Looking at its tranquil location in farmland near Brecon today, you’d never guess that Gaer was once one of the Romans’ largest inland forts and a vital link in the occupiers’ defensive network in Wales. Founded around AD 75, it was situated in a strategic position at the meeting point of two major roads and manned by highly trained legionaries of the Vettonian Spanish Cavalry Regiment.
In Roman times this was a busy site, with a large guardhouse, granary and heated bathhouse. Today you can see remains of a number of defensive towers, alongside two large gateways with walls standing 8ft/2.4m high in places.
References:Three great Soviet memorials were erected in Berlin after the war, which not only serve as memorials, but also as war cemeteries. The facility in the Treptower Park is the central memorial and with 100,000 square metres the largest of its kind in Germany. The facility, also serving as cemetery for 5,000 Soviet solders, was built between 1946 and 1948 on the site of a large playing and sports field. Memorial slabs and frescos depicting the course of the war are arranged in long tiers of straight lines. The imposing figure on top of the mausoleum shows a soldier carrying a rescued German child. It is a memorial for the app. 80,000 Red Army soldiers killed during the conquest of Berlin in World War II. 40,000 cubic metres of granite were used in the construction. Aside from the war cemetery in Niederschönhausen, the facility is the largest Soviet war cemetery in Germany as well as the largest anti-fascist memorial in Western Europe.