The Presidential Library celebrated Mikhail Bobrov’s 95th jubilee

The Presidential Library hosted an important large-scale event, a number of speakers and documented multimedia materials. The occasion required: the 95th jubilee of the honorary citizen of St. Petersburg, Mikhail Mikhailovich Bobrov. The anniversary celebrant watched the event on-line: a live broadcast was available on the Presidential Library portal. 

The heroic military past, many rewards on the officer's uniform and the won sports cups made this man not only widely known and respected, but also beloved by Petersburgers.

Mikhail Mikhailovich visited the Presidential Library more than once, his military memoirs were included in its electronic collections. Now the Presidential Library is starting to form a collection dedicated to the honorary citizens of St. Petersburg.

The event on the Senate, 3 started with the opening of a multimedia exhibition "The Legendary Man". The front line, the sports past and the present of Mikhail Mikhailovich were represented on it: he heads the chair of physical education at the St. Petersburg Humanitarian University of Trade Unions, being a well-deserved trainer of Russia. In the exposition there was a place for the pages of the family album, the sports side of Bobrov's life and his two sons, whom the famous father raised in the economies.

According to the acting chairman of the Committee for Culture of St. Petersburg, Alexander Voronko, this exhibition is not one of those which exhibits can be glanced thoughtlessly. We should carefully look at each of the images presented on plasma screens, because they are the history of our country, reflected in the fate of an outstanding person and citizen.

The event was continued in the multimedia hall of the Presidential Library, which produced four "series" interviews with Bobrov. The displays alternated with performances by guests invited to the Presidential Library for the anniversary, including two sons of Mikhail Mikhailovich. Honorary polar explorer of Russia, the chairman of the Polar Commission of the St. Petersburg branch of the Russian Geographical Society, Victor Boyarsky recalled a joint campaign with Bobrov to the Arctic: at 75, the veteran conquered the North Pole, where he installed the flag of St. Petersburg. Another equally surprising page of Bobrov's life is associated with Lenfilm, where Mikhail Mikhailovich advised stuntmen and himself took part in the filming of military fighters, each time greatly at risk. "In general, his entire life is a series", - commented the director general of the Lenfilm studio Eduard Pichugin. And the most exciting stories from the life of the veteran appeared in his own memories, shown in the commercials of the Presidential Library.

Mikhail Mikhailovich, being a military climber, participated in the disguise of high-altitude dominants of the blockaded city - the dome of St. Isaac's Cathedral and the gilded spiers of the Admiralty, the Peter and Paul Cathedral, the Engineer's Castle during the Great Patriotic War. And in August 1942, having the icon "Mountaineer of the USSR", 18-year-old Mikhail Bobrov, was transferred to the passes of the Main Caucasian Range by an instructor in the training of fighters to fight the Edelweiss mountain-shooting fascist division. Demonstratively trained and equipped, the Germans at the beginning of the battles with the Russians swiftly moved to the East along the slopes of the Caucasus. On August 21, 1942, they ascended to both peaks of Elbrus and established flags of fascist Germany there. The clouds were on a high altitude, the fighting was at 3-4 thousand meters above sea level.

Inhuman willpower and spirit of our fighters was reflected via videoconferencing from Karachay-Cherkessia Sergey Teleshov, the teacher of chemistry of the Petersburg school № 635, the head of the expedition "Defensive Path". He told about the "Oath of Silence": before going on the mission, the soldiers swore that if one of them was injured or fell from the rock, he would fall silently, trying not to give out the presence of his comrades.

This summer Sergei Teleshov with a group of St. Petersburg senior high school students went to the nineteenth expedition. Moving along mountain paths in the area of ​​the Main Caucasian ridge, teenagers establish memorable signs on passes where fights once were thundered. One of the tasks of the activists is the restoration of the Memorial "Defensive Path" in Abkhazia, where the cadets of the flying school, the Leningraders Tulin, Scheglov, Maltsev, Lebedev, Tretiak were killed in the first battle at the waterfall of Azirt-Chara. Works in the territory of Karachay-Cherkessia and the Republic of Abkhazia are carried out with the support of these regions. A member of the St. Petersburg Public Chamber Commission on Youth Policy, Patriotic Education and Sports, Chairman of the Council of Veterans, head of the expeditionary OGSU of Russia, an arbiter of the international category, an active member of the Russian Geographical Society Mikhail Mikhailovich Bobrov, was at the source of the "Defensive Path" project.

More information about his exploits during the war are available on the portal of the Presidential Library with the recording of the video lecture of M. M. Bobrov – it enriched the Presidential Library collections and became part of the large-scale electronic collection "Memory of the Great Victory".