The Soviets wrongly considered the Reichstag as symbolic of Nazi Germany. It was already abandoned after the 1933 fire that left it in ruins. On 2 May 1945, photographer Khaldei scaled the now pacified Reichstag to take his picture. He was carrying with him a large flag, sewn from three tablecloths for this very purpose, by his uncle. Arriving at the Reichstag, he asked the soldiers who happened to be passing by to help with the staging of the photoshoot. There were only four of them, including Khaldei, on the roof: the one who was attaching the flag was 18-year-old Private Kovalev from Kiev, the two others were Abdulkhakim Ismailov from Dagestan and Leonid Gorychev from Minsk.
After taking the photo, Khaldei returned to Moscow and edited the image at the request of the editor-in-chief of the Ogonyok, who noticed that Senior Sergeant Abdulkhakim Ismailov, who is supporting the flag-bearer, was wearing two watches, which could imply he had looted one of them, an action punishable by execution. Using a needle, Khaldei removed the watch from the right wrist. Later, it was claimed that the extra watch was actually an Adrianov compass and that Khaldei, in order to avoid controversy, doctored the photo to remove the watch from Ismailov's right wrist. He also added to the smoke in the background, copying it from another picture to make the scene more dramatic.[1]
Stumbled on another photo by Khaldei with the flag still to be unfurled, but used another image of the flag in another photo unfurled and slightly distorted.
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