Commemorative plaques of the Krasnoyarsk Territory in the Presidential Library

From 5 to 16 May 2015, plasma panels of the Presidential Library will be displaying the exhibits delivered to the Presidential Library in electronic form by the State Universal Scientific Library of Krasnoyarsk Territory "Commemorative Plaques of the Krasnoyarsk Territory." This is the second of the four exhibitions devoted to the Great Patriotic War, which comes to the Presidential Library from Siberia. Currently, 20 to 30 April 2015, plasma screens of the Presidential Library are featuring the first exhibition, "The Great Patriotic War in the press of Buryatia."

Work on the exhibition " Commemorative Plaques of the Krasnoyarsk Territory" began back in 2014, the year of the 80th anniversary of the Krasnoyarsk Territory. Specialists from Siberia managed to bring together and systematize information on commemorative plaques located throughout the Territory. By the most conservative estimates, there are 80 plaques in the Territory telling about the events of the war years.

455,000 men of the region went to the front and fought on all fronts of the Great Patriotic War, more than 168,000 of them returned from the battlefield. Of the 30 military units sent to war, 14 became the guards units. They included fighting units composed entirely of women.

Among the Heroes of the Soviet Union, veterans of the Great Patriotic War, there are 221 residents of Siberia, of the Krasnoyarsk Territory. Two of them were awarded the title twice. One of them was Stepan Kretov, Soviet military pilot, a native of Minusinsk. The memory of him is carefully preserved in the city: there is a memorial plaque in the school where studied Kretov, the other one is on the street of Minusinsk, named after Kretov. It explains after whom it was named. The first Krasnoyarsk resident to receive a star of the Hero during the Great Patriotic War was a pilot Nikolay Totmin. The title was awarded July 22, 1941 for his frontal air ram (the first in the world!).

Siberian military units formed the backbone of the army and their example inspired fighters. Marshal Malinovsky said of Siberians: "We, soldiers, havedeep respect for the residents of the gray-haired Urals and boundless Siberia. This respect and deep military love for the residents of Urals and Siberia was due to the fact that there were few warriors in the world better than those from Siberia and Urals. Therefore, our hand involuntarily writes these words with a capital letter..."

Despite the fact that the Krasnoyarsk Territory was far from the front line, the significance of the events that took place during the war on its territory, cannot be overemphasized. Remoteness of the Territory from the front line contributed to the fact that it was one of the main regions which housed the plants relocated to the rear. Totally, more than 400 enterprises were evacuated to Siberia, 42 of them were in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. The enterprises of the city produced the trains for special purposes, mortars, anti-aircraft guns, bombs and other munitions; aircraft intercoms, location and navigation systems; spare parts for airplanes and much, much more.

During the war, the Krasnoyarsk Territory hosted more than 11,000 residents evacuated from besieged Leningrad, of them more than 2,000 children. At the initiative of the Krasnoyarsk society "Blokadnik" a unique monument called "Children of War" was opened on the bank of the Yenisei River. The sculptor portrayed the figures of two children - a girl with a tiny piece of bread, the daily ration in Leningrad, and a boy with a can in which people carried water from the Neva River for drinking. Behind the children there is a sleigh used for transportation of the victims to the mass graves and the grille of the Summer Garden in Leningrad.

Following the exhibition from the Krasnoyarsk Territory, from 18 to 30 May the Presidential Library will hold an exhibition, "Siberian rear during the war" (Novosibirsk State Regional Scientific Library in cooperation with the V. D. Fedorov Regional Scientific Library of Kemerovo and A. S. Pushkin Regional Universal Scientific Library of Tomsk), and then, from 1 to 13 June - "Letters from the front smell of gunpowder and smoke" (National Library of the Republic of Komi).

Four "Siberian" exhibitions on plasma screens of the Presidential Library are held in parallel with the main exhibition in the halls of the Presidential Library, "We won because we were united."