Millions of testimonies of the terrible years of the besieged city and the fierce battles for the liberation of Leningrad today are presented in many memorial complexes. But a special place among the memorable exhibitions has always been held by the Museum of Defense of Leningrad. Located in the historical part of St. Petersburg, on Solyaniy Lane, for the entire time of its existence, it has received thousands of visitors.
Guides conduct groups in the halls, telling about all stages of the defense and liberation of Leningrad, about the courage of its inhabitants in conditions of hunger and death.
Salt town - the educational center of Leningrad
Since the end of the 19th century, the Salt Town quarter has been known to every Petersburger as a cultural and educational center. Here, in the buildings of several museums, exhibitions of technological and industrial achievements were regularly held. By the 20th century, the exhibition complex, where the Leningrad Defense Museum is located today, already had agricultural, artisanal, technical, military pedagogical museums and the Russian Technical Society. Therefore, the question of the venue of the first exhibition dedicated to the defense of Leningrad was not even discussed.
The first exhibition during the war
In December 1943, when the whole month remained until the blockade was completely lifted, the leadership of the Leningrad Front decided to prepare and open the exhibition “Heroic Defense of Leningrad”. The venue was the famous Salt Town. The festive opening ceremony took place at the end of April 1944.
The scale of the exhibition was so grand that the organizers had to use the halls of three interconnected buildings located on Fontanka Embankment, ul. Gangutskoy and along Salt Lane.
The work of artists and architects, who managed to vividly and reliably reflect all stages of the defense and liberation of Leningrad in wartime conditions, were marked by government awards. The success of the exposition was simply overwhelming. In the first 6 months of operation alone, more than 200 thousand people saw the exhibition: schoolchildren, workers of factories and factories, military personnel and everyone who was returning from evacuation.
The city has acquired a new museum
On the day of the celebration of the second anniversary of the lifting of the blockade, in January 1946, the exhibition received the official status and name of the Museum of Defense of Leningrad. Photos, portraits of military leaders, weapons and uniforms of soldiers, objects of military life and terrible evidence of the life of a hungry city and sabotage of fascists are documentary, reliable and terribly true. The halls were divided by theme: battles at the frontiers, the history of the "Road of Life", the legendary breakthrough of the blockade, the dedicated work of factory workers, food standards for the townspeople. Many exhibits even during the war were transferred to the museum by the inhabitants of Leningrad, but the exposition was replenished in peacetime. Already after the war, the surviving participants in the battles for Leningrad left entries in the book of museum visitors, where they left words of gratitude for the authenticity and memory of those tragic days.
The history of the museum in the postwar years
The Leningrad Defense Museum in the post-war years underwent several reexpositions, and in 1953, during the review of many military facts and political reprisals with leaders of various ranks, the museum was closed and its funds were transferred to the State Museum of the History of Leningrad.
The museum’s revival initiative belonged to the blockade and war veterans who survived the brutal time of the blockade and remembered the museum of the defense of Leningrad. The idea was widely supported by the media, and in September 1989 the history of the memory of Leningraders received a new life. Now the museum was faced with a new task - the return of squares and exhibits. By 1995, a permanent exhibition was reopened, once again collecting unique military certificates and gaining the status of the Museum of Defense and Siege of Leningrad.
But today's museum squares are significantly inferior to the exhibition halls of the post-war years. Of 40, 000 sq. m. the exhibition is now returned a little over a thousand. The restoration of exhibits and the documentary archive is ongoing, and many exhibits, once “relocated” to other museums, are returning to St. Petersburg. The museum of the blockade of Leningrad is still waiting for a solution to the problem of expanding exhibition space.
