Kurgan Regional Centre of the Presidential Library took part in the project “Holidays with Rosgvardiya”

Within the framework of the project Holidays with Rosgvardiya, the Council of Veterans of the Territorial Administration of the Federal Service of the Troops of the National Guard of the Russian Federation of Kurgan Region, the Yugov Kurgan Regional Universal Scientific Library and the Regional Centre of the Presidential Library operating on its basis held a commemorative event dedicated to one of the most tragic dates in the history of our country – the 82nd anniversary of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. The participants of the meeting were students of Secondary Schools No. 40, 9 and 23.

Alexey Avdeyenko, specialist of the Kurgan Regional Centre of the Presidential Library, presented to schoolchildren the virtual exhibition The Longest Day of June... It tells about the prerequisites of the war, the preparation for it by Nazi Germany and what was done by the leadership of the USSR to protect the country. The exposition features rare archival documents: manuscripts of directives, extracts from journals, drafts of officials’ speeches. They also include the appeal of the People’s Commissar of Foreign Affairs of the USSR Vyacheslav Molotov to the Soviet people.

At the meeting, the children were told about the oldest newspaper in the region, Novy Mir, from the pages of which during the Great Patriotic War, Trans-Urals residents learned about what was happening at the fronts. At that time it was called Krasny Kurgan. The newspaper is presented in the Electronic Library of the Yugov Kurgan Regional Universal Scientific Library. Schoolchildren were also offered to complete a creative task and issue a wall newspaper about the heroes of the Great Patriotic War.

The event was attended by Alexey Shumkov, chairman of the veteran organization of the Federal Service of the Troops of the National Guard of the Russian Federation of Kurgan Region, and Dmitry Kudryashov, representative of the Siberian Citadel Military Historical Reconstruction Club.

Dmitry Kudryashov showed the children models of weapons from the Great Patriotic War, including the Mosin rifle, Shpagin submachine gun, Degtyarev machine gun, and also told about the history of their creation.

At the end of the meeting, schoolchildren together with veterans laid flowers at the Eternal Flame of the Memorial of Glory and honored the memory of the fallen defenders of the Fatherland with a minute of silence.

On the Presidential Library’s portal, one has an opportunity to explore the Collection of digitized archival documents, film and photo materials World War II in Archival Documents. Chronologically, the documents mainly cover the period from January to November 1942, spotlight the preparation and conduct of the main operations of the Red Army during these busy months and represent the directives of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, plans of operations and logs of combat operations, combat orders and reports, operational summaries of fronts, armies and military units, maps of operational planning and the situation on fronts, etc. Access to the archive documents of the Collection is available from anywhere in the world. Especially for the foreign audience, the titles and summaries of the documents, the texts of the accompanying articles are also presented in English. In addition to digitized archival documents, the Collection contains a list of the main Internet projects, databases, other thematic Internet publications of documents, virtual tours on the history of World War II, developed by state institutions of the subjects of the Russian Federation and various organizations.