True love stories in besieged Leningrad. Stories about the legendary cats that survived the siege of Leningrad

Hello to all lovers of facts and events. Today we will briefly tell you interesting facts about the siege of Leningrad for children and adults. The defense of besieged Leningrad is one of the most tragic pages of our history and one of the most difficult events. The unprecedented feat of the residents and defenders of this city will forever remain in the memory of the people. Let us briefly talk about some unusual facts related to those events.

The harshest winter

The most difficult time during the entire siege was the first winter. She seemed very stern. The temperature dropped repeatedly down to -32 °C. The frosts were prolonged, the air remained cold for many days. Also, due to a natural anomaly, during almost the entire first winter the city never experienced the usual thaw for this area. The snow continued to lie for a long time, making life difficult for the townspeople. Even by April 1942, the average thickness of its cover reached 50 cm. The air temperature remained below zero almost until May.\

The siege of Leningrad lasted 872 days

No one still can believe that our people held out for so long, and this is taking into account the fact that no one was ready for this, since at the beginning of the blockade there was not enough food and fuel to hold out normally. Many did not survive the hunger and cold, but Leningrad did not succumb. And after 872 it was completely liberated from the Nazis. During this time, 630 thousand Leningraders died.

Metronome – the heartbeat of the city

To promptly notify all city residents about shelling and bombing on the streets of Leningrad, the authorities installed 1,500 loudspeakers. The sound of the metronome has become a real symbol of the living city. A quick report of the rhythm meant the approach of enemy aircraft and the imminent start of the bombing.

A slow rhythm signaled the end of the alarm. The radio worked 24 hours a day. By order of the leadership of the besieged city, residents were forbidden to turn off the radio. It was the main source of information. When the announcers stopped broadcasting the program, the metronome continued its countdown. This knock was called the heartbeat of the city.

One and a half million evacuated residents

During the entire blockade, almost 1.5 million people were evacuated to the rear. This is about half the population of Leningrad. Three major waves of evacuation were carried out. Approximately 400 thousand children were taken to the rear during the first stage of evacuation before the siege began, but many were then forced to return back, since the Nazis occupied these places in the Leningrad region where they took refuge. After the blockade ring was closed, the evacuation continued across Lake Ladoga.

Who besieged the city

In addition to the direct German units and troops that carried out the main actions against the Soviet troops, other military formations from other countries also fought on the side of the Nazis. On the northern side, the city was blocked by Finnish troops. Italian formations were also present at the front.

They served torpedo boats operating against our troops on Lake Ladoga. However, the Italian sailors were not particularly effective. In addition, the Blue Division, formed from Spanish Phalangists, also fought in this direction. Spain was not officially at war with the Soviet Union, and there were only volunteer units on its side at the front.

Cats who saved the city from rodents

Almost all domestic animals were eaten by residents of besieged Leningrad already in the first winter of the siege. Due to the lack of cats, rats have proliferated terribly. Food supplies were under threat. Then it was decided to get cats from other regions of the country. In 1943, four carriages arrived from Yaroslavl. They were filled with smoky-colored cats - they are considered the best rat catchers. The cats were distributed to residents and after a short time the rats were defeated.

125 grams of bread

This was the minimum ration that children, employees and dependents received during the most difficult period of the siege. The workers received 250 grams of bread; 300 grams were given to members of fire brigades who extinguished fires and fire bombs, and to school students. 500 grams were received by fighters on the front line of defense.

Siege bread consisted largely of cake, malt, bran, rye and oatmeal. It was very dark, almost black, and very bitter. Its nutritional properties were not enough for any adult. People could not last long on such a diet and died en masse from exhaustion.

Losses during the siege

There is no exact data on the dead, however, it is believed that at least 630 thousand people died. Some estimates put the death toll as high as 1.5 million. The greatest losses occurred in the first winter of the siege. During this period of time alone, more than a quarter of a million people died from hunger, disease and other causes. According to statistics, women turned out to be more resilient than men. The share of the male population in the total number of deaths is 67%, and women 37%.

Pipeline underwater

It is known that to ensure the city's fuel supply, a steel pipeline was laid along the bottom of the lake. In the most difficult conditions, with constant shelling and bombing, in just a month and a half, more than 20 km of pipes were installed at a depth of 13 meters, through which oil products were then pumped to supply fuel to the city and the troops defending it.

"Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony"

The famous “Leningrad” symphony was first performed, contrary to popular belief, not in the besieged city, but in Kuibyshev, where Shostakovich lived in evacuation in March 1942... In Leningrad itself, residents were able to hear it in August. The Philharmonic was filled with people. At the same time, the music was broadcast over the radio and loudspeakers so that everyone could hear it. The symphony could be heard by both our troops and the fascists besieging the city.

The problem with tobacco

In addition to problems with food shortages, there was an acute shortage of tobacco and shag. During production, a variety of fillers began to be added to tobacco for volume - hops, tobacco dust. But even this could not completely solve the problem. It was decided to use maple leaves for these purposes - they were best suited for this. Schoolchildren collected fallen leaves and collected more than 80 tons of them. This helped make the necessary supplies of ersatz tobacco.

The zoo survived the siege of Leningrad

It was a difficult time. Leningraders were literally dying from hunger and cold; there was no help to come from. People could not even really take care of themselves, and naturally, they had no time for the animals who were at that time awaiting their fate in the Leningrad Zoo.

But even in this difficult time, there were people who were able to save the unfortunate animals and prevent them from dying. Shells were exploding on the street every now and then, the water supply and electricity were turned off, and there was nothing to feed or water the animals. Zoo employees urgently began transporting the animals. Some of them were transported to Kazan, and some to the territory of Belarus.

Naturally, not all the animals were saved, and some of the predators had to be shot with their own hands, since if they had somehow gotten free from the cages, they would have become a threat to the residents. But nevertheless, this feat will never be forgotten.

Be sure to watch this documentary video. After watching it, you will not remain indifferent.

