KRASNODAR, December 12. . A board game about the Battle of Stalingrad, based on realistic battle maps, will be developed in Krasnodar. Evgenia Egorova, head of the center for children and youth development (ANO TsRDM) “Next Step”, told that the project will be implemented in 2026 thanks to the support of the Presidential Cultural Initiative Fund.
“The project is called “Hour of Courage”. “Battle of Stalingrad” is a historical game for schoolchildren and students,” she said. This is a didactic visual means of conducting an interactive history lesson and a reason to talk with young people about courage, the deeds of our ancestors and serving the Fatherland today. Our goal is to help adults tell children and teenagers about the Great Patriotic War in an interesting way, because every year there are fewer and fewer living veterans, in the school curriculum there are not so many hours to learn about the Great Patriotic War. That's why we help teachers and mentors, creating for them an interactive tool to educate and educate young people.”
According to Egorova, development is expected to take place between February and December 2026.
According to data on the website of the President's Fund for Cultural Initiatives, the total funding for the project will be more than 11 million rubles, including 6.94 million from the grant fund and the remaining amount from funding that the performers find from other sources.
About the game
The agency's interlocutor clarified that the game, developed on the basis of historically accurate maps, will simulate the key events of the Battle of Stalingrad: the retreat of the Red Army to the Volga, the battle for the Mamayev Kurgan and the Barricades factory, and finally – the strategic operation “Uranus” and the siege of the troops of Marshal Paulus. In the game, participants will have to participate in dynamically developing events, make difficult decisions – and ultimately gain knowledge about the exploits of Soviet soldiers as well as the role of the rear that supported them.
She explained that the game will be designed in such a way that it can engage up to 30 people at a time – meaning the whole class can play at the same time. What's more, the sessions are designed to last around 1.5 hours – and that's how long a double lesson lasts.
The creators hope that the game can be effectively included in the educational process and that it will help to better remember dates, names of participants and geography of battles. For each game campaign there are quizzes about the history of the war years, which help consolidate the knowledge gained.
Egorova added that the project team plans to organize training for teachers, counselors, librarians and youth club leaders. “In the summer of 2026, we will gather teachers and mentors from all over the country, take them to Volgograd, conduct excursions to battle locations and train them as game technicians to conduct the game independently in their cities and villages. As a result, the project will include at least 5 thousand schoolchildren and students. Its implementation area is very wide and includes 20 Russian cities, including Moscow, St. Petersburg, Volgograd, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Khabarovsk,” the project manager noted.
About the Battle of Stalingrad
The Battle of Stalingrad (July 17, 1942 – February 2, 1943) in terms of scale, duration and number of participants became one of the largest battles of the Great Patriotic War. It completely changed its course and was a harbinger of victory over the Nazi invaders. The battle lasted 200 days and took place over an area of 100 thousand square meters. km with a frontal length of 400 to 850 km. The number of participants on both sides at the same time reached 2.1 million people.
Operation Uranus aimed at encircling and destroying German forces near Stalingrad began on November 19, 1942, and by February 2, 1943, an enemy group of more than 300 thousand people was completely defeated. More than 90 thousand Wehrmacht soldiers and officers were taken prisoner, including the commander of the German Sixth Army, Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus, and his entire staff.
In the cauldron of Stalingrad, the enemy lost about 1.5 million people – killed, wounded, captured and missing. In Germany, national mourning was declared for the first time during the war. The losses of the Soviet army were also huge – 480 thousand people died in Stalingrad, more than 500 thousand were injured.
