On 27 January, Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Leningrad, celebrates the end of the city’s 872-day siege during WWII, which left more civilians dead than bombing of Hamburg, Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is visiting Piskaryovskoe Cemetery, where he will lay flowers at the resting place for heroic St. Petersburg residents who succumbed to the Nazi stranglehold on what was the second-largest city in the Soviet Union. It’s estimated that over 1.5 million people perished in the valiant attempt to thwart Hitler’s invading forces.