Shame on the song

Quite a popular video blogger Milena Chizhova was recording a song about Susi-Pusi and her teenage relationships and for some reason inserted the line “Between us there is the blockade of Leningrad.” This act outraged Internet users so much that they immediately began to dislike the blogger.

After she realized what a stupid thing she had done, she immediately deleted the video from everywhere. But nevertheless, the original version is still floating around the Internet, and you can listen to an excerpt of it.

For today, these are all the interesting facts about the siege of Leningrad for children and more. We tried to talk about them briefly, but it is not so easy. Of course, there are many more of them, because this period left an important historical mark on our country. The heroic deed will never be forgotten.

We are waiting for you again on our portal.

In world history, many sieges of cities and fortresses are known, where civilians also took refuge. But during the days of the terrible blockade, which lasted 900 days, schools were open, in which thousands of children studied - history has never known such a thing.

Over the years, I recorded the memories of schoolchildren who survived the siege. Some of those who shared them with me are no longer alive. But their voices remained alive. Those for whom suffering and courage have become everyday life in a besieged city.

The first bombings hit Leningrad 70 years ago, at the beginning of September 1941, when children had just started going to school. “Our school, located in an old building, had large basements,” Valentina Ivanovna Polyakova, a future doctor, told me. - Teachers equipped classrooms in them. They hung school boards on the walls. As soon as the air raid alarms sounded on the radio, they fled to the basements. Since there was no light, they resorted to an old method, which they knew about only from books - they burned splinters. The teacher met us with a torch at the entrance to the basement. We took our seats. The class attendant now had the following responsibilities: he prepared torches in advance and stood with a lit stick, illuminating the school board on which the teacher wrote problems and poems. It was difficult for students to write in the semi-darkness, so lessons were learned by heart, often to the sound of explosions.” This is a typical picture for besieged Leningrad.

During the bombing, teenagers and children, together with MPVO fighters, climbed to the roofs of houses and schools to save them from incendiary bombs that German planes dropped in sheaves on Leningrad buildings. “When I first climbed to the roof of my house during the bombing, I saw a menacing and unforgettable sight,” recalled Yuri Vasilyevich Maretin, an orientalist scientist. – The beams of searchlights walked across the sky.

It seemed as if all the streets around had moved and the houses were swaying from side to side. The claps of anti-aircraft guns. The fragments drum on the roofs. Each of the guys tried not to show how scared he was.

We watched to see if a “lighter” would fall on the roof and quickly put it out by putting it in a box with sand. Teenagers lived in our house - the Ershov brothers, who saved our house from many incendiary bombs. Then both brothers died of starvation in 1942.”

“To cope with German lighters, we acquired a special skill,” recalled chemist Yuri Ivanovich Kolosov. “First of all, we had to learn how to move quickly on the sloping, slippery roof. The incendiary bomb ignited instantly. Not a second could be missed. We held long tongs in our hands. When the incendiary bomb fell on the roof, it hissed and flared, thermite spray flying around. I had to not get confused and throw the “lighter” down to the ground.” Here are lines from the journal of the headquarters of the MPVO Kuibyshevsky district of Leningrad:

“September 16, 1941 School 206: 3 incendiary bombs were dropped into the school yard. Extinguished by the forces of teachers and students.

The front line surrounded the city like an iron arc. Every day the blockade became more merciless. The city lacked the most important thing - food. The standards for bread distribution were constantly decreasing.

On November 20, 1941, the most tragic days began. Critical standards for life support were established: workers were given 250 grams of bread per day, employees, dependents and children - 125 grams. And even these pieces of bread were incomplete. The recipe for Leningrad bread of those days: rye flour, defective - 50%, cake - 10%, soy flour - 5%, bran - 5%, malt - 10%, cellulose - 15%. Famine struck in Leningrad. They cooked and ate belts, pieces of leather, glue, and carried home soil in which particles of flour from food warehouses bombed by the Germans had settled. There were frosts in November. There was no heat supplied to the houses. There was frost on the walls of the apartments, and the ceilings were covered in ice. There was no water or electricity. In those days, almost all Leningrad schools were closed. The blockade hell began.

A.V. Molchanov, engineer: “When you remember the winter of 1941-42, it seems that there was no day, no daylight. And only the endless, cold night continued. I was ten years old. I went to get water with a kettle. I was so weak that while I was fetching water, I rested several times. Previously, when climbing the stairs in the house, I ran, jumping over the steps. And now, going up the stairs, he often sat down and rested. It was very slippery and the steps were icy. What I was most afraid of was that I might not be able to carry the kettle of water, I would fall and spill it.

Leningrad during the siege. Residents leave houses destroyed by the Nazis
We were so exhausted that when we went out to buy bread or water, we didn’t know whether we would have enough strength to return home. My school friend went for bread, fell and froze, he was covered with snow.

The sister began to look for him, but did not find him. Nobody knew what happened to him. In the spring, when the snow melted, the boy was found. In his bag there was bread and bread cards.”

“I didn’t take my clothes off all winter,” L.L. told me. Park, economist. - We slept in our clothes. Of course, we didn’t wash – there wasn’t enough water and heat. But then one day I took off my clothes and saw my legs. They were like two matches - that’s how I lost weight. I thought then with surprise - how does my body hold up on these matches? Suddenly they break off and won’t stand it.”

“In the winter of 1941, my school friend Vova Efremov came to me,” recalled Olga Nikolaevna Tyuleva, a journalist. “I hardly recognized him - he’s lost so much weight.” He was like a little old man. He was 10 years old. Sitting down on a chair, he said: “Lelya! I really want to eat! Do you have… something to read?” I gave him some book. A few days later I found out that Vova had died.”

They experienced the pangs of blockade hunger, when every cell of the exhausted body felt weak. They are accustomed to danger and death. Those who died of hunger lay in neighboring apartments, entrances, and on the streets. They were carried away and put into trucks by air defense soldiers.

Even rare joyful events were shadowed by the blockade.

“Unexpectedly, I was given a ticket to the New Year tree. It was in January 1942,” said L.L. Pack. – We lived then on Nevsky Prospekt. I didn't have far to go. But the road seemed endless. So I became weak. Our beautiful Nevsky Prospekt was littered with snowdrifts, among which there were trodden paths.

