The Presidential Library plans to collaborate with the Leningrad Siege and Defense Museum

The Presidential Library is willing to exhibit some multimedia documents and content in a new museum and exhibition complex on “Leningrad Siege and Defense.”

Exhibition of the complex’s projects, presented at the international city planning and architectural competition was opened in Saint Petersburg in the Manege of the Stables Executive Department from the 25th of August to the 10th of September 2017. Participants have developed architectural solutions of solving a problem of creating a national institute for the study, documentation and generalization of materials relating to the history of the defense and siege of Leningrad.

It bears reminding, that Director General of the Presidential library, a member of the Council for Culture and Arts under the President of Russian Federation Alexander Vershinin was among the first who has drawn attention to essential need for creation a new exhibition center. It happened in January of 2014, after the direction of the Leningrad Siege and Defense Museum at the meeting of the St. Petersburg Branch of the Russian historical Society, held in the State Hermitage, has raised a question about an expansion of exhibition space. Museum Director Sergey Kurnosov pointed out that the exposition and reserve stock arias, the achieve facilities do not meet standards, and alongside this, tight working space do not let adaptability. Before museum’s closing in 1949, it accommodated the premises in Solyanoy Pereulok (alleyway), the area size of which was excided 130,000 square feet, and after its reconstruction in 1989, was much tighten in the area. “Now, when the collection increases, it becomes possible to apply new technologies — there is no scope for development there,” — he noted.

The General Director of the State Hermitage, Chairman of the St. Petersburg Branch of the Russian Historical Society Mikhail Piotrovsky has articulated his readiness to join in the struggle for an enlargement of the unique museum. Under this decision, members of the society were suggested to consider the options for cooperation.

Director General of the Presidential Library Alexander Vershinin familiarized himself with the situation on site and within the framework of his working visit has defined possibilities for cooperation. It was pointed out that the Museum of Leningrad Siege and Defense keeps more than 50,000 entries, including the unique ones. All these could be introduced via virtual expositions, connecting historical background and the present in unexpected angles. As Alexander Vershinin highlighted, there is a need of innovative approaches to informational, outreach and awareness raising work with school students, of up-to-date mobile exhibitions in schools, universities, and other museums.

In the spring of 2014, the Presidential Library hosted a conference discussing the future of the Leningrad Siege and Defense Museum.

Today, when the project of the new exhibition center being discussed in detail, the Presidential Library is considering disclosing an electronic funds telling about the heroic chapters of history of defense of Leningrad and the surrounding area, the heroism of Soviet people during the war. Among the more than 550 thousand of electronic documents in the library there are not less than 10 thousand pieces of such materials.