Maria Limanskaya was known in Russia as the ‘Madonna of Brandenburg’ Russian World War II veteran Maria Limanskaya, nicknamed the “victory traffic controller” for a 1945 photograph taken in front of the Brandenburg gate in Berlin, has died at the age of 100. Limanskaya gained international fame thanks to a picture taken by photojournalist Yevgeny Khaldei, who covered the events of WWII from Moscow to Berlin, and is best known for his image of a Soviet soldier raising a flag over the Reichstag