Translation. Region: Russian Federation –
Source: Novosibirsk State University –
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The opening ceremony of the exhibition "From the Siege to Siberia: The Road to Life in Akademgorodok," dedicated to the residents of the scientific center who came to Siberia from Leningrad, took place at Novosibirsk State University on March 20 with the support of the Department of Youth Policy and Educational Work.
This exhibition is a project implemented by the Akademgorodok team (ANO KIC "Integral 2.0") with the support of the Presidential Foundation for Cultural Initiatives. A mobile version of the exhibition is on display in the NSU Alumni Hall. An expanded version is located at the AkademVCenter museum location, which is located at the Institute of Mathematics, Mathematics, and Geophysics (formerly the Computing Center of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences). The exhibition was created with the participation of families of Akademgorodok residents who were evacuated from Leningrad during the siege to Siberia and found their second home in Novosibirsk.
The exhibition features an unusual format: visitors can not only view artifacts, copies of documents, and photographs, but also touch them. The exhibition was designed by Daria Lombart. Her unconventional approach to artifact presentation was appreciated even during the installation of the exhibition stands, and even then, the exhibition generated keen interest among students and faculty.
Leningrad has always been a major focus for Akademgorodok residents. Of its three founding fathers, two—Academicians Sergei Sobolev and Sergei Khristianovich—were from Leningrad. During the founding years of our research center, many NSU faculty members had graduated from Leningrad State University and came here from the city on the Neva. Of course, the exhibits are copies, not originals, but everyone can touch these historical objects and feel the spirit of that time. We treat the originals with the utmost care and preserve them carefully, but at our permanent site, you can not only see them but also touch them. We believe that tactile contact with these historical objects can sometimes be more important than their preservation. We deliberately avoided labeling the exhibits and exhibits. "Everything becomes clear here without further ado; just look at the documents displayed on the stands," said Anastasia Bliznyuk, head of the Akademburo team.
The story of the residents of Akademgorodok who survived the siege of Leningrad is presented through artifacts—copies of original documents.
The exhibition features the biographies of seven famous residents of Akademgorodok who left a lasting mark on its history and made significant contributions to science. The exhibit opens with a stand dedicated to Academician Anatoly Vasilyevich Rzhanov (1920-2000). In 1962, at the invitation of Academician Mikhail Lavrentyev, he and a group of staff from the Lebedev Physical Institute (FIAN) moved to Akademgorodok in Novosibirsk, where he founded the Institute of Solid State Physics and Semiconductor Electronics (now the Institute of Semiconductor Physics SB RAS). Rzhanov taught at NSU and established the Department of Semiconductor Physics, which he headed for many years. Among Rzhanov's students are three Corresponding Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences and dozens of doctors and candidates of science.
The Great Patriotic War found the future academician in Leningrad. In 1941, he was a fourth-year student in the Engineering Physics Department of the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute. The young man immediately volunteered for the front, but was rejected due to poor health. He then enlisted in the Volunteer Division of the People's Militia. Anatoly Rzhanov was appointed squad commander, and a week later, platoon commander.
In late August 1941, the future scientist, having received a short leave, successfully passed his exams. In December of that year, he defended his thesis with honors and volunteered for the front. He fought on the Leningrad Front, at the "Oranienbaum Pyatachok." There, he commanded a detachment of marine reconnaissance troops, participated in combat operations, reconnaissance in force, and raids behind enemy lines. In 1943, he was seriously wounded during the battles to break the siege of Leningrad. He was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 2nd class. In late 1943, demobilized from the army, he entered graduate school at the Lebedev Physical Institute (FIAN). In 1944-1945, he was treated in hospitals for complications from his wounds and concussions, and became blind in one eye. In 1948, he completed his postgraduate studies at the Lebedev Physical Institute and became a participant in the first work in the USSR to create a semiconductor transistor, and in 1949 he received a candidate of physical and mathematical sciences degree.
Irina (Rebekka) Moiseyevna Suslikova (Gutkina) (1916-2014) represents geologists at the exhibition. She moved to Leningrad from Samara at the age of 16. In 1940, she graduated from the Geography Department of Leningrad University with a degree in cartography. Before the war, she worked in Leningrad at the North-West Aerogeodetic Enterprise. She developed terrain maps during numerous expeditions across the country. During the war, she compiled maps for aircraft and tank navigation. In 1942, she was evacuated to Novosibirsk, where she worked at the Aerogeodetic Enterprise. She taught at the Novosibirsk Institute of Geodesy, Aerial Photography, and Cartography Engineers and lived in Akademgorodok on Morskoy Prospekt. The exhibit features excerpts from her memoirs: "Near Leningrad, they dug trenches everywhere. Since I was a geodesist and cartographer by training, I was assigned to dig trenches in one of the most difficult areas and was given a labor battalion. We were working on the Peri Line—on the Finnish border. It was already winter, the siege had closed, countless people were dying of starvation, and we spent almost all our time in the trenches, unable to get to the city. Just before New Year's, we were given a short trip to St. Petersburg. The frost was absolutely brutal."
Irina Moiseyevna's grandson, Vladimir Gutkin, attended the exhibition opening. He shared his memories of this remarkable woman, whose apartment became a magnet for the first residents of Akademgorodok—scientists and creative individuals who gathered there to discuss pressing issues concerning the development of the scientific center, its future, and its present. Vladimir Gutkin recounted how Irina Moiseyevna devoted great attention to such receptions: she prepared in advance, cooked superbly, and preferred to serve her guests exquisite dishes. She had a large library in her home, and she ensured that her grandson devoted at least an hour daily to reading. Vladimir Gutkin recorded numerous recollections of Irina Moiseyevna about the formative years of the Siberian scientific center and preserved her documents, letters, and personal belongings, which he later donated to the Akademburo.
