On May 7, 2023, clerics and young laypeople from The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Ingria, The Russian Orthodox Church, The Armenian Apostolic Church, other Christian confessions and other religions participated in a commemoration and servant event entitled “There is No Faith without Memory, There is No Faith without Works.” Its goal was to keep up the memory of the heroism of Leningrad residents during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. The attendance included Vladimir Ivanov, chief of the Department for Relations with Religious Associations in the St. Petersburg government.The young people of the traditional religious confessions laid flowers at a monument called Wagonetka (Russian for “minecart” or “railway skip wagon”, a side-tipping railway wagon) in Moskovsky Victory Park, St. Petersburg.
The monument has special significance for the people of St. Petersburg. It is located on the former grounds of a brick & pumice factory which was converted into a crematorium during the Siege of Leningrad. Part of the bodies of the starvation and warfare victims (estimates range from 100,000 to 600,000) were burned in this crematorium. The “minecarts” pushed manually or by a motorized speeder on small railways were used for the cremation of the bodies and the dumping of the ashes into the nearby quarries and ponds. After the war, the factory was demolished and the territory was turned into a park.
The young people planted new flowers in the flowerbeds around the monument.
Photos by Diana Huseinova
