The exhibition project "The GREAT VICTORY" is planned in the Central Exhibition Hall "Manege"

From November 4 to December 8, 2025, the Patriarchal Council for Culture of the Russian Orthodox Church, together with the Federal Archival Agency and the State Archive of the Russian Federation, is implementing the historical and documentary exhibition project "GREAT VICTORY. Russia is My Story", the final year of the celebration of the 80th anniversary of the Great Victory.

The exhibition covers the period from the invasion of Nazi Germany and its satellites into the USSR on June 22, 1941, to the signing of the Japanese Surrender Act on September 2, 1945, which officially ended World War II.

The exhibition features more than 700 exhibits. These are unique archival documents and museum artifacts from the Great Patriotic War period from 50 federal and departmental archives and museums in Russia and Belarus, as well as private collections.

Among the exhibits: USSR People's Commissar of Defense Directive No. 1 on putting troops on alert; decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on the establishment of the State Defense Committee; handwritten text of V.M. Molotov's radio address to the population of the USSR on June 22, 1941; message from Patriarchal Locum Tenens, Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) of Moscow and Kolomna with the blessing of the defenders Motherland, "The Blockade Diary" by Olga Bergholts; a sword in a scabbard – a gift from King George VI of Great Britain to the citizens of Stalingrad in 1943; draft of a personal message from I.V. Stalin to the President of the United States F. Roosevelt criticized the Allied position on the opening of a second front in Europe; an autograph of Marshal G.K. Zhukov's speech at the Victory Day Parade on June 24, 1945, the ceremonial uniform and awards of the war period of the Supreme Commander of the Soviet Union, I.V. Stalin, the original Act of Military Surrender of Germany on May 8, 1945 and the Act of Surrender of Japan.

Visitors will be able to see the personal belongings of the heroes of the Great Patriotic War: Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya's notebook; the award list of pilot Alexei Maresyev; the greatcoat of sniper Lyudmila Pavlichenko; members of the underground anti-fascist organization Molodaya Gvardiya.

The section "Ordinary Nazism" includes documents about the crimes of the Nazi invaders, Ukrainian and Baltic nationalists, about the monstrous attitude of the occupiers towards Soviet prisoners of war and civilians imprisoned in concentration camps, A.A. Pechersky's shirt, presented to him by Luke, a prisoner of the Sobibor concentration camp, before escaping from the camp.

The exhibition finale includes sections dedicated to the decisions of the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials of the main war criminals.

The exhibition will be complemented by objects and documents related to the Soviet-Japanese war of August-September 1945.