Presidential Library held screening of documentary 1942. Road of Life to Sanahin

On Monday, March 3rd, 2025 the Presidential Library Cinema Club held a public screening and discussion of the new documentary film 1942: Road of Life to Sanahin.

This film is a joint project between the Union of Journalists of St. Petersburg and Leningrad region and the State Museum of Defence and Siege of Leningrad, and it was the winner of the second grant competition from the Presidential Foundation for Cultural Initiatives. 

Directed by Ekaterina Dodzina, the film tells the story of the evacuation of orphans from besieged Leningrad to Armenia, and the courage and heroism of the teachers who worked in the orphanages. It also highlights the kindness and generosity of the people of the small mountain village of Sanahin in Armenia, who rescued the Leningrad orphans during those difficult times.

For the first time, the filmmakers have unveiled the miraculously preserved archives of orphanage number 51. These include the diaries of teachers, photographs, and documents, as well as the memories of the director, Hana Alexandrovna Gershenok. During the war, she instructed her staff to keep detailed records, starting from the evacuation along the "Road of Life" on April 10, 1942, when a convoy of trucks carrying children came under attack from German aircraft.

It took almost a month to travel to Krasnodar Territory. The last train is to Novorossiysk, from where there is a three-day passage across the Black Sea to Sukhumi. A few days later, the train with the children arrived in Yerevan.

The second homeland for orphanage No. 51 was the Armenian village of Sanahin, where exhausted children were picked up by local residents in their arms. There, not far from the walls of a medieval monastery, little Leningraders were returning to life.…