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"The Flower of Life" is one of the most sorrowful memorials dedicated to the Siege of Leningrad.

XGWR+7F Vsevolozhsk, Leningrad Oblast, Russia

In the 1960s, a so-called "Green Belt of Glory" was created around St. Petersburg, which includes several dozen different monuments and memorials dedicated to the heroic defense of Leningrad. Today, I will talk about one of the most emotionally harrowing monuments. It is the monument "Flower of Life," located in the Vsevolozhsky District of the Leningrad Region.
Petersburg: Unusual Monuments and Places
photo
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In the 1960s, a so-called "Green Belt of Glory" was created around St. Petersburg, which includes several dozen different monuments and memorials dedicated to the heroic defense of Leningrad. Today, I will talk about one of the most emotionally harrowing monuments. It is the "Flower of Life" monument, located in the Vsevolozhsky District of the Leningrad Region.
Anyone who has traveled at least once along the Road of Life, connecting St. Petersburg and Lake Ladoga, has seen this 15-meter concrete memorial, erected in memory of the children who died during the 900-day siege of Leningrad.
The monument is located at the third kilometer of the Road of Life, along which, during the harsh years of the blockade, Leningrad residents were evacuated from the besieged city. The monument, shaped like a giant concrete flower, was designed by architect Pavel Melnikov and installed in the valley of the Lubya River in the autumn of 1968. On the stone daisy are carved the words of the famous children's song "Let There Always Be Sunshine." On another petal, the face of a schoolboy is depicted.
During the blockade, children, like adults, had to endure all the horrors of war: hunger, cold, endless bombings, and artillery shelling. Over nearly 900 days, about 150,000 shells and more than 100,000 incendiary and high-explosive bombs were dropped on Leningrad. As a result, about three thousand buildings were completely destroyed, and around seven thousand more were seriously damaged. Children and teenagers actively participated in building defensive structures: pillboxes, barricades, and anti-tank obstacles. Only three percent of Leningrad residents died as a result of bombings and artillery shelling; the remaining 97 percent died from hunger and cold. According to official data, this amounts to 630,000 people, tens of thousands of whom were children. The "Flower of Life" memorial was created in their memory.

In the 1970s, next to the concrete flower appeared the Alley of Friendship, planted by participants of the All-Union Pioneer Rally delegation. On both sides of the alley, commemorative signs are installed, dedicated to pioneer heroes, young partisans, and home front workers, and it ends with another memorial. The mourning mound is a small artificial hill where, surrounded by birch trees, blocks are installed with words carved from Tanya Savicheva’s diary.
The first entry in her famous diary was made by 11-year-old Tanya Savicheva on December 28, 1941. On that day, her older sister Zhenya died. By mid-May 1942, Tanya was the only one left from her large family. After that, she was evacuated from besieged Leningrad to the territory of present-day Nizhny Novgorod Region, where she died on July 1, 1944, from bone tuberculosis and other accompanying diseases such as extreme dystrophy. Her blockade diary became a testament to the horrors of those terrible 900 days, in memory of which a birch grove was planted next to the "Flower of Life" memorial: 900 trees — one for each day of the blockade.

Sources:
https://dzen.ru/a/Xi2d15UV7gCup9GF

photo
Jermaine

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Great Architects: Jean Thomas de Thomon
One of the symbols of Saint Petersburg is an integral part of the ensemble of the Spit of Vasilievsky Island. Two rostral columns were erected between 1805 and 1810 according to the design of the French architect Thomas de Thomon, who decorated them with ship prows on both sides of Vasilievsky Island.
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Jermaine

Fountain "Four Sphinxes" or "Four Witches"

Pulkovskoye Highway, 74, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 196140

Petersburg: Unusual Monuments and Places
Samson Sukhanov: Master of Stonework
Petersburg: Egyptian Motifs
Great Architects: Jean Thomas de Thomon
At the corners of the rectangular pedestal stood sphinxes, which had "the body of a lion and the head and chest of a girl." Many architects believed that "in terms of originality and artistic value, the Tomonovsky fountain with sphinxes near Pulkovo Hill is unparalleled." The sphinxes were also made of granite; earlier they appeared to be bronze, then, when they turned green from dampness and were covered with moss, the locals nicknamed them the "Fountain of Witches" or the "Four Witches." Now they have been cleaned, but the name has stuck.
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Jermaine