The display dedicated to Lyudmila Glebovna Borisova (1931-2004) features a seemingly strange installation: two dried carrots, the lid of a porcelain teapot, and a pair of food supply travel cards. The presence of these objects has a simple explanation, and it can be found in her memoirs from the siege: "I lived in Leningrad throughout the war. I survived thanks to wood glue, drying oil, and 'duranda'—a stone-like cake—all of which I found at my mother's work, and we ate it in the winter of 1941-42. During the war, we dried carrots and brewed the most delicious carrot tea from them."
Years passed, Lyudmila Glebovna graduated from the A.I. Herzen Leningrad Pedagogical Institute, moved to Akademgorodok, and became a doctor of sociology and a professor in the Department of Education Management at Novosibirsk State Pedagogical University and the Department of General Sociology at NSU. But she retained her lifelong siege-era habit of drying carrots, brewing aromatic tea from them, and sharing it with her friends.
Unique documents and items related to the Siege of Leningrad have been preserved in the family archive of Anna Vasilyevna Nalegatskaya (1909-2002). Anna Vasilyevna came from Krasnoyarsk Krai to study at the First Leningrad Medical Institute named after Academician Pavlov. In 1938, she graduated with honors from the Faculty of General Medicine. During the Siege of Leningrad, she worked in the surgical department of the Erismanovskaya Hospital. She and her daughter, Alla Yuryevna (1937-2002), were evacuated to Sverdlovsk in the spring of 1942. She managed to bring her diaries, notes on the health of her patients and family, letters, and cherished belongings from the besieged city.
After the war, Anna Vasilyevna continued her medical practice, defended her dissertation, and was awarded a PhD in medicine in 1953. In 1977, she moved to Akademgorodok to follow her daughter, who also graduated from medical school and became a doctor. Since 1975, she has lived in Akademgorodok, where she worked as a neurologist at the outpatient clinic on Morskoy Prospekt and at the Central Clinical Hospital on Pirogov Street.
Vladimir Nikolaevich Emikh (1936-2020), like Alla Yuryevna Nelegatskaya, was a child of the Siege of Leningrad. After being evacuated from besieged Leningrad in 1942, his family lived in Uzbekistan. In 1958, Vladimir Nikolaevich graduated from Tashkent University, and while still a graduate student, he moved to Akademgorodok in 1964, where he found work at the Institute of Hydrodynamics of the Siberian Branch of the Academy of Sciences, simultaneously completing his postgraduate studies under Pelageya Yakovlevna Kochina. He subsequently became a doctor of physical and mathematical sciences and a professor, making many important discoveries in the field of hydrodynamics.
The exhibition presents the cultural life of the Siege of Akademgorodok survivors through the biography of Nina Vasilyevna Soboleva (1923-1988). She arrived in Novosibirsk in 1943, evacuated from besieged Leningrad along with the theater institute where she was studying at the time. However, she was soon arrested and sent to a labor camp for political reasons. Released in 1945, she returned to Leningrad. In 1958, she returned to Novosibirsk, where she received a position as an editor at a newly opened television studio and later worked in the city's Department of Culture. From 1962, she lived in Akademgorodok, heading the Literature and Art Department of the House of Scientists of the Siberian Branch of the Academy of Sciences, serving as editor-in-chief of fiction broadcasting on radio, and as editor of the prose section of the magazine "Sibirskie Ogni."
The exhibition concludes with the biography of the prominent geophysicist, Academician Anatoly Semenovich Alekseev (1928-2007). He graduated with honors from the Faculty of Mathematics and Mechanics in 1952 and completed his postgraduate studies at Leningrad State University in 1955. He worked at the Leningrad Branch of the Steklov Mathematical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and in 1963 he moved to the Novosibirsk Akademgorodok. From 1965 onward, he taught at NSU. Under his leadership, a large shared-use center for machine processing of materials using network GIS technologies and high-performance multiprocessor computers was created at the Computing Center of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. This center was named the Siberian Supercomputer Center (SSCC). In addition to his invaluable contributions to science, Anatoly Semenovich did much to perpetuate the memory of the siege of Leningrad, actively participating in the creation of the book "900 Days of the Siege," which contains the memories of Leningraders for whom Akademgorodok became a second home. Anatoly Semenovich was also a child of the siege, but not a single photograph of him as a child survives.
"By creating this exhibition, we wanted to use our combined efforts to demonstrate the importance of the memory of those who survived the Siege of Leningrad and Akademgorodok's gratitude to them for their contribution to the development of the scientific center. And today, we ask everyone whose relatives were involved in those distant events to join our project and contribute documents and artifacts to the exhibition, if you have any. The history of the Siege in Akademgorodok continues to be written, and we continue to write new pages. You can join us, and perhaps this book of remembrance will include a chapter dedicated to your relatives—not necessarily scientists, but also cultural figures, educators, medical professionals, and ordinary workers—those who escaped the enemy encirclement or survived the 900 days of the Siege, and later found a second home in Akademgorodok and left their mark on the history of the scientific center," said Anastasia Bliznyuk.
The exhibition will be on display at NSU in the NSU Alumni Hall until April 13 on the second floor of the academic building at 1 Pirogov Street.
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