History of Saint-Petersburg: Cultural project “Streets of Life”, dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Leningrad from the Nazi blockade

From 25 to 27 January 2014 in St. Petersburg is presented a cultural project "Streets of Life", dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the complete liberation of Leningrad from the Nazi blockade. The project consists of two parts. A part – an exposition in the open air "Save the memory of the past". The second - "The Muses were not silent" - includes movie theater programs.

The main events of "Streets of Life" will be held on the Italian street and on Manezh Square. This is where you can find theaters and other cultural institutions, which continued to work during the war: the St. Petersburg Theater of Musical Comedy, the State Academic Drama Theatre of Komissarzhevskaya, the House of Radio, the cinemas "Aurora" and "Homeland".

The exposition in the open air "Save the memory of the past" will be presented from 25 to 27 January. The atmosphere of life of the besieged Leningrad will be retrieved with the attributes of wartime: freight and passenger cars, trolley and tram those years, anti-aircraft gun and fire trucks, as well as anti-urchins, dragon's teeth, scrim, sandbags, wooden shields and other protective equipment, applied by residents of Leningrad in the defense of the city.

The State Memorial Museum of Leningrad Blockade will present copies of unique photographs, posters, documents of wartime. A special place in the exposition takes the stand, telling about the blockade bread. Visitors will be able to witness the "one hundred twenty five blockade grams with fire and blood in half" - the daily bread ration per unemployed person in Leningrad in the fall of 1941.

In the center of the Manezh Square it will be held a demonstration of films and wartime military newsreels. All days on "Streets of Life" will sound a Blockade Chronicle, broadcast of which will be held from the legendary First Studio of the Radio House.

The cinema-theater program "Muses were not silent" will also start on January 25 in the Musical Comedy Theater and cinema "Aurora".

The culmination of "Streets of Life" will be announced on January 27 at 19.00 by a Minute of Silence, after which on the Manezh Square will sound a Seventh Symphony of D. D. Shostakovich, known to the world as "Leningrad" (video concert of the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra, conductor Evgeny Mravinsky, 1973 year).