Description of the attraction
There were many difficult periods in the history of St. Petersburg, but, of course, the most terrible was the blockade of Leningrad. In this regard, it is even more striking that the city's museums did not stop working even at this terrible time. Moreover, in besieged Leningrad, a new museum was even opened - the Museum of the Defense and Siege of the City.
Not only is the history of the heroic defense of Leningrad tragic - even the biography of this museum is tragic. The museum, formed from the first exposition of the siege in 1942 and the exhibition "The Heroic Defense of Leningrad" in 1944, in 1946 was transformed into the Museum of the Defense of Leningrad. But already in 1949 it was closed in connection with the so-called "Leningrad affair". All thirty-seven thousand exhibits located here were either destroyed or transferred to other museums by belonging: guns, for example, to the Artillery Museum. Some of them went to the Central Museum of the Armed Forces, something to the Museum of the History of the City … The leaders of the museum were repressed. And only in 1989 the museum was reopened.
The now recreated exposition tells about the history of the defense of Leningrad from 1941 to 1944, about the existence of the city during the 900-day siege. Now there are more than 50 thousand exhibits, including genuine weapons and awards, letters from the front, diaries, personal belongings of participants in the defense of the city, photographs of soldiers, army newspapers, paintings and graphics of front-line artists. A special place in the museum's collection is given to air defense fighters, the functioning of industrial enterprises, organizations and cultural institutions, the situation of children in the besieged city. In one of the corners of the museum, the atmosphere of a typical Leningrad apartment of that time has been carefully restored. Here you can see the music stand, behind which the conductor stood during the performance of Shostakovich's Seventh (Leningrad) Symphony in the Great Hall of the Philharmonic; the microphone with which Olga Berggolts talked with Leningraders every day; a stale eight of the blockade bread, which saved more than one human life during the blockade …
The museum regularly holds meetings with war and labor veterans, residents of besieged Leningrad, many of whom donate their personal belongings here, thereby replenishing the priceless collection of the Blockade Museum. Gala evenings, events and concerts are held here.
