The main event of the International Victors’ Forum to be held at the Presidential Library

9th International Victors’ Forum “Great Victory Achieved Through Unity”, dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the complete liberation of Leningrad from the Nazi siege will be held on April 25, 2019 in St. Petersburg.

The forum is aimed at developing a dialogue between youth, academic and expert communities of the CIS countries, the Baltic countries, Abkhazia, Georgia and South Ossetia in order to preserve the common historical memory of the Great Patriotic War, as well as the contribution of the peoples of the USSR to the victory over fascism.

250 delegates from all countries of the former Soviet Union will take part in the Forum: veterans of the Great Patriotic War, residents of besieged Leningrad and their descendants; government representatives; leaders of public organizations and search movements; historians of science; representatives of the creative intelligentsia and the media.

The forum will be open with a solemn ceremony of laying wreaths at the Eternal Flame at the Mother-Motherland monument at the Piskaryovskoye Memorial Cemetery. Then there will be held a solemn laying of the alley and the memorial stone “Great Victory Achieved Through Unity” in the square of Menshikovsky Prospect.

The Forum’s program will be opened by a plenary session in the Presidential Library, during which the greetings of the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin will be announced.

Alexander Beglov, Acting Governor of St. Petersburg, Vladimir Chernov, Head of the Office of the President of the Russian Federation for Interregional and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, Mikhail Shvydkoy, Special Representative of the President of the Russian Federation for International Cultural Cooperation, and representatives of national delegations will welcome the participants of the Forum as well as veteran and community organizations. After the plenary session the Forum will continue to work in the format of thematic sessions.

In the course of the Forum, its participants and guests will be able to get familiar with the materials of the exhibition “Realized Memory: Defence and Siege of Leningrad in Museum Expositions. Marking the 75th anniversary of the complete liberation of Leningrad from the Nazi siege”.

The plenary session will be broadcasted live on the Presidential Library’s portal.

Media scrum will take place in the Presidential Library’s conference hall at 12.45 pm, and a press conference is scheduled at 5.15 pm at the end of the event.

The Forum will be ended with a gala evening with a concert prepared by representatives of national delegations.

For reference. The forum has been held since 2010 by the Development Fund “Institute of Eurasian Studies” in conjunction with the North-South Political Science Center with the support of the Council for Humanitarian Cooperation of the Member States of the CIS (the “Council for Humanitarian Cooperation”) and the Fund for Presidential Grants. Since 2018, the Forum has been implemented as part of an intergovernmental project of the same name.

Forum partners are the Government of St. Petersburg, the Presidential Library and the St. Petersburg State University of Economics.

We invite media representatives to take part in the coverage of the work of the International Winners Forum "Great Victory Gained by Unity".

The venue of the main event: Presidential Library (Senate Square, 3).

Date and time: April 25, 2019, 11:00.

Earlier this day:

09:00 - ceremony of laying wreaths from delegations to the Eternal Flame at the Mother-Motherland monument at the Piskaryovskoye Memorial Cemetery (Nepokoryonnykh Prospekt, 72);

10:00 - solemn laying of the alley and the memorial stone "Great Victory Gained by Unity" (Menshikovsky Prospect Square).

Contacts for accreditation:

- press service of the organizing committee of the Forum (Political Center "North-South" - Valeria Romashchenko, e-mail: var_rus@mail.ru;

- press service of the IFESCCO  - Elena Tokmakova, tel. +7 499 2381068, e-mail: pr@mfgs-sng.org.

Attention! If you plan to attend the main event, then until 18:00 on April 23, 2019, you should forward an application for accreditation following the attached form with the note “Media accreditation” to email addresses: media@prlib.ru, petrov@prlib.ru, Sergei Petrov, tel. (812) 305-16-21, ext. 233; mob. +7 921 570-06-00. Please note that the admittance to the Presidential Library is carried out through entrance №. 2 only by prior request and upon showing a passport.