Nevsky Prospekt during the siege
Finally, I got to the Pushkin Theater, where they put up a festive tree. I saw a lot of board games in the theater lobby. Before the war, we would have rushed to these games. And now the children did not pay attention to them. They stood near the walls - quiet, silent.

The ticket indicated that we would be given lunch. Now all our thoughts revolved around this upcoming dinner: what will they give us to eat? The performance of the Operetta Theater “Wedding in Malinovka” has begun. It was very cold in the theater. The room was not heated. We sat in coats and hats. And the artists performed in ordinary theatrical costumes. How could they withstand such cold? Intellectually, I understood that they were saying something funny on stage. But I couldn't laugh. I saw it nearby - only sadness in the eyes of the children. After the performance we were taken to the Metropol restaurant. On beautiful plates we were served a small portion of porridge and a small cutlet, which I simply swallowed. When I approached my house, I saw a crater, entered the room - no one was there. The windows are broken. While I was at the Christmas tree, a shell exploded in front of the house. All residents of the communal apartment moved into one room, the windows of which overlooked the courtyard. They lived like this for some time. Then they blocked the windows with plywood and boards and returned to their room.”

What is striking in the memories of the siege survivors who survived the hard times at a young age is the incomprehensible craving for books, despite the cruel trials. The long days of the siege were spent reading.

Yuri Vasilyevich Maretin talked about this: “I reminded myself of a head of cabbage - I had so many clothes on. I was ten years old. In the morning I sat at a large desk and, by the light of a homemade smokehouse, read book after book. Mom, as best she could, created conditions for me to read. We had a lot of books in our house. I remembered how my father told me: “If you read books, son, you will know the whole world.” During that first winter of the siege, books replaced school for me. What did I read? Works by I.S. Turgeneva, A.I. Kuprina, K.M. Stanyukovich. I somehow lost track of the days and weeks. When the thick curtains were opened, nothing living was visible outside the window: icy roofs and walls of houses, snow, a gloomy sky. And the pages of books opened up a bright world to me.”

Children in a bomb shelter during a German air raid
On November 22, 1941, first sleigh convoys, and then trucks with food for the siege survivors, walked across the ice of Lake Ladoga. This was the highway connecting Leningrad with the mainland. The legendary “Road of Life”, as it came to be called. The Germans bombed it from airplanes, fired at it from long-range guns, and landed troops. The shelling caused craters to appear on the ice route, and if they fell into them at night, the car went under water. But the following trucks, avoiding the traps, continued to go towards the besieged city. In the first winter of the siege alone, more than 360 thousand tons of cargo were transported to Leningrad across the ice of Ladoga. Thousands of lives were saved. The norms for bread distribution gradually increased. In the coming spring, vegetable gardens appeared in courtyards, squares, and parks of the city.

On September 1, 1942, schools opened in the besieged city. In each class, there were no children who died from hunger and shelling. “When we came to school again,” said Olga Nikolaevna Tyuleva, “we had blockade conversations. We talked about where which edible grass grows. Which cereal is more satisfying? The children were quiet. They didn’t run around during recess, they didn’t play pranks. We didn't have the strength.

The first time two boys fought during recess, the teachers did not scold them, but were happy: “So our kids are coming to life.”

The road to school was dangerous. The Germans shelled the city streets.

“Not far from our school there were factories that were fired upon by German guns,” said Svet Borisovich Tikhvinsky, Doctor of Medical Sciences. “There were days when we crawled across the street to school on our bellies. We knew how to seize the moment between explosions, run from one corner to another, hide in a gateway. It was dangerous to walk.” “Every morning my mother and I said goodbye,” Olga Nikolaevna Tyuleva told me. - Mom went to work, I went to school. We didn’t know if we’d see each other, if we’d stay alive.” I remember I asked Olga Nikolaevna: “Was it necessary to go to school if the road was so dangerous?” “You see, we already knew that death can overtake you anywhere - in your own room, in a line for bread, in the yard,” she answered. – We lived with this thought. Of course, no one could force us to go to school. We just wanted to learn."

In the surgical department of the City Children's Hospital named after. Dr. Rauchfus 1941-1942
Many of my storytellers recalled how, during the days of the blockade, indifference to life gradually crept up on a person. Exhausted by hardships, people lost interest in everything in the world and in themselves. But in these cruel trials, even the young siege survivors believed: in order to survive, one must not succumb to apathy. They remembered their teachers. During the blockade, in cold classrooms, teachers gave lessons that were not on the schedule. These were lessons in courage. They encouraged the children, helped them, taught them to survive in conditions when it seemed impossible to survive. The teachers set an example of selflessness and dedication.

“We had a mathematics teacher N.I. Knyazheva,” said O.N. Tyuleva. “She headed the canteen committee, which monitored the consumption of food in the kitchen. So the teacher once fainted from hunger while watching how food was distributed to the children. This incident will forever remain in the memory of the children.” “The area where our school was located was shelled very often,” recalled A.V. Molchanov. – When the shelling began, teacher R.S. Zusmanovskaya said: “Children, calm down!” It was necessary to catch the moment between the explosions in order to reach the bomb shelter. Lessons continued there. One day, when we were in class, there was an explosion and the windows blew out. At that moment we didn’t even notice that R.S. Zusmanovskaya silently clasped her hand. Then they saw her hand covered in blood. The teacher was injured by glass fragments.”

Incredible events happened. This happened on January 6, 1943 at the Dynamo stadium. Speed skating competitions took place.

When Svet Tikhvinsky flew onto the treadmill, a shell exploded in the middle of the stadium. Everyone who was in the stands froze not only from the imminent danger, but also from the unusual sight. But he did not leave the circle and calmly continued his run to the finish line.

Eyewitnesses told me about this.

