The Monument to the Heroic Defenders of Leningrad

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The impressive monument located on Victory Square (Russian: Ploshad Pobedy) is among the first city sights you see when travelling from the southern direction, i.e Pulkovo airport.

Bronze figures of Leningrad defenders, St Petersburg

It was designed by Sergey Speranskiy and Valentin Kamenskiy, and sculpted by Mikhail Anikushin. The monument was established in 1975 in the memory of the heroic residents of Leningrad and soldiers of the Front who fought against the Nazis during the Siege of Leningrad and the tremendous Victory of the Soviet Army and its Allies during World War II.

Soldiers, pilots and citizens of Leningrad

Memorial represents a very complex and multi-layer constructions that consists of the major parts:

The facade with 26 bronze figures, among which are soldiers, pilots and civilians who defended Leningrad. The are faced towards the Pulkovo Heights, where the former defensive lines were situated.
In the center there is a 48-m tall granite obelisk with statues of a Soldier and a Worker placed at its foundation. They symbolize the joined effort of civil residents and armed forces in the heroic defense of the city, while the obelisk itself serves as a sign of the Victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War.
Behind the obelisk there is a broken ring, which symbolizes the lifting of the Siege, and surrounded by nicely crafted sculptures in the middle. From the northern side, facing the city, there is the Memory Hall “the Seige” which is separated from the outer world by this broken ring of 40 m in diameter and 124 m long. There are wide stairs on both sides leading to the obelisk.

900 nights is the length of Siege

In the centre of the Memorial Hall there is a sculptural composition with figures of almost the human height, so the viewers can greater understand the sorrow of Leningrad’s citizens and realize a tiny thread between life and death.

Nowadays the Underground Memorial Hall works as a branch of the State Museum of the History of Saint Petersburg. Along the walls of the Hall there are 900 lamps in a shape of candles, signifying the number of days of the Siege. In the Memorial Halls you can see 12 artistic historical expositions with documents and items of the Great Patriotic War. Additionally, there are a mosaic panel “1941-the Seige” and “the Victory” by S.N. Repin, I.G. Uralov, N.P. Fomin, an electronic map “Heroic Battle for Leningrad”, a marble board with the names of almost 700 city defenders. In 1995 the volumes of the Memory Book with the names of civils and soldiers protecting Leningrad were included in the exposition.