BOB Carr says he's honoured that his last official duty as foreign minister was to pay tribute to Russian lives lost during the World War II siege of Leningrad.
The keen war historian on Saturday visited the Piskariovksoye memorial cemetery in St Petersburg where almost 500,000 people who died during the siege are buried in mass graves.
"I'm deeply honoured that my last official duty as foreign minister has been to come to this site and pay an official and deeply-meant Australian tribute to the war dead of Russia," Senator Carr told reporters.
"I couldn't think of a sweeter, sadder task to be engaged in."
The foreign minister said it was sweet because he'd been able to tell Russian officials that people in Australia still commemorated their "colossal sufferings".
It was obviously sad, he added, due to the lives truncated "by the madness of Hitler's aggression".
After laying the wreath Senator Carr was given a guided tour of the memorial's museum during which time he took notes in a small notebook.
The city was completely blockaded by September 1941 with Hitler vowing to wipe it off the face of the earth.
More than a million civilians died during the siege and almost the same number of soldiers perished on the battlefield defending the city.
Some 420,000 civilians who died from hunger, bombing and shelling are buried at Piskaryovskoye along with 70,000 soldiers.
Senator Carr said Australians living through the Second World War read in their newspapers the stories of the siege.
"The scale and depth of the suffering renders the battle of Leningrad special to anyone who reflects on what the war means," he said, adding that despite himself reading about the battle he was "ill prepared for a site where mass graves hold the remains of half-a-million people".
In the cemetery's guest book the foreign minister made the point that the battle's memorial reminded people that "most of our concerns are pretty trivial".
Senator Carr has been in Russia representing Australia at the G20 leaders' summit.
Labor MPs say it's clear the coalition has won Saturday's federal election.
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