A memorial plaque was unveiled in St. Petersburg to the outstanding historian of the blockade Valentin Kovalchuk

A memorial plaque to the outstanding Soviet and Russian historian Valentin Kovalchuk was solemnly opened in the building of the St. Petersburg Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences on Petrozavodskaya Street, where he worked for more than 50 years.

The ceremony was attended by Governor Alexander Beglov, Director of the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation, Chairman of the Russian Historical Society Sergei Naryshkin, Head of the Ministry of Education and Science Valery Falkov, State Secretary of the Union State of Russia and Belarus Dmitry Mezentsev, Rector of Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, Chairman of the St. Petersburg Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences Andrei Rudskoy, President of the Scientific Research Center ” Kurchatov Institute” Mikhail Kovalchuk and Yuri Kovalchuk.

“Today, on Leningrad Victory Day, we remember Valentin Mikhailovich Kovalchuk, a man who devoted himself to studying the history of the siege of Leningrad. A military man awarded the Order of the Red Star and the Order of the Patriotic War, after retiring he began research work. One of the few who gained access to classified materials. “I studied the provision of engineering and transport infrastructure to Leningrad during the blockade, the laying of fuel communications and electrical cables along the bottom of Ladoga, the railway, which was built in 17 days after the blockade was broken,” the governor noted.

Alexander Beglov especially noted that Valentin Kovalchuk did a lot to establish the truth about the people who died in besieged Leningrad. Before his research, it was believed that there were 600 thousand of them, but the historian insisted that there were much more dead in these terrible days. “He turned out to be right. According to recent studies, and this was proven by the court, more than a million people died in Leningrad,” the governor noted.

Beglov also recalled that Valentin Kovalchuk sought the revival of the Museum of the Defense and Siege of Leningrad, which was destroyed after the war. As the historian believed, it was necessary to recreate it in its original place – in Solyany Lane, and it was opened in 1989. “On the instructions of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, his exhibition was expanded and the Institute of the History of the Defense and Siege of Leningrad was created, which continues the research of Valentin Kovalchuk,” said Alexander Beglov.

Let us recall that Valentin Mikhailovich Kovalchuk (July 22, 1916 – October 4, 2013) is a leading specialist in the history of the defense and siege of Leningrad, who has been studying this topic for more than half a century. Doctor of Historical Sciences, Honored Scientist of the RSFSR, author of more than 200 scientific papers, as well as fundamental scientific works, including one of the first collections of documents about the battle for Leningrad “900 heroic days”, the fifth volume of “Essays on the history of Leningrad”, “Leningrad requiem (co-authored with G. L. Sobolev).