The Karpinsky Institute held a ceremony to congratulate veterans and citizens of besieged Leningrad on the 80th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War

In his congratulatory message to the veterans, First Deputy Director General Maksim Aleksandrovich Tkachenko noted: ‘Much has been written about the Institute's war years. The feats of geologists during the war can be enumerated endlessly. We will always remember those who endured the war and won for the sake of peace on earth and happiness of future generations.  We will remember those who died in tough battles and cold besieged city. Their names are imprinted on the memorial plaques of our institute and in the portraits of our Immortal Regiment exhibition. No one is forgotten and nothing is forgotten!’

A concert was organized for the guests, featuring performances by laureates of Russian and international competitions, solo artists of vocal ensembles and choir of the folk singing department of the St. Petersburg Musical School of M. P. Mussorgsky.

It should be reminded that at the very beginning of the war, 340 employees of the Institute were conscripted into the Red Army and the People's Militia. 47 people did not return from the battlefields. Their names are placed on memorial plaques next to the main staircase of the Institute.

67 employees of the Institute, the Russian Geological Library, Academician F.N. Chernyshev Central Geological Research Museum, and the Cartographic Factory remained in the blockade of Leningrad. 27 people died.

During the war, our institute set up a department of military geology, which dealt with electrical prospecting and logging of abandoned wells to provide the city with drinking water. Our geophysicists created electrical and magnetic metal detectors to search for sunken ships, and also designed a machine to detect unexploded bombs. The Institute's chemists developed a technology for producing vitamins from pine needles and even created a special unit for industrial production.

The evacuated specialists of the Institute solved the most important task of developing and using in the interests of the front the mineral resource base of the East, Siberia, Kazakhstan, Central Asia, South Caucasus and the Urals.