Published on: 2026-09-08
Source: Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University –
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September 8th at the Polytechnic University has begun with the Watch of Memory for more than ten years. In every university building, an honor guard at the stele with a star, a lit candle, and the symbol of the blockade—a 125-gram piece of bread—welcomes those who arrive. Students from the Military Training Center of SPbPU stand on honorable guard. The event is held on the initiative of the Directorate of Cultural Programs and Youth Creativity, and thanks to it, the day marking the start of the Siege of Leningrad rises above the routine and is filled with profound meaning.
“Polytechnic student, stop! Remember those who died defending Leningrad for 900 days!” urged the inscription by the installation, and involuntarily you bow your head and slow your pace.
Today, on September 8, 2026, it marks 85 years since the beginning of the Siege of Leningrad. University staff and students laid flowers at the “Well of Life” in front of the 2nd academic building and gathered at the Monument to the Fallen Polytechnic Students to honor the memory of the victims of the siege. Every year, new participants attend this solemn mourning rally — first-year students who have just enrolled in the university. Those who have come to Petersburg from other regions know little about the siege. Therefore, for them, this rally is one of the first lessons in the city’s history.
“Today marks 85 years since the beginning of a tragic chapter in the history of our city and our country, — Dmitry Tikhonov, Vice-Rector for Continuing and Pre-University Education, addressed the participants of the event. — The losses and horrors that began on this day are unprecedented in world history, and it is difficult to find a family of Leningraders and Petersburgers in history that they did not affect. Witnesses of those events become fewer every year, and we, along with future generations, are obliged to make every effort to preserve the memory and truth about this. Deep respect to all the defenders of the city and blockade survivors. Eternal memory.”
Deputy of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg Mikhail Amosov came to the commemorative rally of the polytechnic students. He has a strong connection with the university, primarily through the fate of his family.
For me, today, this commemorative date, is a personal page from the history of my family. Two of my grandfathers, Professor Amosov and Professor Kuzmin, worked in the Department of Higher Mathematics at the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute. They found themselves within the siege ring along with their wives and daughters. My mother told me a lot about this. My father was just finishing the Polytechnic Institute in 1941. He was, you could say, sent on the last train before the ring closed, to Omsk to an aviation plant, where he was a shop manager. And my two uncles, Grisha and Misha, died at the front. In our city, there are a huge number of such family stories, and it is very important that we remember them.
The rally participants observed a moment of silence in memory of the defenders of Leningrad and all those who died during the blockade.
In 2005, at the university, on the initiative of the Veterans Council, a military-historical club called “Our Polytech” was established, whose activities are aimed at preserving historical memory. On behalf of the younger generation, the head of the military-historical reconstruction direction, Mikhail Korotkov, addressed the participants of the event: The Great Patriotic War was a great ordeal for the entire Soviet people, and among the first to stand against the fierce enemy were the students, lecturers, and staff of the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute. Already in September of forty-one, they were forging a collective victory, fighting the hated enemy near the village of Syandeba in Soviet Karelia. It was the actions of the polytechnicians as part of the 3rd Frunze Division of the Leningrad People’s Militia Army that disrupted the plans of the German-Finnish fascists to create a second ring of blockade. The polytechnicians gave their lives for us, for all humanity. The banner of preserving the memory of those heroes was raised by the chairman of the Veterans Council, Sergey Leonidovich Chechurin. We carefully continue his work and pass on the memory of those events and heroes to new generations of polytechnicians.
This year, for the first time, residents of the besieged Leningrad were unable to participate in the rally due to health reasons. They sent warm words and gratitude for the invitation.
After the poems by Olga Bergholz and Robert Rozhdestvensky were performed by students of the Natural Science Lyceum, the rally participants laid flowers at the Monument to the Fallen Polytechnic Students.
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