Belarus to present project in St. Petersburg ahead of 85th anniversary of Siege of Leningrad

8 September 2026 marks the 85th anniversary of the start of the Siege of Leningrad – one of the most tragic pages of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. On the Day of Remembrance for the Victims of the Siege of Leningrad, more than 100 Belarusian artists will take the stage at the Oktyabrsky Grand Concert Hall to honor the memory of the victims and heroes of the Great Patriotic War and to speak out against the resurgence of Nazism.

The project Every Third presents an unusual fusion of concert, theatrical performance, and documentary narrative based on photographic and video documents related to various periods of the Great Patriotic War and the postwar era as well as figures and information refined by modern research. For a long time it was believed that one in four residents of Belarus perished during the war. However, data refined in recent years indicates that Belarus lost one in three of its population during the war.

The requiem concert will feature both well-known musical works from the Soviet era and new compositions by contemporary Belarusian composers: Valery Shmat, Anna Seluk, Yevgeny Oleinik, Anna Blagova, and others. The poetic foundation of the concert is Anatoly Vertinsky’s Requiem for Every Fourth. The requiem concert was created on the initiative of OOO Musical Media Company with the support of Belarus’ Defense Ministry and Culture Ministry. The project’s director is Vladislava Artyukovskaya, artistic director of the Youth Variety Theater. The script was written by Vladislava Artyukovskaya and Anna Seluk.

Between 2024 and 2026, the requiem concert Every Third was seen by thousands of viewers in Belarus and was performed twice each in Moscow and Kazan. In 2025, the project was awarded the Belarus president’s prize For Spiritual Revival for preserving historical memory and strengthening spiritual values.

During the days of the requiem concert the foyer of the Oktyabrsky Grand Concert Hall will host thematic exhibitions that have become iconic for Belarus. The photo exhibition Fates Folded into a Triangle is based on the joint online project of the same name by BelTA and the Belarusian State Museum of History of the Great Patriotic War. The exhibition tells the stories of those who perished and those who survived the entire war through authentic personal letters, postcards, and greeting cards sent from the front lines to loved ones as well as archive photographs. Visitors will have a rare opportunity to write and fold a triangular letter themselves, following the front-line model.

The exhibition Partisans of Belarus – a joint project of the publishing house Belarus Today and the National Archive of Belarus – consists of an archival database of award sheets, personal files, and combat records of partisans. Using the interactive display of the Partisans of Belarus project, every visitor will be able to find a relative among the partisans and underground resistance fighters of Belarus and learn new facts about the partisan movement during the Great Patriotic War.

Performances of the requiem concert at the Oktyabrsky Grand Concert Hall are organized as part of the Year of St. Petersburg Culture with the support of the St. Petersburg government.