Marking the 75th Anniversary of the siege of Leningrad, a brand new plaque commemorating the Red Army personnel who died liberating Europe in World War II was unveiled in St Peter's Square, Manchester on Thursday.
The event was hosted by the Lord Mayor of Manchester, Cllr Abid Latif Chohan, and Russian Ambassador to the United Kingdom Andrey Kelin, military veterans, as well as community representatives.
In an address from the Manchester Cenotaph war memorial, Ambassador Kelin welcomed attendees to the unveiling ceremony of the “Memorial in honoured memory of the Soviet soldiers who gave their lives liberating Europe, and in recognition of the brave people of the besieged Leningrad”.
He added that the event gave an opportunity to remember the “sincere brotherhood of arms of Soviet and British people, the twin cities' ties between Manchester and Leningrad”.
Ambassador Kelin paid tribute to the opening of the Second Front by the Western Allies who “organised the Arctic Convoys from the UK and the US to the northern ports of USSR with much-needed cargo”.
The ambassador thanked those who contributed to the panel's construction – the Committee for External Relations of Saint-Petersburg, the Manchester City Council, the Friendship Society of Saint-Petersburg and Manchester, Russian construction firm ‘LSR Group', Znaniye Russian School in London, and Nick Robertson, the architect of the memorial.
Following the speech, Ambassador Kelin said that “knowing and…