The blockade is a tragedy in which - in war as in war - heroism and cowardice, selflessness and self-interest, the strength of the human spirit and cowardice were manifested. It could not be otherwise when hundreds of thousands of people are involved in the daily struggle for life. It is all the more striking that in the stories of my interlocutors the theme of the cult of knowledge arose, to which they were committed, despite the cruel circumstances of the days of the siege.

IN AND. Polyakova recalled: “In the spring, everyone who could hold a shovel in their hands went out to chip away the ice and clean the streets. I also went out with everyone. While cleaning, I saw a periodic table drawn on the wall of one educational institution. While cleaning, I began to memorize it. I rake up the trash and repeat the table to myself. So that time is not wasted. I was in 9th grade and wanted to go to medical school.”

“When we returned to school again, I noticed that during breaks I often heard: “What did you read?” The book occupied an important place in our lives,” said Yu.V. Maretin. - We exchanged books, childishly boasted to each other about who knew more poetry. Once I saw a brochure in a store: “Memo for air defense fighters,” who extinguished fires and buried the dead. I thought then: wartime will pass, and this memo will become of historical value. Gradually I began to collect books and brochures published in Leningrad during the days of the siege. These were both works of classics and, say, siege recipes - how to eat pine needles, which tree buds, herbs, roots are edible. I looked for these publications not only in stores, but also at flea markets. I have amassed a substantial collection of these now rare books and brochures. Years later, I showed them at exhibitions in Leningrad and Moscow.”

“I often remember my teachers,” said S.B. Tikhvinsky. “After years, you realize how much the school gave us.” Teachers invited famous scientists to come and give presentations. In high school, we studied not only from school textbooks, but also from university textbooks. We published handwritten literary magazines in which children published their poems, stories, sketches, and parodies. Drawing competitions were held. School was always interesting. So no shelling could stop us. We spent all our days at school."

They were hard workers - young Leningraders. “It turned out that only three older children were alive in our house,” Yu.V. told me. Maretin. - We were from 11 to 14 years old. The rest died or were smaller than us. We ourselves decided to organize our own team to help restore our house. Of course, this was already when the bread quota was increased, and we became a little stronger. The roof of our house was broken in several places. They began to seal the holes with pieces of roofing felt. Helped with water pipe repairs. The house was without water. Together with the adults, we repaired and insulated the pipes. Our team worked from March to September. “We wanted to do everything in our power to help our city.” “We had a sponsored hospital,” said O.N. Tyuleva. “On weekends we visited the wounded. They wrote letters under their dictation, read books, and helped the nannies fix their laundry. They performed concerts in the chambers. We saw that the wounded were glad of our arrival.. Then we wondered why they were crying while listening to our singing.”

German propaganda implanted delusional racial theories into the heads of its soldiers.

The people who inhabited our country were declared inferior, subhuman, incapable of creativity, who did not need literacy. Their destiny, they say, is to be slaves of German masters.

Reaching their schools under fire, weakened by hunger, the children and their teachers defied the enemy. The fight against the invaders took place not only in the trenches surrounding Leningrad, but also at the highest, spiritual level. The same invisible band of resistance took place in the besieged schools.

Therefore, it is not surprising that thousands of teachers and schoolchildren who worked in hospitals and in repair teams saving houses from fires were awarded a military award - the medal “For the Defense of Leningrad”.

Lyudmila Ovchinnikova

STORIES OF CHILDREN OF BLOCKED LENINGRAD

On November 22, 1941, during the siege of Leningrad, an ice route across Lake Ladoga began to operate. Thanks to her, many children were able to evacuate. Before this, some of them went through orphanages: some of their relatives died, and some of them disappeared at work for days on end.

“At the beginning of the war, we probably didn’t realize that our childhood, family, and happiness would someday be destroyed. But we felt it almost immediately,” says Valentina Trofimovna Gershunina, who in 1942, at nine years old, was taken from orphanage in Siberia. Listening to the stories of survivors who grew up during the siege, you understand: having managed to save their lives, they lost their childhood. These guys had to do too many “adult” things while real adults were fighting - at the front or at the work benches.

Several women who once managed to be taken out of besieged Leningrad told us their stories. Stories about stolen childhoods, losses and life - against all odds.

"We saw grass and started eating it like cows"

The story of Irina Konstantinovna Potravnova

Little Ira lost her mother, brother and gift during the war. “I had perfect pitch. I managed to study at a music school,” says Irina Konstantinovna. “They wanted to take me to school at the conservatory without exams, they told me to come in September. And in June the war began.”

Irina Konstantinovna was born into an Orthodox family: her father was a regent in the church, and her mother sang in the choir. At the end of the 1930s, my father began working as the chief accountant of a technological institute. They lived in two-story wooden houses on the outskirts of the city. There were three children in the family, Ira was the youngest, she was called the stump. Dad died a year before the start of the war. And before his death he told his wife: “Just take care of your son.” The son died first - back in March. The wooden houses burned down during the bombing, and the family went to relatives. “Dad had an amazing library, and we could only take the most necessary things. We packed two large suitcases,” says Irina Konstantinovna. “It was a cold April. As if upstairs we felt that there should be frost. We wouldn’t have been able to pull it out in the slush at all. And On the way, our cards were stolen."

April 5, 1942 was Easter, and Irina Konstantinovna’s mother went to the market to buy at least duranda, the seed pulp left after pressing the oil. She returned with a fever and never got up again.

So the sisters, eleven and fourteen years old, were left alone. To get at least some cards, they had to go to the city center - otherwise no one would have believed that they were still alive. On foot - there has been no transport for a long time. And slowly - because there was no strength. It took three days to get there. And their cards were stolen again - all but one. The girls gave it away in order to at least somehow bury their mother. After the funeral, the older sister went to work: fourteen-year-old children were already considered “adults.” Irina came to the orphanage, and from there to the orphanage. “We broke up on the street and didn’t know anything about each other for a year and a half,” she says.

Irina Konstantinovna remembers the feeling of constant hunger and weakness. Children, ordinary children who wanted to jump, run and play, could barely move - like old women.

