Monument to «Students, Professors, Employees of the Moscow Architectural Institute Who Fell During the Great Patriotic War»
In the first hours and days after the attack of nazi Germany on the Soviet Union, at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, meetings of workers and employees took place at the plants and factories of Moscow (Dynamo, Sergo Ordzhonikidze, Krasnaya Roza, Bolshevichka, etc.). Muscovites condemned the aggressors with anger and indignation and expressed their readiness to stand up for the Motherland with their breasts. Thousands of people, who for various reasons were not subject to mobilization, demanded immediate dispatch to the front in order to personally take part in the armed struggle against the enemy. The flow of such statements increased every day. It was planned to mobilize 200 thousand people in the people’s militia division in the city of Moscow and 70 thousand people in the Moscow region. The districts of the Moscow Region formed separate units and poured them into divisions at the direction of the headquarters of the Moscow Military District. The formation of the militia took place on a voluntary basis. It was planned that each of the 25 districts of the capital that existed at that time should form its own division of the people’s militia. By July 7, 1941, it was required to form 12 divisions in the capital. The age limit of the militia was from 17 to 55 years. Nevertheless, in fact, older Muscovites also got into the militia, regardless of their state of health and age. 16-year-olds aspired to the front and even 15-year-old boys and girls, as well as elderly people who were over 60, and in some cases over 70 years old. This is evidenced by the lists of militia members preserved in the archives. Among the militia there were students, teachers, employees of Moscow Architectural Institute, many of them fell during the fighting. In memory of their feat a monument has been erected on the territory of Moscow Architectural Institute. Elena Mikhailovna Markovskaya was its author. Developing the project of the monument, Elena Mikhailovna proposed a very concise form for it: a horizontal composition of red granite (the author chose it herself), «dissected» in the middle and resembling a torn architectural meander. The dates «1941-1945» are stamped on the front part, and the inscription «To students and teachers of Moscow Architectural Institute who fell for their Motherland during the Great Patriotic War» is on the side.
Address: Moscow, Rozhdestvenka str., 11
