Dear veterans, professors, lecturers, staff members, graduate students and students of Emperor Alexander I St. Petersburg State Transport University!

Victory Day is a majestic, national-wide holiday in our country, a symbol of heroism of our people, their true grit and indomitable spirit. Selfless devotion to the Fatherland, typical for the older generation, teaches young people to love Russia.

This day fills our hearts with complex emotions: pleasure, sadness, compassion, nobility. We put on a pedestal the courage of all those who won the freedom in 1945, we admire the heroes of transport, who ensured the connection between battlefront and home front. We will never forget the losses, tough days and hardships, which came our people’s way. 1423 lecturers, staff members and students of the University did not return from the war. They honorably fulfilled their duty to the Fatherland. The feat of the heroes will forever serve as an example of dedication and courage.

Leningrad entered a special page in the history of the Great Patriotic War, the Great Victory over Nazi invaders. The inhabitants of the besieged city were left without supplies of food and fuel to heat homes for 900 days. They died from hunger, cold, constant attacks of the enemy. Leningraders not only survived these inhuman hardships, but also defended our city, kept its majestic beauty for future generations. One of the islands of this brave resistance was our Institute, which worked even in the darkest days of the siege...

Lessons of the Great Patriotic War teach us unity in the fight against the threat of oblivion. Only together we will be able to resist the falsifications of history, distortions of the events of the war. It is our duty to heroes-winners.

Victory will always live in our hearts! I sincerely congratulate you on the Victory Day and wish you peace, health and longevity, prosperity and happiness!

Rector Alexander Y. Panychev