St. Petersburg is one of the significant cities in the tour to Russia and has been receiving millions of tourists annually. One of the reasons behind the popularity of St. Petersburg in Russia tour is the number of museums and St. Petersburg attractive places inside and outside the city. There are enough museums in St. Petersburg that even if the tourists who have decided to visit Russia dedicated their entire week of travel to museums of St. Petersburg, they won’t be able to visit all the historical places of St. Petersburg and its museums. One of the favorite types of museums for tourists in St. Petersburg tour and travel to Russia is war museums, which is one of the major types of museums in Russia.
War museums help people to understand the basics of war and what would happen to people who had participated in wars or forced to act in the war. One of the horrible aspects of war is the fact that most of the time, ordinary and innocent people would get hurt during the war. One of the biggest wars in the history of humankind was the Second World War, in which nearly 75 million have died, including 40 million civilians.
Russia was one of the key participants of the Second World War on the Allied side that sacrificed many military personages and civilians to the war. The Soviet Union had the most casualties in the second world war, including the death of more than 10 million military personages and 15 million civilians. One of the main cities of the Soviet Union that was engaged directly in the Second World War was St. Petersburg or as known as Leningrad in the Soviet Union era. The city had been under the blockade for almost 900 days in which more than a million citizens of Leningrad had died.
Siege of Leningrad was the darkest time in the history of the city because, during the 900 days of blockade, more than a million people had died due to hunger, epidemic, and bombardments of the Nazi’s troops. Yet, it was also one of the brightest times of the city because of the heroic acts of the civilians and military individuals inside the city during the blockade. They had struggled for around two and half year and did not surrender to the German army because the plans for Leningrad was to be destroyed and eliminated from the face of the earth at the moment that the city surrenders. That’s why Leningrad was so proud of his heroic acts and resistance, and they had shown it with the establishment of the first-ever WWII museum in the city, during the last days of blockade.
The Museum of the Defense and Siege of Leningrad was founded in the last days of the Siege of Leningrad in 1943. The former Agricultural Museum had chosen to host the museum, and the exhibits were mostly the donations from the citizens of Leningrad. There were about 37000 exhibits in the museum, including tanks, aircraft, and weapons that had taken as a trophy from the Nazi troops; letters, uniforms, personal items, food cards, and photographs of the soldiers on front lines; paintings and sculptures from the artists of blockaded city; documents and photos, and many more exhibits that showed the life during the blockade. There were seminars and lectures held in the museum to promote the history of the Siege of Leningrad and expose false information about the Second World War and the city of Leningrad. The museum received overwhelming attention as over a million people had visited the museum by 1949. The Museum of Defense of Leningrad of Republican Significance was the only military museum that had created during the Second World War.
At the end of the 1940s, by the commands of Joseph Stalin, the Museum and most of the exhibits inside it under the cases of “Leningrad Affairs” had destroyed. Leningrad Affairs was a series of fabricated criminal cases in the late 1940s and the early 1950s by Joseph Stalin to accuse of treason and executed some of the top Communist Party of the Soviet Union members in Leningrad. During the Leningrad Affairs, the Museum of the Defense and Siege of Leningrad was closed; only a small part of the exhibits had transferred to the October Museum, and the rest were utterly destroyed.
The Museum of the Defense and Siege of Leningrad was only reopened in 1989, covering an area of thirty-size smaller than the original museum in a building on Solyaniy Lane. Though returning the museum exhibitions was difficult due to the destruction of most of the museum in the 1940s, the current museum still has multiple fascinating exhibits for people who have decided to visit the museum during their travel to Russia.
The entry of the building is marked by two anti-aircraft, and the museum has obtained the third floor of the buildings since the second floor has assigned to temporary displays. The permanent exhibition has covered the aspect of both military and civilians view during the Siege of Leningrad. Most of the current exhibits are donations from the survivors and the families of the besieged city. The exhibits that run around the walls of the museum display the approach and ultimate retreat of the Nazi army by the Leningrad people. You can see various parts of the diaries of the soldiers and newspaper articles on the display. The Museum of the Defense and Siege of Leningrad, and particularly this part of the museum, is one of the best places to go when you want information about the Siege of Leningrad on your trip to Russia.
The central exhibits display the horrifying life of civilians during the blockade, and it includes engaging propaganda material, such as flyers dropped by the Nazis into the blockaded Leningrad; photographs of inside of the houses in the time; examples of daily food share, including 125 grams of bread for a family, and various notes and handwritings of civilians defining the frightful experience of life under the blockade.
The museum has a lecture hall for educating people about the history of the Second World War and the Siege of Leningrad as well as exposing the false information about the history of the blockade, notably the ones that developed throughout the Leningrad Affairs.
Currently, the museum has over 53000 exhibits in its marvelous collection, including 20000 documents, handwriting, manuscripts, and written materials; 7000 of sculptures, paintings, and graphic arts; around 20000 photographs and images; more than 3500 of personal items and belongings of soldiers in the front lines; 3500 medals, signs, and orders; 500 pieces of weaponry and tools, and multiple books that had published during the blockade. You can visit this museum on your travel to St. Petersburg, but remember that the modest Museum of the Defense and Siege of Leningrad isn’t included in the St. Petersburg tour by default and if you have decided to visit this museum on your trip to St. Petersburg, you should inform your Russia tour managers.
We at the Star Travel Group recommend our travelers visit our weblog to learn more about other attractions of Russia; top places to visit on your trip to St. Petersburg and Moscow; the best places for shopping in Russia, and our useful tips and advice about how to travel to Russia and the top attractions of Russia.
