Flaming heart of Moscow - how the Eternal Flame was made

The Eternal Flame in the center of the bronze five-pointed star near the Kremlin walls is the heart of Moscow, which has not stopped for 55 years. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was unveiled on May 8, 1967 in the Alexander Garden in memory of the soldiers who died during the Great Patriotic War.

Kirill Rider, one of the inventors, told mos.ru about how much time the developers had to create the Eternal Flame, why it does not die out and how to keep the torch with the legendary flame.

Eternal Flame in three months

In the 1960s, the Soviet government had the idea to memorialize the fallen in the Great Patriotic War.  By that time, 20 years had passed since the victory over the Nazis: the younger generation did not catch that time and it was important to keep the exploits of their fathers and grandfathers in their memory.

The memorial was erected in the Alexander Garden, next to the Corner Arsenal Tower. The heroes of the revolution had already been buried at the Kremlin Walls. In 1966, the ashes of the Unknown Soldier were transferred there from a mass grave discovered on the 41st kilometre of the Leningradskoye Motorway.

The monument was designed by architects Yury Rabaev, Dmitry Burdin, Vladimir Klimov and sculptor Nikolai Tomsky. The bronze banner on the red granite is decorated with a laurel branch and a soldier's helmet made by Nikolai Tomsky in 1975. The Eternal Flame was supposed to be placed in the center of the bronze five-pointed star. The MosgazNIIproekt Institute experts were appointed to create and design the Eternal Flame and a burner for it.

They tell us: “You have three months to do everything” We were surprised, even laughed. We did not believe it was possible. But all the members of our team turned out to be children of the war, at that time I was 28 years old, and we considered such a task a great honor, a test. So we zealously set to work. Among my colleagues was designer Vladimir Kazantsev, who imparted important knowledge, and gas supply specialist Vyacheslav Vityushkin, recalls Doctor of Engineering Science, Honored Inventor of Russia Kirill Rider.

As an ordinary employee who had no degree he was inventing the burner. To complete the task, young scientists were constantly working in the laboratory and even stayed overnight at the research institute. “Almost three months we slept there,” the inventor smiles.

First of all, the employees had to make the flame bright, although gas usually produces a blue flame.

When it is sunny, the bluish flame is invisible, it is too pale. The spectacular Eternal Flame was required. To change the color, we had to put the gas on in the wrong way. We used an insufficient amount of air to produce orange particles, explains Kirill Rider.

The second task seemed even more difficult: to make the flame eternal. The future honored inventor of Russia created a burner featuring three igniters with thin electric spirals. Natural gas is channeled through the pipes and ignites into a flame with the spirals. The elements are under constant current, so even if the flame is put out by rain or wind, it reignites instantly at a height of half a meter.

First person torch

“There was not enough time to develop a torch that should light a fire. We made a simple one that runs on liquefied gas from a cylinder. We tested the torch and the burner on Poklonnaya Gora, where the wind is strong. We found that even with gusts of 30 meters per second, the fire does not die out. We also watered it using a hose to see if the flames could withstand heavy rainfalls. Until recently, we didn’t know whether our project would be implemented,” says the mos.ru interlocutor.

Finally, the project was accepted. Before opening, the developers provided the invention with safety instructions to prevent emergency situations. It spells out in detail the rules for operating the burner - for example, it states that soldiers cannot approach the fire closer than three and a half meters, because toxic substances are released due to the constant burning of gas that can cause poisoning.

“The war memorial at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is the most famous monument in the Alexander Garden. It is under the protection of the guard of honor located nearby. This is guard post number 1 put up on the Constitution Day of the Russian Federation on December 12, 1997 - by decree of the President of Russia Boris Yeltsin. Soldiers from the Presidential Regiment stand guard at the monument from 8 am through 8 pm daily and all year round, says Sergey Devyatov, Doctor of Historical Sciences.

Kirill Rider still had to worry, because he and his colleagues were responsible for any incident. At the solemn opening ceremony of the memorial in 1967, Leonid Brezhnev was expected to light the Eternal Flame. The General Secretary brought the torch to the burner, but nothing happened. Only a minute later did a high flame flare up, and Leonid Brezhnev involuntarily shuddered.

“That moment was cut, because the head of the Soviet Union could not recoil from the Eternal Flame! I had to explain what happened. It was extremely hot (35 °C). As temperature increases, density decreases. It takes 40–50 seconds before the gas flares up,” explains the mos.ru interlocutor.

Even when the memorial in the Alexander Garden was renovated, the flame was transferred to Victory Park: it cannot be extinguished even during the repair. The renovation was completed in 2010, the flame with a new, modern torch was returned to the Kremlin using an armored personnel carrier.

More than half a century later, the inventor admits that the smallest details associated with the Eternal Flame are alive in his memory. “I touched the memory of people who died, but defended our country, protected us,” he says.