Strolling through the avenues and tree-lined squares of Volgograd, it is easy to forget that this is a city drenched in blood. The former Stalingrad, however, is filled with reminders of the battle that marked the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany.

Just the name Stalingrad evokes the horror of a clash that cost almost two million lives in the Russian winter of 1942-43. On the flat steppe beyond the city, Russians are still burying the dead almost 65 years later.

The Second World War is better known here as the Great Patriotic War. After a year of humiliating defeats by the Nazi invaders, Stalingrad was the turning point that led to the Soviet Union’s victory, which was won at the price of 26 million dead. In the year since I moved to Moscow, I have come to realise how heavily this sacrifice weighs on the psyche of Russians, who are sensitive to any perceived threats to their homeland.

I had reread Antony Beevor’s tremendous history of Stalingrad before my visit, but seeing the landmarks of the conflict brought home the scale of the struggle. Every stone could tell a story: Soviet authorities used prisoners of war as forced labour to rebuild the city.

Volgograd is used to visitors from former Soviet republics, but international tourism is in its infancy. The sites I visited offered information only in Russian, so an English-speaking guide is essential. There is more than enough here to fill a good two days of sightseeing.

Renamed in 1961 under Khrushchev’s deStalinisation programme, Volgograd is enjoying the Russian consumer boom. The city of about one million has a vibrant air, and attractive cafés and restaurants line its central Avenue of Heroes, leading to the Volga River. People are welcoming, proud of their history and pleased that visitors want to learn about it. Volgograd may be shaped by its past, but there’s no sense that its inhabitants are trapped in it.

By August 1942, 15 months after Hitler’s surprise invasion in Operation Barbarossa, the German Sixth Army had fought to the outskirts of Stalingrad. The push into the city provoked some of the war’s most savage fighting as the Soviets, their backs to the Volga, fought the Nazis building by building. Stalingrad became a giant meat grinder.

Svetlana, my charming and insightful guide, began our tour at key battle points, from the grain silo in the south to the northern factory district of the Red October steelworks, the Barrikady armaments factory and the Dzerzhinsky tractor plant, where T34 tanks poured off the production line. A T34 stands outside the works, although its historical impact is diminished by a shopping centre next door.

Then it was on to Mamayev Hill, the commanding height that repeatedly changed hands as the Germans and the Soviet 62nd Army fought for control. This is the main memorial complex, topped by a giant statue of Mother Russia, sword in hand, urging her children westwards to defeat the invader. Monumental Soviet sculptures line the approach and sound systems play music from the period.

The Hall of Valour houses the eternal flame, a torch gripped by a concrete hand. An honour guard changes every hour, the soldiers’ stiff-legged march echoing like gunshots around a chamber containing 7,200 names of the fallen.

They, at least, are known. Mother Russia stands on a common grave of at least 34,500 soldiers whose names are lost to history. The graves of 35 Heroes of the Soviet Union are also here, including Marshall Vasily Chuikov, who commanded the 62nd Army and eventually led the Soviet capture of Berlin. It is this direct link with ultimate victory that makes Stalingrad so central to understanding the modern Russian mind.

Russians believe that they saved the world from Hitler almost single-handedly, at huge cost, and that this is now conveniently forgotten by neighbouring states in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Resentment at “antiRussian” moods in these countries feeds a sense of vulnerability and suspicion towards the West. Modern Russia wants to be loved, but constantly fears that it will be betrayed, as it was in 1941.

Back in the city, a red-brick mill scarred with bullet holes stands next to the Panorama state museum, whose 3,500 exhibits include the Sword of Stalingrad, presented to Stalin in December 1943 as a tribute from the British people. The museum gives pride of place to a giant panorama of the battle covering the upper section of the circular hall.

Tucked away in the basement of the Univermag department store is the final headquarters of Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus, the commander of the Sixth Army, before his capture on January 31, 1943. It is now a small private museum filled with personal possessions from soldiers on both sides. Displays reconstruct the headquarters, complete with an animated model of Paulus rising from his desk to receive the latest bad news. This bit of kitsch cannot detract from the thrill of standing in the gloomy basement where Hitler’s vision of global conquest met its ignoble end.

Hundreds of Stalingrad veterans still live in the city. Gennady Potapov, 83, was decorated with a Soviet Red Star for his role in the capture of Paulus, the first German field marshal to surrender. Paulus was the grand prize among 91,000 POWs, all that remained of the 350,000-strong Sixth Army when it surrendered on February 2. Its fate was sealed 80km (50 miles) west of Stalingrad, at Kalach, when Soviet armies encircled it. The location is commemorated by another statue.

Only it turns out not to be the real meeting point: the original was drowned under a reservoir during Soviet times and the statue of embracing soldiers was erected near by. But if that was disappointing, the military cemeteries at Rossoschka more than compensated. Facing each other across a patch of steppe, 40 minutes’ drive from Volgograd, the cemeteries of Soviet and German war dead offer a sobering account of the human cost.

At the Russian memorial, helmets laced with bullet holes mark rows of mass graves with signs showing how many people they contain. There are individual gravestones, too, the result of detective work by volunteers to identify remains found on the battlefield and trace soldiers’ relatives. Of almost 10,500 bodies buried since the cemetery was established in 1997, only 315 have been identified. Galina Oreshkina, a retired physics teacher, organises the search for the forgotten victims from her tiny Museum of Hope: plastic bags outside contain more human bones awaiting burial.

Across the road, 107 granite cubes are scattered like giant dice near a mass German grave. The names of 103,234 missing soldiers are inscribed on to their surfaces. About 48,000 Germans are buried in the mass grave, but the names of fewer than half are etched on a memorial wall around it. Of the others, a plaque declares: “God knows their names.”

Tony Halpin is the Times Moscow correspondent.

Need to know

Tony Halpin travelled with the Three Whales travel agency (www.threewhales.ru), which offers a four-day guided tour of Volgograd, from Moscow, for £756pp, based on two sharing. The price includes flights, accommodation at the Intourist Hotel, and full board. Regent Holidays (0845 2773317, www.regent-holidays.co.uk) offers three-night breaks to Volgograd from £525pp, including return flights from Gatwick via Kaliningrad and three nights’ B&B in the three-star Hotel Volgograd.

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