The Battle of Stalingrad continued for 200 days and nights, marking the beginning of a radical turning point in the Great Patriotic War. As a result of the barbaric actions of the fascist aggressor, and then fierce street battles, Stalingrad was almost completely destroyed by the spring of 1943. The city lost 51 of the 126 pre-war businesses, 46 hospitals and clinics out of 56, 88 schools out of 112, 89 preschool institutions out of 100, all theaters and 11 movie theaters. Out of 5,695 municipal and departmental buildings, 5,076 (89%) were in ruins, as well as more than 46,000 private homes. The Nazis destroyed water mains and filtration stations, tram tracks and tram parks, railway stations and depots, piers and bridges. The total damage caused to Stalingrad exceeded 9 billion rubles. In the city, where more than 0.5 million people lived before the war, just over 1.5 thousand remained, mainly randomly remaining women and children .1 Foreign journalists who visited Stalingrad in February 1943 believed that it was almost impossible to restore it in its former place and in its former form. The Soviet people thought otherwise. For our people, it was a matter of honor not only to restore what was destroyed, but also to make the city more beautiful and comfortable than before. The restoration work was led by regional and city party organizations. Concrete ways of future reconstruction were considered at the XI plenum of the regional party committee on January 20-21, 1943, i.e., when fierce fighting was still going on in the city. At that time, measures were approved to revive destroyed enterprises, deploy military production on them, restore housing, water supply, and transport. Then they had to be implemented. From the very beginning, the restoration of Stalingrad was under the relentless control of the Central Committee of the CPSU(b) and the Soviet government. In early April 1943, the State Defense Committee adopted a resolution "On priority measures for the restorati ... Читать далее