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| Abdul Khan and Olga Igumnova (on the left) |
By Theo Russell
Russians
and British friends of Russia gathered at Rossotrudnichestvo, the Russian
cultural centre in Kensington, London, last week to mark the 76th anniversary
of the end of the Battle of Stalingrad on 2nd February 1943.
This event, on 1st February,
also marked 75 years since ties were formed between the peoples of Stalingrad
and the English city of Coventry. Whilst the battle for Stalingrad was still
raging, the people of Coventry began sending medicine and other supplies to the
city on the Volga River.
Those ties still remain strong today,
despite recent problems between the two countries.
They were the world’s first twinned cities and started an international
twinning movement.
Coventry was devastated by the German
bombing of the city on 14–15 November 1941.
The following year 900 Coventry women paid
sixpence each to have their names embroidered on a tablecloth that was sent to
the women of Stalingrad. Today the tablecloth has an honoured place in the
Panorama Museum of the Battle of Stalingrad in the city that was renamed
Volgograd in 1961.
In response, 36,000 women in Stalingrad
signed an album that was sent to Coventry and in 1944 an official “bond of
friendship” was created between the two cities.
After the war the people of Coventry
continued to organise assistance for rebuilding the shattered city and the
Queen Mother was made an honorary citizen of Volgograd.
Stalingrad was the bloodiest battle in
world history, and could be said to have decided the destinies not only of
Russia but of the whole world.
Councillor Abdul Khan, deputy leader of
Coventry City Council, said: “Today, at a time of difficulties in relations
between Russia and Britain, such links are paramount in maintaining trust and
friendly relations.”
He announced that a series of friendship
murals at Volgograd Place in Coventry, opened in 1972, is now being moved from
under the city’s ring road to pride of place in the main central square.
Olga Igumnova Lawson, speaking for the
‘House of Europe in Volgograd’, a Russian quango, recalled the
order issued by General Friedrich Paulus, commander of the German 6th Army, for
every inhabitant of Stalingrad to be exterminated.
She said that recent historical research
has revealed that three million people took part in the battle, not two million
as previously believed.
The bombing of Stalingrad on 23rd
August 1942, before the assault, was the worst of the whole war, killing 40,000
of the 400,000 inhabitants. By February 1942 the number of inhabitants was
reduced to 10,000. Most of Olga’s family members died in the battle but her
grandmother survived.
Olga stressed the enduring importance of
“people’s diplomacy” in preserving the close and sacred ties that were formed
during those tragic days of immense suffering and war.
The evening ended with an emotional piano
rendition by Olga of Kalinka, a
famous Russian song popularised in the West by the Red Army Choir after the
war.
