The grim but engrossing displays here contain donations from survivors, propaganda posters from the blockade period and many photos depicting life and death during the siege. An audio guide in English was about to be made available in 2014, which will compensate for the lack of English signage elsewhere in the museum.
This museum opened just three months after the blockade was lifted in January 1944 and boasted 37,000 exhibits, including real tanks and aeroplanes. But three years later, during Stalin’s repression of the city, the museum was shut, its director shot, and most of the exhibits destroyed or redistributed. Not until 1985’s glasnost was an attempt made once again to gather documents to reopen the museum; this happened in 1989.
