Today’s activity was a quite interesting, if very somber tour of sights around the city dedicated to the defenders and citizens of the city during world war two. St. Petersburg (then of course called Leningrad) was besieged as the locals sat for 900 days and nights between 1941 and 1944. Over a million people died in the city and we visited the largest cemetery where they are buried in large graves marked only by years. It was a very sobering place but there were many wonderful sculptures and carved reliefs to admire and the played music in the background including Shostakovich’s 7th “Leningrad Symphony”
If you do not know about this piece of music it is quite wonderful on its own but it has a very interesting story. It was composed, arraigned and preformed during the siege of the city and it was broadcast in a live performance inside the city in a show of defiance to the Germans.
When then went to the far southern corner of the city to the Monument to the Heroic Defenders of the City of Leningrad. This is a truly massive marble and granite monument with an obelisk, eternal flames, statues of workers and soldiers and a museum underneath it all. It marks the German’s farthest advance into the city.
Today has shown me how the Russians of this city, and all over, really care about their history and are proud of their accomplishments.
If you do not know about this piece of music it is quite wonderful on its own but it has a very interesting story. It was composed, arraigned and preformed during the siege of the city and it was broadcast in a live performance inside the city in a show of defiance to the Germans.
When then went to the far southern corner of the city to the Monument to the Heroic Defenders of the City of Leningrad. This is a truly massive marble and granite monument with an obelisk, eternal flames, statues of workers and soldiers and a museum underneath it all. It marks the German’s farthest advance into the city.
900 Days 900 Nights
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