“Once on a walk I saw painted hopscotch books,” she says. “I wanted to jump. I got up, but I couldn’t tear my legs off! I’m standing there, that’s all. And I look at the teacher and I can’t understand what’s wrong with me. And Tears are flowing. She told me: “Don’t cry, honey, then you’ll jump.”

In the Yaroslavl region, where children were evacuated, collective farmers were ready to give them anything - it was so painful to look at the bony, emaciated children. There was just nothing special to give. “We saw grass and started eating it like cows. We ate everything we could,” says Irina Konstantinovna. “By the way, no one got sick with anything.” At the same time, little Ira learned that she had lost her hearing due to the bombing and stress. Forever.

Irina Konstantinovna

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There was a piano in the school. I ran up to him and realized that I couldn’t play. The teacher came. She says: "What are you doing, girl?" I answer: the piano here is out of tune. She told me: “You don’t understand anything!” I'm in tears. I don’t understand, I know everything, I have an absolute ear for music...

Irina Konstantinovna

There were not enough adults, it was difficult to look after the children, and Irina, as a diligent and smart girl, was made a teacher. She took the children to the fields to earn workdays. “We were spreading flax, we had to fulfill the norm - 12 acres per person. Curly flax was easier to spread, but after long-lasting flax, all our hands festered,” recalls Irina Konstantinovna. “Because the little hands were still weak, with scratches.” So - in work, hunger, but safety - she lived for more than three years.

At the age of 14, Irina was sent to rebuild Leningrad. But she had no documents, and during the medical examination, the doctors wrote down that she was 11 - the girl looked so undeveloped in appearance. So, already in her hometown, she almost ended up in an orphanage again. But she managed to find her sister, who by that time was studying at a technical school.

Irina Konstantinovna

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They didn’t hire me because I was supposedly 11 years old. Do you need anything? I went to the dining room to wash dishes and peel potatoes. Then they made me documents and went through the archives. Within a year we got settled

Irina Konstantinovna

Then there were eight years of work at a confectionery factory. In the post-war city, this made it possible to sometimes eat defective, broken candy. Irina Konstantinovna fled from there when they decided to promote her along the party line. “I had a wonderful leader who said: “Look, you are being trained to become a shop manager.” I said: “Help me get away.” I thought that I should be ready for the party.”

Irina Konstantinovna “ran away” to the Geological Institute, and then traveled a lot on expeditions to Chukotka and Yakutia. “On the way” she managed to get married. She has more than half a century of happy marriage behind her. “I’m very happy with my life,” says Irina Konstantinovna. But she never had the opportunity to play the piano again.

“I thought that Hitler was the Serpent Gorynych”

The story of Regina Romanovna Zinovieva

“On June 22, I was in kindergarten,” says Regina Romanovna. “We went for a walk, and I was in the first pair. And it was very honorable, they gave me a flag... We went out proud, suddenly a woman runs, all disheveled, and shouts: “ War, Hitler attacked us!" And I thought that it was the Serpent Gorynych who attacked and fire was coming from his mouth..."

Then five-year-old Regina was very upset that she never walked with the flag. But very soon “Serpent Gorynych” interfered in her life much more strongly. Dad went to the front as a signalman, and soon he was taken away in a “black funnel” - they took him immediately upon returning from the mission, without even allowing him to change clothes. His last name was German - Hindenberg. The girl stayed with her mother, and famine began in the besieged city.

One day Regina was waiting for her mother, who was supposed to pick her up from kindergarten. The teacher took the two delayed children outside and went to lock the doors. A woman approached the kids and offered them candy.

“We don’t see bread, there’s candy here! We really wanted to, but we were warned that we shouldn’t approach strangers. Fear won, and we ran away,” says Regina Romanovna. “Then the teacher came out. We wanted to show her this woman, but she was already the trail has disappeared." Now Regina Romanovna understands that she managed to escape from the cannibal. At that time, Leningraders, mad with hunger, stole and ate children.

The mother tried to feed her daughter as best she could. Once I invited a speculator to exchange pieces of fabric for a couple of pieces of bread. The woman, looking around, asked if there were any children's toys in the house. And just before the war, Regina was given a stuffed monkey; she was named Foka.

Regina Romanovna

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I grabbed this monkey and shouted: “Take what you want, but I won’t give this one up! This is my favorite.” And she really liked it. She and my mother were tearing out my toy, and I was roaring... Taking the monkey, the woman cut off more bread - more than for the fabric

Regina Romanovna

Having already become an adult, Regina Romanovna will ask her mother: “Well, how could you take away a little child’s favorite toy?” Mom replied: “This toy may have saved your life.”

One day, while taking her daughter to kindergarten, her mother fell in the middle of the street - she no longer had the strength. She was taken to the hospital. So little Regina ended up in an orphanage. “There were a lot of people, two of us were lying in the crib. They put me with the girl, she was all swollen. Her legs were all covered in ulcers. And I said: “How can I lie with you, I’ll turn around and touch your legs, it will hurt you." And she told me: “No, they don’t feel anything anymore anyway.”

The girl did not stay in the orphanage for long - her aunt took her. And then, together with other kids from the kindergarten, she was sent for evacuation.

Regina Romanovna

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When we got there, they gave us semolina porridge. Oh, that was so cute! We licked this mess, licked the plates from all sides, we hadn’t seen such food for a long time... And then we were put on a train and sent to Siberia

Regina Romanovna

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The guys were lucky: they were received very well in the Tyumen region. The children were given a former manor house - a strong, two-story one. They filled the mattresses with hay, gave them land for a garden and even a cow. The guys weeded the beds, caught fish and collected nettles for cabbage soup. After hungry Leningrad, this life seemed calm and well-fed. But, like all Soviet children of that time, they worked not only for themselves: girls from the older group cared for the wounded and washed bandages in the local hospital, boys went to logging sites with their teachers. This work was hard even for adults. And the older children in the kindergarten were only 12–13 years old.

