A patriotic video lesson "The Artery of Life" presented at the Kurgan Regional Center of the Presidential Library

The Regional Center of the Presidential Library based on the Yugov Kurgan Regional Universal Scientific Library presented a video lesson "The Artery of Life" dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the breaking of the siege of Leningrad. It includes the materials from the Presidential Library’s collections which contain the memories of witnesses of those terrible events. The first event participants were students of gymnasium № 32.

At the video lesson, the children discovered little-known facts about "the artery of life" - the first underwater pipeline in the Soviet Union, laid in the shortest possible time along the bottom of Lake Ladoga to provide fuel for besieged Leningrad. Thanks to this highway, firefighters went out to put out burning houses, food was delivered to stores, combat aircraft rose into the air, tanks of the Leningrad Front went on the attack, and a breakthrough of the siege became possible. The young guests of the Yugov Kurgan Regional Universal Scientific Library also learned who the author of this bold project was and what role military divers played in its implementation, including the legendary Nina Sokolova, the first female heavy diver in history.

“According to various sources, from 600 thousand to 1.5 million people died in the besieged Leningrad. 97% died of starvation: every day about 4 thousand people died of exhaustion. Cake, wallpaper glue, leather belts were used as food”, - Rimma Nasyrova, head of the Regional Center of the Presidential Library, voiced the terrible facts.

The memoirs of the residents of the city, who survived the horror of the siege, are, perhaps, one of the most important parts of the major electronic collection of the Presidential Library Defence and Siege of Leningrad. These artifacts - memoirs, handwritten diaries, letters from relatives and friends - were brought to the Presidential Library by readers. Unique materials were digitized and posted on the institution's portal.

The Presidential Library’s portal features the collection Memory of the Great Victory. It includes official documents, photographs and newsreels, wartime newspapers, books, agitation and propaganda publications, collections of articles, biographies, testimonies of participants in combat battles and home front workers, their personal documents, images of military and labor awards, monuments and memorial complexes.

Based on the materials of http://yugovalib.ru/ portal