Wartime songs performed in the Presidential Library for survivors of the Siege

The Presidential Library hosted a concert of the Model Military Band of the National Guard of the Russian Federation, timed to the 75th anniversary of the complete liberation of Leningrad from the Nazi Siege.

Residents of the besieged Leningrad, military personnel and veterans, students of the Maritime School, and the orchestra of the Secondary School with the in-depth study of music gathered in the Presidential Library. The concert of the Model Military Band of the National Guard of the Russian Federation under the baton of Igor Lewandowski began his performance with Dmitry Shostakovich's Symphony № 7.

The deputy Director General of the Presidential Library Valentin Sidorin, told the audience how a year ago they handed over to the Presidential Library from the Leningrad House of Radio a score of this symphony, performed during the siege in Leningrad by the “team” orchestra of the House of Radio (some musicians had to be recalled from the front) conducted by Karl Eliasberg. The Presidential Library digitized it and presented it on its portal along with the program that had turned yellow from time at the very concert of Dmitry Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony. “No one gave a final answer, how Leningrad managed to survive”, - said Valentin Sidorin, - but the heroic history of the performance of the 7th Symphony helped a lot. With today's concert, the Presidential Library opens up a whole series of events, the essence of which is not to give a rewrite of history, so that future generations will always remember the feat of Leningrad residents”. 

Then the microphone was handed over to Tatiana Valerievna Rudykovskaya, whose poems about the blockade are known to many veterans.

The songs of the war years dedicated to the Siege were performed by orchestra soloists with active support from the audience. Created in 1956 and being the assignee of the Model Military Band of the Interior Forces of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR, for many years this team has been conducting extensive concert and educational work and is actively involved in military-patriotic education.

The blitz-interviews were taken from the residents of the besieged city who were present in the hall:

- Gennady Kedrov, resident of Leningrad: - I was 5 years old, the memory kept the first day of the war: I was walking along Staro-Nevsky Prospect, where I lived, and suddenly I saw a large crowd of people at the intersection of Prospect and the Ispolkomskaya Street, everyone was listening to the radio. I did not know what had happened, but the alarm squeezed my heart ... Then my mother and I were taken by train to Kazakhstan, to the evacuation, the trip lasted for a long time, almost two months. I went to school when we returned back to Leningrad, at nine years old.

- Moisei Slobodinsky, resident of Leningrad: - We lived in a communal apartment on Fontanka, 68. Although I was a six-year-old boy, I remember a lot of things that can keep a child’s memory. My friend Mikhail Butman, the father of the future virtuoso saxophonist Igor Butman, went to the Neva, watched people get water from the hole, then walked back, warmed up at Misha's house, he warmed his fingers playing the piano... A student of the Vaganova School Irina Kolpakova, the future soloist of the Kirov Theater ballet lived at the same apartment. It was difficult, but we all believed in our victory, without this faith we would not have survived a day...  

 A series of events of the Presidential Library dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the complete liberation of Leningrad from the Nazi siege will be continued.

It will be recalled that plans for the organization of large-scale projects marking the 75th anniversary of the complete liberation of Leningrad from the Nazi siege were formed in 2018. In November, a round table was held at the Presidential Library, at which camping to collect documents related to the siege was announced. At this point, about 200 people responded to the call to share testimonies about that time, about 900 storage units were transferred for digitization.

With the participation of the Presidential Library in St. Petersburg, the Unified City Information Center, which coordinates the work of the media, public organizations and cultural institutions covering events dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the complete liberation of Leningrad from the Nazi siege, was established.

As part of the “Siege Diary” a specialist of the Presidential Library talks weekly about life in the besieged city on the St. Petersburg Channel.

The Presidential Library’s portal makes available a virtual tour of the exhibition halls of the temporarily closed State Museum of Defence and Siege of Leningrad and get familiar with the electronic collection “Defence and Siege of Leningrad”, which includes official documents, periodicals, memories of Leningrad residents, food cards, photo and newsreels.

Traditional courage lessons for schoolchildren in 2019, declared in Russia as the year of the centenary anniversary of Daniil Granin, will be based, among other things, on the writer's works on the Great Patriotic War.