January Thunder memorial, War memorial in Gostilitskoye rural settlement, Russia

The January Thunder memorial is a concrete stele 8 metres tall, set on a natural hill at the 19th kilometre of the Gostilitskoye Highway, on the site of the former village of Porozhki, about 4 km southwest of Petrovskoye. Its face carries full-length bas-reliefs of an officer, a soldier and a sailor standing shoulder to shoulder, with an inscription cut into the upper part of the pylon and a rectangular wreath-laying slab with a marble memorial board at its left side.

In January 1944, Soviet forces launched an offensive from the Izhora Heights that ended the siege of Leningrad after roughly 900 days. The monument was later placed on this spot to mark where that push began.

The name comes from Operation January Thunder, launched on 14 January 1944 from this line of the Oranienbaum bridgehead. On the stele's face stand bas-reliefs of an officer, a soldier and a sailor shoulder to shoulder, and an inscription is carved at the top of the 8-metre pylon. A marble plaque on a rectangular slab at the left side carries a series of memorial inscriptions.

The memorial stands on a natural hill at the 19th kilometre of the Gostilitskoye Highway, about 4 km southwest of Petrovskoye, with no buildings or facilities nearby. There is no shelter, so bring water and footwear for uneven ground and come in dry weather. The site is always open.

The Izhora Heights where the memorial stands rise only about 500 feet (160 m) above the surrounding plain, yet that modest elevation was enough to give whoever held them a clear view over the flat land below. That advantage made the position one of the most contested in the fighting around Leningrad.