The Day of the Unknown Soldier was established by the Presidential decree in 2014. The choice of date is symbolic: on 3 December 1966 the remains of an unidentified soldier who perished in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 were reinterred in the Alexander Garden beside the Kremlin wall. On 8 May 1967 the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was unveiled and the Eternal Flame was lit on the site, which became one of Russia’s central places of wartime remembrance.