Nineteen million documents stored in the archives of Russia's Defence Ministry have been digitalised. The aim of the project was to help people find relatives killed or never found during World War II. The site has attracted millions of visitors from across the world. All you need is a last name in order to trace a person.

It took a year of tireless work to sort and scan the records. Before scanning, the documents needed to be smoothed out to guarantee no information was lost.

Now, the website www.obd-memorial.ru allows people looking for their lost friends and relatives to carry out their own investigations into what happened.