The Motherland Calls

Scalzi’s latest post on his Whatever blog is a competition result: someone had to guess what monument he was thinking of in order to win a copy of his latest book.

One reader from Norway correctly guessed it was "The Motherland Calls", a statue in Volgograd.

Scalzi provides a picture, and a link to the wikipedia page about the statue.  I looked at the picture, and thought, that’s a cool statue – great pose, lovely and dynamic, and with a sword, too.

But how on earth did anyone guess this answer from all the possible monuments Scalzi could have been thinking of?

I clicked through to the wikipedia page to find out more about it. 

commemorating the Battle of Stalingrad … blah .... Declared the largest statue in the world in 1967 … blah .... prestressed concrete blah …

It wasn’t until I scrolled down the page and saw the plot of “Approximate heights of various notable statues” that I realised what I was seeing, and the significance of "largest statue in the world", however.

It’s as big as the Statue of Liberty including its plinth!  

So I looked back at the main photo and realised that the noise around the base of the statue, which I had barely registered on my first look, is people.

ZOMG!!!  The statue is over 80m tall.  The sword is over 30m long.  It’s amazing.  How is it that I have never come across this before?

And now it’s a little more understandable that someone guessed it.