In 1944, the authorities considered fourteen-year-old children already old enough to go to restore liberated Leningrad. “Our manager went to the regional center - part of the way on foot, partly by hitchhiking. The frost was 50-60 degrees,” recalls Regina Romanovna. “It took three days to get there to say: the children are weakened, they will not be able to work. And she defended our children - in Only seven or eight of the strongest boys were sent to Leningrad."

Regina's mother survived. By that time, she was working at a construction site and corresponded with her daughter. All that remained was to wait for victory.

Regina Romanovna

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The manager wore a red crepe de Chine dress. She tore it up and hung it like a flag. It was so beautiful! So I didn’t regret it. And our boys staged a fireworks display: they blew out all the pillows and threw feathers. And the teachers didn’t even swear. And then the girls collected the feathers and made pillows for themselves, but the boys were all left without pillows. This is how we celebrated Victory Day

Regina Romanovna

The children returned to Leningrad in September 1945. That same year, we finally received the first letter from Regina Romanovna’s father. It turned out that he had been in a camp in Vorkuta for two years. Only in 1949 did mother and daughter receive permission to visit him, and a year later he was released.

Regina Romanovna has a rich pedigree: in her family there was a general who fought in 1812, and her grandmother defended the Winter Palace in 1917 as part of a women’s battalion. But nothing played such a role in her life as her German surname, inherited from her long-Russified ancestors. Because of her, she not only almost lost her father. Later, the girl was not accepted into the Komsomol, and as an adult, Regina Romanovna herself refused to join the party, although she held a decent post. Her life was happy: two marriages, two children, three grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. But she still remembers how she didn’t want to part with the monkey Foka.

Regina Romanovna

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The elders told me: when the blockade began, the weather was beautiful, the sky was blue. And a cross of clouds appeared over Nevsky Prospekt. He hung for three days. This was a sign to the city: it will be incredibly difficult for you, but still you will survive

Regina Romanovna

"We were called 'pimps'

The story of Tatyana Stepanovna Medvedeva

Little Tanya’s mother called her the last child: the girl was the youngest child in a large family: she had a brother and six sisters. In 1941 she was 12 years old. “It was warm on June 22, we were going to go sunbathe and swim. And suddenly they announced that the war had started,” says Tatyana Stepanovna. “We didn’t go anywhere, everyone started crying, screaming... And my brother immediately went to the military registration and enlistment office and said: I’m going to go to war.” .

The parents were already elderly, they did not have enough strength to fight. They died quickly: dad - in February, mom - in March. Tanya stayed at home with her nephews, who were not much different in age from her - one of them, Volodya, was only ten. The sisters were taken to defense work. Someone dug trenches, someone took care of the wounded, and one of the sisters collected dead children around the city. And the relatives were afraid that Tanya would be among them. "Raya's sister said: 'Tanya, you won't survive here alone.' The road of life."

The children were taken to the Ivanovo region, to the city of Gus-Khrustalny. And although there were no bombings and “125 blockades”, life did not become simple. Subsequently, Tatyana Stepanovna talked a lot with the same grown-up children of besieged Leningrad and realized that other evacuated children did not live so hungry. Probably it was a matter of geography: after all, the front line here was much closer than in Siberia. “When the commission arrived, we said that there was not enough food. They answered us: we give you horse-sized portions, but you still want to eat,” recalls Tatyana Stepanovna. She still remembers these “horse portions” of gruel, cabbage soup and porridge. As is the cold. The girls slept in twos: they lay down on one mattress and covered themselves with another. There was nothing else to hide with.

Tatyana Stepanovna

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The locals didn't like us. They called them "tricks". Probably because, having arrived, we began to go from house to house, asking for bread... And it was hard for them too. There was a river there, and in winter I really wanted to go ice skating. The locals gave us one skate for the whole group. Not a pair of skates - one skate. We took turns riding on one leg

Tatyana Stepanovna

70 years have passed since that day. In the city itself there are now no more than 160 thousand people who took part in and witnessed those events. That’s why every memory is important. The staff of the Museum of the Defense and Siege of Leningrad set themselves the goal of collecting as many of them as possible. One of them is Irina Muravyova.

“Our archive contains several thousand diaries and letters from the time of the siege, as well as memories of those who lived in the city during the siege,” she says. – Sometimes relatives bring documents of their loved ones, as was the case with the diaries of teacher Klavdia Semenova. Her great-granddaughter found them. These are small notebooks. The entries are short, but day by day.”

For many years it was said that in besieged Leningrad only the Drama Theater and the Philharmonic were working...

Irina Muravyova: Even in the most difficult winter of 1941/42. There were several theaters in the city. In a newspaper poster dated January 4, 1942, theaters named after. Lensovet, Lenkom, Musical Comedy, Drama. Their evacuation began only in January - February 1942. During all 900 days of the siege, the theaters of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet, the House of the Red Army, Youth Theater, Malaya Operetta, and Kamerny gave performances. And this also played a role, primarily psychological. People saw that life in the city goes on.

I know that you are also doing a lot of research work, establishing the biographical information of those whose documents ended up in your museum.

Irina Muravyova: By chance, Vladimir Ge’s notebook came to us. He kept notes in 1943. It would be strange, having presented in the exhibition the diary of an eyewitness to the blockade, without saying anything about him. From the notebook, only the last name of the author of the notes was clear - Ge. Is he perhaps a relative of the famous Russian artist? The search lasted 5 years. Flipping through the pages once again, I noticed the word “manager”. I was hooked on him, because managers could only be in the bank back then. And so it happened. Vladimir Ge, the great-grandson of the artist Nikolai Ge, was there until the summer of 1941 as the secretary of the party organization. Gradually I established all the addresses where he lived during the war and after the war, found his daughter Tatyana, for whose sake he took up the diary (she is now 80 years old), as well as his granddaughter.

Sweet bitterness of the earth

Memoirs of Zinaida Pavlovna Ovcharenko (Kuznetsova).

She spent all 900 days of the siege in the city. During this time, I buried my father and grandmother, my brothers died at the front. She is now 85.

On June 22, 1941, I turned 13. That day I was walking around the city with a friend. We saw a crowd of people outside the store. There was a loudspeaker hanging there. The women were crying. We hurried home. At home we learned that the war had begun.