Portico of the New Hermitage or the Atlantes of the Hermitage

Millionnaya St., 35, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 190000

Petersburg: Unusual Monuments and Places
The Portico of the New Hermitage is a porch in the form of a covered gallery located in front of the main entrance to the New Hermitage building in Saint Petersburg, situated on the main (southern) facade of the building facing Millionnaya Street. Until the mid-1920s, this was the museum entrance. The portico is adorned with ten huge figures of atlantes created by sculptor A. I. Terebenev and his assistants, made from gray Serdobol granite, standing on pedestals of rapakivi granite and supporting the architrave. The other elements of the portico — pylons, frieze, and balcony columns — are made from Kirnovsky marbleized limestone. During the 2000 restoration of the building, the Kirnovsky stone was painted over to resemble plaster, resulting in the loss of its natural color and texture.
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Jermaine

The Noon Gun at the Peter and Paul Fortress

Peter and Paul Fortress, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 191186

Petersburg: Unusual Monuments and Places
“To the cannon! Hand on the trigger! Count – 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 – fire!” For many generations, Petersburgers have synchronized their watches at 12:00 noon with the shot from the Naryshkin Bastion. Interestingly, the crew always loads two cannons, even though only one is fired. Why? The thing is, sometimes there are misfires, old shells are found, and the shot doesn’t go off. That’s why two cannons are kept ready just in case.
photo
Jermaine

The first Soviet nuclear submarine (SSN) K-3 "Leninsky Komsomol"

Island of Forts, Citadel Highway, 14, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 197760

Petersburg: Unusual Monuments and Places
Nuclear submarines today are the foundation of the underwater fleets of all nuclear powers. The first Soviet nuclear submarine, K-3 "Leninsky Komsomol," raised the naval flag on July 1, 1958. Three days later, it was the first in the Soviet Union to operate under its main power plant—a nuclear reactor—and four years later, it was the first in the USSR to surface through the ice at the North Pole. In early August 2021, it was announced that the submarine (nuclear-powered submarine) K-3 "Leninsky Komsomol" would depart from the Northern Fleet to Kronstadt—to its permanent berth at the Museum of Naval Glory, where it is currently located.
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Jermaine

S-189 — Soviet medium submarine of Project 613

Lieutenant Schmidt Embankment, 36, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 199034

Petersburg: Unusual Monuments and Places
S-189 is a Soviet medium submarine of Project 613, which was part of the Baltic Fleet. After decommissioning, it was converted into a museum ship in Saint Petersburg.
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Jermaine

Submarine D-2 "Narodovolets"

Skippersky Lane, 10, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 199106

Petersburg: Unusual Monuments and Places
D-2 "Narodovolets" (series I, project D — "Dekabrist", factory No. 178) was a Soviet diesel-electric torpedo submarine from the World War II era. During the war, the "D-2" completed 4 combat patrols, carried out 12 torpedo attacks launching 19 torpedoes, sank one ship (4090 GRT), and damaged one ship (2972 GRT). In terms of length of service, no other submarine in the Soviet and Russian fleets matches this vessel. Various winds caressed her naval flag, and the waves of the Baltic, Barents, and Kara Seas closed over her.
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Jermaine

Monument to Catherine II

pl. Ostrovskogo, 1, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 191023

Petersburg: Unusual Monuments and Places
The monument to Catherine II in Saint Petersburg is located on Ostrovsky Square, next to the Alexandrinsky Theatre. It was erected in 1873 and is one of the main attractions of the city.
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Jermaine

Alliluyev Apartment Museum

10th Sovetskaya St., 17B, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 191144

Petersburg: Unusual Monuments and Places
The Alliluyev Apartment Museum was opened in 1997, based on the former Lenin Apartment Museum. S. Ya. Alliluyev was a worker from Saint Petersburg who participated in the revolutionary events of 1917. His political activity was connected with some of the most important historical figures: V. I. Lenin, I. V. Stalin, G. K. Ordzhonikidze, and many others. The apartment in the former tenement house is famous because in 1917 V. I. Lenin and G. E. Zinoviev hid here from persecution. In the autumn of the same year, I. V. Stalin lived here. Alliluyev’s youngest daughter, Nadezhda, later became his wife.
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Jermaine

Horse heads at Kolomenskaya 45

Volokolamsky Lane, 9, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 191119

Petersburg: Unusual Monuments and Places
Walking along Kolomenskaya Street past the corner two-story house No. 45, from the wall of which two horse heads emerge. These two unusual sculptures were cast in the second half of the 19th century and today are among the few surviving artifacts of the Yamskaya part — the carriage drivers' station of pre-revolutionary Petersburg.
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Jermaine

The Bulls of Demut-Malinovsky or the Story of "Vzorushka" and "Nevzorushka"

Obvodny Canal Embankment, 102, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 196084

Petersburg: Unusual Monuments and Places
These are two famous bronze sculptures created by the outstanding Russian master Vasily Demut-Malinovsky in 1827. The statues are considered masterpieces of animalistic sculpture. Among the public and specialists, the sculptures are known as Vzorushka (left) and Nevzorushka (right).
photo
Jermaine