DEDICATED TO THE 75TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE GREAT VICTORY

In 1944, much was done to restore the Summer and Mikhailovsky Gardens (in the documents of 1945 the name of the Ministry of Natural Resources is almost never found), but the main work was ahead. In winter, recovery plans were prepared. The combined economy of the museums was preparing to extract the sculpture of the Summer Garden from the shelters and their further restoration. The joint farm of the House of Entertaining Science was developing a plan for the further repair of the Summer Garden, in the development of which the gardener Pyotr Kondratievich Lobanov played an important role.

In the spring, work began on the extraction of the sculpture and the restoration of the Summer Garden. Despite different subordination, employees of different associations worked together. Also, for reconstruction, the military, stationed in Leningrad, were involved. So on May 6, the personnel of the military units of PO Box 37427 and 1804, under the leadership of Captain V.A. Bondyreva performed a number of works in the Summer Garden. The work involved 88 troops. On the same day, 80 fighters of the NKVD part also worked in the garden. The servicemen were engaged in cleaning the sheet, digging the lawns, releasing the sculpture and other works. A detailed list of works can be found in the attached documents.

The sculptures were taken out using a truck crane, and busts and pedestals were sometimes removed manually. By June 19, all sculptures were freed. The architect Nikolai Ustinovich Malein and the sculptor Igor Vsevolodovich Krestovsky examined them and made a further work plan. The sculptures were washed and cleaned from the ground, more serious restoration work was carried out in subsequent years. By the end of June, all the sculptures were placed in their places.

On July 1, the Summer Garden merged with the Summer Palace of Peter I and the House of Peter again into a single museum. The director of the museum is appointed Elena Nikolaevna Elkin, who throughout the war worked as a research fellow at the United Museum Economy. This association has improved the implementation of restoration work. In the attached report of the museum you can find works performed in the Summer Garden in 1945. These are uprooting of stumps, backfilling of pits, arranging lawns, pruning dry branches of trees, filling hollows and much more. We also did not forget about cultural work: from June 1 to October 1, a military band played in the garden twice a week. This tradition was continued after the restoration of the Summer Garden since 2012 with the support of Sberbank North-West PJSC.

On the slopes of the Karpiev pond, a beautiful, patterned flower bed is created by the garden workers under the guidance of gardener Pyotr Kondratievich Lobanov. Here is how Peter Kondratievich himself describes it: “On the Victory Day over Germany, the head of the Department of Cultural and Educational Division, Comrade P.I. Rachinsky, was ordered to create a particularly outstanding decoration of the Summer Garden. It was created as a decoration of the shore of the pond with a very beautiful old drawing repeating the ornament adorning the eaves of the palace of Peter I. This colored ornament was approved by the Commission for the Protection of Monuments, headed by its head N.N. Belekhov and the oldest sculptor, professor J.A. Matsulevich. ” In the report on the work done, the flower garden is said dryly: “a discount is arranged along the shore of the pond – 250 m2.”

The restoration of the Summer Garden and the Summer Palace stretched for several years (the Palace was opened for visitors only in 1947), but already in the summer of 1945 the townspeople rushed into the garden. The museum even received an unplanned income of 5,261 rubles and 50 kopecks from the sale of tickets to visit the House of Peter I, which worked all summer season.

I want to say thank you very much and bow to those who have preserved the historical gardens of St. Petersburg for us.

CONGRATULATIONS ON THE GREAT HOLIDAY
Happy Victory Day!

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