We had a family of 7 people: dad, mom, 3 brothers, 16-year-old sister and me, the youngest. On June 16, my sister set off on a ship along the Volga, where the war found her. The brothers volunteered to go to the front, dad was transferred to a barracks position in Lesnoy Port, where he worked as a mechanic. Mom and I were left alone.

We lived behind the Narva outpost, then it was a working outskirts. There are holiday villages and villages all around. When the Germans advanced, our entire street was clogged with refugees from the suburbs. They walked loaded with household belongings, carrying and leading their children by the hands.

I helped on duty in the sanitary squad, where my mother was the flight commander. Once I saw some kind of black cloud moving towards Leningrad from Srednyaya Rogatka. These were fascist planes. Our anti-aircraft guns began to fire at them. Several were knocked out. But others flew over the city center, and soon we saw large clouds of smoke nearby. Then they found out that it was the Badayevsky food warehouses that were bombed. They burned for several days. Sugar was also on fire. During the hungry winter of 1941/42, many Leningraders who had enough strength came there, collected this soil, boiled it and drank “sweet tea.” And when the earth was no longer sweet, they still dug it and ate it right away.

By winter, our dad was completely weak, but he still sent part of his labor rations to me. When my mother and I came to visit him, someone was being carried out of the door of the barracks into the carpentry workshop. It was our dad. We gave our ration of bread for 3 days to the women with my father’s work so that they could help my mother take it to the Volkovskoye cemetery - this is the other end of the city. These women, as soon as they ate the bread, abandoned their mother. She took dad to the cemetery alone. She walked with a sled after other people. I was exhausted. Sleighs loaded with the bodies of the dead were driven past. The driver allowed my mother to attach the sleigh with my father’s coffin to it. Mom fell behind. Arriving at the cemetery, I saw long ditches where the dead were placed, and just then dad was pulled out of the coffin, and the coffin was broken into firewood for the fire.

Lamp in the night

From the blockade diary of Claudia Andreevna Semenova.

She did not stop working throughout the 900 days of the blockade. She was a deeply religious person and was fond of music and theater. She died in 1972.

1942 March 29. At 6 am there was artillery shelling. At 7 o'clock the radio announced the all clear. I went to church. A lot of people. General confession. Communion of the Holy Mysteries. I came home at 11. Today is Palm Sunday. At 3.30 there is an alarm on the radio. Fighters. The anti-aircraft guns are “talking.” I feel tired, my right leg hurts. Where are my dears? I'm listening to a good program on the radio. Chilean song on ukulele, Lemeshev.

5th of April. Today is the Lord's Easter. At half past seven in the morning I went to church and attended mass. The day is sunny but cold. The anti-aircraft guns were now firing. Scary.

April 22. I'm an inpatient at the hospital. My leg is a little better. The food is tolerable. The main thing is to give butter (50 grams per day) and sugar - a portion for dystrophics. Of course, not enough. At night there was a strong cannonade. It's quiet during the day. Lethargy in people and in nature. It's hard to walk.

1st of May. Working day. There are few flags and no decorations on the streets. The sun is wonderful. The first time I went out without a scarf. After work I went to the theater. “Wedding in Malinovka.” The location was good. At half past eight at home. There was shelling.

the 6th of May. The alarm was at 5, and ended at half past six. It's a cold day. I took a ticket to the Philharmonic on May 10 for Tchaikovsky’s 5th Symphony, conducted by Eliasberg.

May 17. At half past five, heavy shelling began, somewhere nearby. At 7 I was at the Philharmonic. Mikhailov sang well “Beloved city, native city, I’m with you again.”

"We will win!"

From the diary of Vladimir Ge.

During the war he served as political instructor of a cavalry squadron. After the war he taught at Leningrad universities. Died in 1981.

1943 July 22. Today marks 25 months since the great trials began. I am not able to cover events chronologically; I will make brief sketches. If you are not destined to use it yourself, let these lines remain a memory of me for my infinitely beloved daughter. She will grow up, read and understand how people lived and fought for her future happiness.

July 25. Yesterday Stalin signed an order for the failure of the German summer offensive. I think we will celebrate our victory next summer. The defeat of Germany is possible even this year if the Allies do land troops in Europe. But there was a time when many did not believe in our strength. I remember a conversation in August 1941 with Major T. in the command staff canteen in Pushkin. He knew me as a boy. He has been serving in the army for about 10 years. In a fatherly tone, patting me on the shoulder, he said: “Volodenka! Our situation with you is hopeless. Our troops are near Leningrad, there won’t even be anywhere to retreat. We are in a mousetrap. And doomed." In those days, many were rushing about: to evacuate the city or stay? Will the Germans break into the city or not?

August 19. Today I was at the cinema, the film “The Elusive Ian”. The shelling began. The walls shook from nearby explosions. But the audience sat quietly in the dark hall. We watched to the end. This is the life of Leningraders now: they go to the cinema, to the theaters, and somewhere nearby shells explode and people fall dead. At the same time, the work of enterprises and institutions does not stop. Where is the front, where is the rear? How to determine the line between heroism and carelessness? What is this - courage or habit? Each individual Leningrader did nothing to warrant being awarded the order, but all of them taken together certainly embody the star of the Hero of the Soviet Union.

4 September. In recent days, 10 cities in the Donbass have been liberated, and Taganrog has been taken. On August 23, I attended a jazz concert by Shulzhenko and Coralie. During the concert, the capture of Kharkov was announced. The audience applauded while standing. Shouts were heard: “Long live our Red Army!”, “Long live Comrade Stalin!”

31th of December. We have appointed a new army commander. He is short, stocky, speaks slowly, ponderously, apparently a strong-willed, tough person. This one will be stronger than its predecessor. His arrival reinforces the assumption that our army is destined for offensive operations of non-local significance.

1944, January 7. It looks like the city is living out the last months of the siege. I remember the general rejoicing of Leningraders when trams rumbled through the streets for the first time after a 5-month break. It was April 15, 1942. But today the tram has already become commonplace, and when you have to wait more than 5 minutes for it, this causes dissatisfaction.

