On July 13, we commemorate the day of remembrance for the holy new martyr Alexander of Munich, a name given by the Russian Orthodox Church to Alexander Shmorel from Orenburg upon his canonization 10 years ago. At the age of 25, while a medical student at the University of Munich, he was executed by the Nazis on July 13, 1943. Shmorel, along with his comrades, founded the underground anti-fascist group 'White Rose' in the summer of 1942. They were accused of 'treason', 'aiding the enemy', and 'undermining the combat effectiveness of the Wehrmacht'. The anti-Hitler leaflets that Shmorel wrote and distributed in Nazi Germany with Hans Scholl have become classics of German literature.

Russians resonate not only with Shmorel's and his comrades' appeals to the German nation but also with his more romantic expressions. In one letter written 80 years ago from the Eastern Front near Gzhatsk (now the city of Gagarin in the Smolensk region) to a friend in Munich, he described Russia: 'Beautiful, magnificent Russia! Birch, your tree. There, far, far away, where the earth meets the sky, on the edge of an infinitely wide valley, it stands alone and reaches for the heavens. You, lonely birch, the eternal steppe wind caresses, ruffles, breaks you. You, its eternal toy. Is not the Russian man like you? Is he not just as lonely, are not his colors your colors, just as bright, white, and tender green, is not his soft soul like your soft white trunk... And is he not as beautiful as you?' These lines are engraved in granite at the Shmorel memorial on Park Avenue in Orenburg, in front of the entrance to the Orenburg State Medical University.

The monument with a bronze bust of Alexander Shmorel, an Orenburg native and anti-fascist hero, under Orthodox mosaic icons depicting him as a saint, was installed here in September 2020. On September 16, 2022, Alexander Shmorel would have turned 105 years old.