OREANDA-NEWS. On September 9, 2014 eighth-grade students of the Lyceum No. 470 of the Kalininsky district of St. Petersburg visited the Volhovskaya HPP as part of educational project Energy Hour.

The workers of the first HPP, that was built in the Leningrad Oblast according to GOELRO plan, performed as teachers of extracurricular activities The guests had a fascinating tour: they visited the engine room, looked at the main control room, where they could talk to the HPP staff, who told the students how the plant operates and answered their questions.

- The Volhovskaya HPP is impressive. The huge hydraulic structure on the great River Volkhov. Our ancestors built to last - the plant is about 90 years old, but it is still in service, - says the lyceum student Dmitry Vedenichev. - Now I have an idea of how electricity at hydroelectric power plants is produced. The cycle is simple - water, turbine, generator, switchgears, electrical grids, the light bulb in the apartment.

Energy Hour continued in the museum of the Volkhovskaya HPP. The schoolchildren were especially impressed by the photos of the World War II and the models, which depicted the history of the energy blockades and its breakthrough. Along the "cable life", laid from the Volkhovskaya HPP along the bottom of Lake Ladoga, the electricity started coming to the besieged Leningrad. This day - September 23, 1942 - was inscribed in the chronicle of the war as the breakthrough day of the energy blockade of Leningrad.

- These tours are very useful in terms of career guidance. Work of the real enterprises surprises modern pupils. For some time they stay shocked that there are people who do not work in the office, and then they learn about new professions first hand - said the teacher of Russian language and literature Julia Gryshchenko.