Soviet ‘victory traffic controller,’ featured in iconic 1945 photo at Brandenburg Gate, dies at 100

Maria Limanskaya, a World War II veteran captured in an iconic May 1945 photograph that shows her directing Soviet troops at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, died in Russia’s southern Saratov region on Tuesday, reported Governor Roman Busargin. She was 100 years old.

Limanskaya, who’s known in Russia as the “traffic controller of victory” and the “Brandenburg Madonna,” first went to front lines as an 18-year-old in 1942. She initially sewed uniforms for the military, but she later underwent training to become a traffic controller. She took part in the Battle of Stalingrad, the Crimean offensive, and battles in Belarus and Poland, and ultimately served in Berlin in the war’s final weeks.

The famous photo of Limanskaya directing troop movements was taken by Soviet war correspondent Yevgeny Khaldei one week before Germany signed the Instrument of Surrender in May 1945.

After the war, Limanskaya worked as a nurse and later as a school librarian in Russia’s Volgograd region. From 1994 until her death, she lived in the village of Zvonarevka in the Saratov region.