À l’occasion du 80e anniversaire de la libération complète de Leningrad du blocus fasciste

Victory Museum`s exhibition “Leningrad liberation salute”, dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the complete liberation of Leningrad from the Nazi siege, will be presented in nearly 20 foreign countries. The exhibition will also be demonstrated on the streets and official websites of museums in almost all Russian regions.

«The museum has prepared an exhibition that tells a multifaceted and honest story of the courage, extraordinary willpower, and perseverance of the residents of the northern capital, who not only endured all the hardships of life in the besieged city, but also with their hard work and bravery did everything to save their beloved Leningrad» – said curator of the exhibition.

The exhibition includes over 100 digitized materials from Victory Museum’s collections—photographs, documents, maps, newspapers, posters, and artistic works capturing scenes from the life of the blockaded city. The materials cover events from the beginning of the city’s defense in July 1941 to the celebratory salute in honor of the complete lifting of the blockade on January 27, 1944.

The materials on display demonstrate how the city was prepared for defense, how important strategic objectives were masked, and how city monuments and sculptures were protected from air raids. One of the sections is dedicated to the work of sports enthusiasts-alpinists, who masked the golden domes and spires that could serve as navigation points for enemy aircraft. The exhibition also tells the story of the Leningrad Zoo, the Botanical Garden, the laying of an armored cable across Lake Ladoga to supply electricity, and the creation of an underwater pipeline. The exhibition includes photographs from the personal archive of Marina Labetskaya, the daughter of the only female diver Nina Sokolova, who proposed the idea of an underwater pipeline. The exhibition also shows how Leningrad scientists developed new technologies, medicines, drugs to combat hunger and disease; and how educational institutions worked in the besieged city.

In addition, visitors will find numerous statistical data, such as the number of victims and evacuees; amount of the shipments transported through the «Road of Life»; the amount of military equipment produced, and other related information.

The exhibition concludes with information about Operation “Iskrа”, which allowed the breakthrough of the blockade in 1943, the Leningrad-Novgorod operation, and the celebration of the complete liberation of Leningrad on January 27, 1944.

The exhibition was prepared with the participation of the Leningrad Zoological Park, the Committee for State Control, Committee for the State Inspection and Protection of Historic and Cultural Monuments of the Government of St. Petersburg, the N.V. Tsitsin Main Botanical Garden of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Novgorod State United Museum–Reserve.