Exhibition 'Sverdlovsk: Moscow Calling!'

About exhibition

The museum's exhibition tells about the activities of the All-Union Committee for Broadcasting and the work of All-Union Radio announcer Yuri Levitan, the main voice of Victory, during his evacuation to Sverdlovsk from autumn 1941 to spring 1943. The museum recreates the radio studio from which broadcasts were made and the legendary phrase 'Moscow Calling!' was heard; on unique archival video footage you can see the announcer at the microphone, and using audio panels hear Yuri Levitan's voice and listen to recordings of the most important Sovinformburo bulletins. The museum pays special attention to the events of the Great Patriotic War (1941–1945) and to the feat of the City of Labour Glory of Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg). The exhibition features household items, rare archival photographs and documents that tell about life in Sverdlovsk during the war. Yuri Borisovich Levitan was an announcer for All-Union Radio of the State Committee of the USSR Council of Ministers for Television and Radio Broadcasting and a People's Artist of the USSR. He is called the country's main voice, the voice of Victory. During the Great Patriotic War he was entrusted with reading the bulletins of the Soviet Information Bureau and the orders of I. V. Stalin. During that period he read about 2,000 frontline bulletins and more than 120 emergency announcements, some of which, on behalf of Moscow, were broadcast from wartime Sverdlovsk. On May 9, 1945, Yuri Levitan was the first to announce the victory and the end of the war.