Together with a small team of committed volunteers, Konstantin Dobrovolski, 70, has dedicated his life to finding, identifying and reburying the remains of more than 100,000 Soviet troops who are believed to have died on the very northern part of the Soviet defence line.

“When we started our work in the early 80s, there were more bodies than mushrooms. We have found the remains of 20,000 soldiers,” Dobrovolski said.

But these days, death is on his mind more than ever.

“Every day I am confronted with the grim consequences of war. But it seems like our nation didn’t learn the right lesson from history,” he said as the conversation quickly turned to the war in Ukraine.