Museum of Defense and Blockade of Leningrad will move to a new building in 2018

In 2018, the State Memorial Museum of Defense and Blockade of Leningrad is going to open the first exhibition in a new building. This was announced today by the museum's director Sergei Kurnosov at a conference-webinar "Hero Cities of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945" organized by the Presidential Library. He noted that the new museum exhibitions will be the most interactive and allow to provide "even more truth about the war and the blockade."

The new building of the Museum of Defense and Blockade of Leningrad in St. Petersburg will be built at the intersection of Basseynaya Street and Yuri Gagarin Avenue. The location was chosen by the city authorities and the public among a range of options. In 2015, a competition of projects will be announced. After that the construction of the building will begin.

However, the Government of St. Petersburg does not abandon the idea to return to the museum its former premises in Solyanoy alley. But it cannot be done in a short term because in the decades that the museum did not occupy them, the premises had many owners. Sergey Kurnosov said: "Time is running out: generations of people who remember the war, the blockade or at least the museum established in the 1940s, which told about the blockade, are passing away. And along with them passes away the memory, the stories about things that are still kept in St. Petersburg families. That's why we resolved to construct a new building for our museum."

It is worth noting that the issue of the future of the Museum of Defense and Blockade of Leningrad was actively discussed by Director General of the Presidential Library Alexander Vershinin, Director of the State Hermitage Mikhail Piotrovsky, the authorities of the federal and regional levels. The decision on the development of the museum was made largely due to this great work.

By now the exposition of the Museum of Defense and Blockade of Leningrad has exhausted all possibilities for its development in the allotted premises. Meanwhile, the collection is constantly updated with unique items, but there is no space for them. Currently, its holdings number more than 50,000 artifacts collected by the citizens as well. But due to the lack of space, only a very small part of them is available to the public.