Novosibirsk and Saint Petersburg May Become Sister Cities

In Novosibirsk, a rally was held in honor of the 82nd anniversary of the complete lifting of the blockade of Leningrad. In memory of the people whom Siberia accepted and saved during the war years, Governor Andrey Travnikov laid flowers at the stele on the Alley of Blockade Survivors.

The head of the region noted that during the Great Patriotic War, the region became a home for 128,000 evacuated Leningraders. Many of them stayed here forever and contributed to the development of the city and area.

Andrey Travnikov also reminded that the connection between Novosibirsk and Leningrad has not been broken. Over 35 years of work by the search movement of the Novosibirsk region, the main direction of expeditions has been the Leningrad region. According to authorities, the searchers have restored the fates of more than 14,000 defenders of Leningrad, among whom are thousands of Siberians. Only last year, it was possible to return the names to two residents of the Novosibirsk region who had been considered missing for over 80 years.

Today, 134 blockade survivors live in the Novosibirsk region. Despite their age, many of them continue to participate in public life, meet with youth, and remain examples of resilience and strength of spirit, the regional government reported.

At the rally, a proposal was made by the chairman of the Novosibirsk organization «Blokadnik» Viktor Zharky — to start working on making Novosibirsk and Saint Petersburg sister cities.

Factories, scientific and cultural institutions were also evacuated from Leningrad to the region. This made it possible to establish the production of military products, master new technologies and productions. More than 22,000 Leningraders remained to live in the Novosibirsk region after the war. The fact that Novosibirsk has become a fast-growing metropolis, a center of culture, science, and industrial production, is largely due to the Leningraders, the regional government reported.