Early in the fall of 1942, the Belarusian architect Georgy Zaborsky, seriously wounded in the country's war, began making sketches for a monument to the war heroes who died defending their homeland. The monument became a dominant figure in the architectural ensemble of Victory Square and serves as a structural link to Istiklal Avenue and the main avenue of Minsk. The obelisk is forty meters high and classical in shape, covered with gray granite and crowned with Lenin’s arrangement made of bronze and multi-colored mosaics. From the Nazi occupiers, and at the bottom of the obelisk there is a bronze sword covered with a laurel wreath as a symbol of victory. The huge torch is lit every year to celebrate this great day.