Russian president Vladimir Putin made his second visit to Israel last week. His brief trip included high-level talks with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in which they agreed at least in the abstract that Bashar al-Assad should stop slaughtering civilians in Syria and that the world would be a better place if Iran did not get a nuclear weapon. But the real purpose of Putin’s visit was to attend the unveiling of a memorial to the Soviet soldiers who fought against Nazi Germany in World War II.

The elaborate monument in the Israeli seaside city of Netanya was designed by Russian artists Salavat Scherbakov, Vasiliy Perfiliev, and Michail Naroditsky.  It includes a black marble labyrinth, representing the historical trials of the Jewish people from enslavement in Egypt to the Holocaust. After passing through this darkness, visitors emerge onto an open circular plaza where a pair of monumental white wings represents the ultimate liberation of the Jews. The monument is not particularly innovative, and relies heavily on war monuments from the ancient Greek Victory of Samothrace, which was the model for the wings, to the 1982 Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the Mall in Washington, D.C., which inspired the labyrinth. But the message of perseverance through adversity is clear, and the complex takes excellent advantage of the beautiful coastal setting.