'Our nation didn't learn' The Russian man who lays WWII dead to rest

Konstantin Dobrovolski was out in the woods like he was most days in early autumn before the inevitable advance of Arctic winter.

- Pjotr Sauer

Armed with little more than a map, a shovel and an old metal detector, Dobrovolski has scoured the hostile landscape of Russia's far north for the last 33 years in search of the long-forgotten remains of Soviet second world war soldiers.

"Just today we found the remains of five soldiers, some bones and old medals," he said during a research trip outside the Arctic town of Murmansk. "We have to hurry before the ground freezes again." With a small team of committed volunteers, Dobrovolski, 70, has dedicated his life to finding, identifying and reburying the remains of more than 100,000 Soviet troops who are believed to have died on the very northern part of the Soviet defence line.

"When we started our work in the early 80s, there were more bodies than mushrooms. We have found the remains of 20,000 soldiers," Dobrovolski said.

These days, death is on his mind more than ever. "Every day I am confronted with the grim consequences of war. But it seems like our nation didn't learn the right lesson from history," he said. The Soviet victory over Nazi Germany has gradually become the centrepiece of Vladimir Putin's concept of Russian identity over his two decades in charge. Almost every family had some connection to the war, in which the Soviet sacrifice was unimaginably huge.