Representatives of 22 foreign diplomatic missions in Russia as well as delegates from foreign cities and regions that have partner relations with the Russian city of St. Petersburg will come to the city to take part in commemorative events dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the end of the Nazi siege, the city government's Committee for External Relations told Sputnik on Friday
ST. PETERSBURG (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 25th January, 2019) Representatives of 22 foreign diplomatic missions in Russia as well as delegates from foreign cities and regions that have partner relations with the Russian city of St. Petersburg will come to the city to take part in commemorative events dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the end of the Nazi siege, the city government's Committee for External Relations told Sputnik on Friday.The events will be held on Sunday, and will be attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"At the invitation of the St. Petersburg government, representatives of diplomatic missions of foreign states, including the former Soviet Union states and member states of the anti-Hitler coalition [World War II allies], and also representatives of foreign cities and regions that have a partnership with St. Petersburg, as well as representatives of Russian regions where residents and enterprises of Leningrad [former name of St. Petersburg] were evacuated to [during the siege] will come to honor the memory of the fallen heroes and pay tribute to the generation of winners," the committee said.
The committee specified that delegations from 22 foreign diplomatic missions that were accredited in Moscow would take part in the commemorative events: Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Bulgaria, Brazil, Israel, Germany, Croatia, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Cuba, Nicaragua, South Africa, and others.
The committee added that delegations from 13 Russian regions would take part in the events: Bryansk, Kaluga, Oryol, Pskov, Novgorod, Vologda, Novosibirsk, Ulyanovsk, Altai, Moscow, Sevastopol, the Republic of Tatarstan and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Area.
Delegations from St. Petersburg's partners of Hamburg, Dresden, Nice, Antwerp and Yerevan will come as well.
Representatives of 39 consular institutions accredited in St. Petersburg, along with representatives of the Interparliamentary Assembly of Member Nations of the Commonwealth of Independent States have also confirmed their participation.
The Siege of Leningrad, which began on September 8, 1941, lasted for almost 900 days. The "Road of Life," via which food was delivered to the city, was laid over the ice of Lake Ladoga. The blockade was broken on January 18, 1943, but the city residents had to wait for one more year until its complete removal on January 27, 1944.
According to various estimates, somewhere between 400,000 and 1.5 million people died in the siege, primarily from starvation.
