Video conference dedicated to the siege of Leningrad united regions of Russia

On February 19, 2024 the Presidential Library hosted the interregional video conference “The Siege of Leningrad. Reflections on heroism and tragedy". The event was dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the complete liberation of Leningrad from the Nazi siege.

The video conference united the Presidential Library, Kemerovo, Novosibirsk, Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk regional centers of the Presidential Library, as well as the Regional Center of Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). Representatives of libraries, archives and museums from various regions of the country joined the event via video conference.

The evacuation from the besieged city is a separate page in the history of the siege. The video conference told about how, during the Great Patriotic War, regions of a huge country hosted Leningrad factories and museums, and how they tried to warm and feed the evacuated residents of the besieged city. After the Victory, not everyone was able to return immediately and not immediately. Many Leningraders remained to live in Siberia and the Urals, and in other regions. But they always remembered who they were and where they came from. The memory of this is preserved in the names of streets and avenues, in erected monuments and landmarks. Living memory, memories are carefully preserved.

In the city of Kemerovo, 15 orphanages from besieged Leningrad were located. The 376th Kuzbass Division from March 1942 to 1944 participated in the defense and liberation of Leningrad: in March 1942, the 376th Kuzbass Division took part in bloody battles in the Myasnoy Bor area. In August-September of the same year, the division fought in the area of the Shlisselburg-Sinyavinsky ledge, and at the beginning of 1943 it took part in breaking the siege of Leningrad. From May to August 1943, a division of Kuzbass soldiers guarded the southern shore of Ladoga, along which the road to Leningrad went. In August, the division was included in the troops of the Leningrad Front and fought defensive battles northeast of Pushkino-Krasny Bor Region.

During the Great Patriotic War, Novosibirsk received 34 orphanages from Leningrad. In August 1941, the Svetlana electric vacuum plant was evacuated here, and then the Voskov Sestroretsk tool plant. The  Pushkin Leningrad Academic Drama Theater and the Leningrad Youth Theater and other cultural and arts institutions were located in Novosibirsk. Here, on July 9, 1942, the seventh symphony of D. D. Shostakovich's work was first performed in the presence of the author by the Leningrad Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra.

The Kirov Plant, evacuated to Chelyabinsk in 1941, together with the Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant and the Kharkov Engine Plant, became an industrial center, popularly known as “Tankograd”. Here, in 33 days, mass production of the T-34 was organized and 13 new models of tanks were created, which brought Victory Day closer. The Chelyabinsk region received 6 universities and teams from Leningrad institutions. The Leningrad Comedy Theater was located in the Palace of Culture of the city of Kopeisk.

Sverdlovsk received more than a million priceless exhibits from the State Hermitage during the Great Patriotic War. At the end of the war, the Hermitage donated valuable sculptures, paintings and objects of decorative and applied art to the city, which formed the basis of the local art collection. Also, during the Great Patriotic War, industrial enterprises and special equipment were evacuated to Sverdlovsk from besieged Leningrad

The conference also included information about other regions that provided invaluable assistance to the besieged city and its residents.

A large number of documents and materials about the feat of the inhabitants of the besieged city, about the soldiers who defended Leningrad, and the regions that hosted evacuated Leningraders, are posted on the Presidential Library portal in the collections Memory of the Great Victory and Defence and Siege of Leningrad, which includes digital copies of official documents, newspapers, memoirs of city residents, food cards, photographs and newsreels, as well as a series of TV programs Diary of the Siege, one of the episodes of which is dedicated to the evacuation. A special place in the collections is occupied by diaries, personal documents, letters and photographs of residents and defenders of the besieged city. More than 200 people - survivors of the siege, their relatives and friends - donated materials from their family archives for digitization and placement in the Presidential Library collections. Many documents have never been published anywhere before, but are now available to users around the world. The staff of the Presidential Library will talk about these unique materials and their role in studying the history of the siege.

The video conference “The Siege of Leningrad. Reflections on heroism and tragedy" is available on the institution’s Rutube-channel.