.
Pylons of the belfry are decorated with 24 bas-reliefs.Among the many compositions that tell one or another story of the Russian State, one can find images of Prince Dmitry Donskoy, Field Marshal Kutuzov, and Marshal Zhukov - only about 130 historical images.
The eastern pylon symbolizes release fromenemies — it was from the East that the whole of 1943 went to the walls of the Reichstag army of liberators. In the southern pylon the meaning of the Victory itself is laid in the image of St. George the Victorious, who adorned the upper part of the pylon.
As already mentioned, the idea of Ryzhkov to giveThe prokhorovsky battle meant the value of the third battlefield in the history of Russia to the organizers of the memorial complex and was realized not only in the belfries of the belfry. An airborne bell weighing three and a half tons, which rings every 20 minutes for an hour, was hung under its dome. The first ring reminds of those who fell in the Kulikovo battle, the second - of those killed in the battle of Borodino. The third sounds in memory of those whose place of eternal rest was Prokhorovka.
Many battles of the Great Patriotic War worthyto the memory of grateful descendants, like the one that began on the second day of the war and lasted a whole week in the Brody-Rivne-Lutsk sector in Western Ukraine. And only the defeat of our troops did not bring him decent glory. Two years later, on July 12, 1943, the Battle of Kursk ended in our victory. In honor of her, a monument was erected on the Prokhorovsky field. Pictures that painted pylons Belfry, as if telling a true storythat tank battle and other significant events. They can be studied as a textbook on the history of the Russian State - they contain all the military glory of the Fatherland.