January 24. Our army took Peterhof, Krasnoye Selo, Strelna, Uritsk. One of these days we’ll take Pushkin and Gatchina. Our neighbors took MGU and Volkhov. A few more days - and Leningrad will be completely inaccessible to artillery shelling. Let's move forward. Perhaps today is the last time I see my city. The nomadic way of life begins...

Leningraders lie here.
The townspeople here are men, women, children.
Next to them are Red Army soldiers.
With all my life
They protected you, Leningrad,
The cradle of the revolution.
We cannot list their noble names here,
There are so many of them under the eternal protection of granite.
But know, he who listens to these stones:
No one is forgotten and nothing is forgotten.

Olga Berggolts

Good morning! There are many important dates and memorable days in our country, but the day of the complete lifting of the siege of Leningrad stands out for me personally. Not only because I live next to this city. My great-grandfather was one of the drivers of a semi-truck on the Road of Life, which was then called the Road of Death. He delivered shells and food to the besieged city, and took the residents back. It was laid through Ladoga in the fall of 1941 - in a narrow 16-kilometer strip, which the enemy failed to capture on the western shore of the lake. For more than two years this was the only thread that connected Leningrad with the rest of the country. Unfortunately, when my grandfather died, I was too young to write down his story, I was only 6 years old. In this post, I collected the memories of the victors who did not surrender their city to the enemy and their feat must be remembered.

Memoirs of Zinaida Pavlovna Ovcharenko (Kuznetsova).

She spent all 900 days of the siege in the city. During this time, I buried my father and grandmother, my brothers died at the front. She is now 85.

We had a family - 7 people: dad, mom, 3 brothers, 16-year-old sister and me, the youngest. On June 16, my sister set off on a ship along the Volga, where the war found her. The brothers volunteered to go to the front, dad was transferred to a barracks position in Lesnoy Port, where he worked as a mechanic. Mom and I were left alone.

From the blockade diary of Claudia Andreevna Semenova.

She did not stop working throughout the 900 days of the blockade. She was a deeply religious person and was fond of music and theater. She died in 1972.

1942 March 29. At 6 am there was artillery shelling. At 7 o'clock the radio announced the all clear. I went to church. A lot of people. General confession. Communion of the Holy Mysteries. I came home at 11. Today is Palm Sunday. At 3.30 there is an alarm on the radio. Fighters. The anti-aircraft guns are "talking." I feel tired, my right leg hurts. Where are my dears? I'm listening to a good program on the radio. Chilean song on ukulele, Lemeshev.

5th of April. Today is the Lord's Easter. At half past seven in the morning I went to church and attended mass. The day is sunny but cold. The anti-aircraft guns were now firing. Scary.

1st of May. Working day. There are few flags and no decorations on the streets. The sun is wonderful. The first time I went out without a scarf. After work I went to the theater. "Wedding in Malinovka." The location was good. At half past eight at home. There was shelling.

the 6th of May. The alarm was at 5, and ended at half past six. It's a cold day. I took a ticket to the Philharmonic on May 10 for Tchaikovsky’s 5th Symphony, conducted by Eliasberg.

May 17. At half past five, heavy shelling began, somewhere nearby. At 7 I was at the Philharmonic. Mikhailov sang well “Beloved city, native city, I’m with you again.”
"We will win!"

From the diary of Vladimir Ge.

During the war he served as political instructor of a cavalry squadron. After the war he taught at Leningrad universities. Died in 1981.

July 25. Yesterday Stalin signed an order for the failure of the German summer offensive. I think we will celebrate our victory next summer. The defeat of Germany is possible even this year if the Allies do land troops in Europe. But there was a time when many did not believe in our strength. I remember a conversation in August 1941 with Major T. in the command staff canteen in Pushkin. He knew me as a boy. He served in the army for about 10 years. In a fatherly tone, patting me on the shoulder, he said: “Volodenka! Our situation with you is hopeless. Our troops are near Leningrad, there won’t even be anywhere to retreat. We are in a mousetrap. And doomed.” In those days, many were rushing about: to evacuate the city or stay? Will the Germans break into the city or not?

August 19. Today I was at the cinema, the film "The Elusive Ian". The shelling began. The walls shook from nearby explosions. But the audience sat quietly in the dark hall. We watched to the end. This is the life of Leningraders now: they go to the cinema, to the theaters, and somewhere nearby shells explode and people fall dead. At the same time, the work of enterprises and institutions does not stop. Where is the front, where is the rear? How to determine the line between heroism and carelessness? What is this - courage or habit? Each individual Leningrader did nothing to warrant being awarded the order, but all of them taken together certainly embody the star of the Hero of the Soviet Union.

Kagan Igor Zakharyevich – born in 1936, shipbuilder, Honored Mechanical Engineer of Russia

The blockade means grief, suffering and death of loved ones, life deliberately erased it from my childhood memory, only individual strokes and scars remained, but they remained for life. On Victory Day I was eight years old, in 1941 I was only four.

Mother was drafted into the Navy during the Finnish War and worked as a doctor in a hospital near the Kalinkin Bridge, where she met the war with fascism.

1940, summer, my mother takes me to Moscow for one day on a date with my father. Zoo, metro, lunch at a restaurant in the Moscow hotel. My father ordered “devolai” cutlets (later they began to be called “Kiev cutlets”). I didn’t eat them, I asked for scrambled eggs, but my mother almost finished her cutlet, there was a small piece left.

1941, June 22, my mother and I are walking in the Peterhof park. Mom is happy, I asked for a cake, they bought an eclair, I ate half of it, and quietly threw the rest into the bushes.

1941, August. In our room on Mokhovaya 26, two people have been on duty at the window for many days now, they are watching the gateway in the house opposite. Grandma says they are tracking down spies. Our neighbor, German Maria Ernestovna, was evicted.

1941, November. We live in a ground floor apartment with vaulted ceilings and tiled floors. Entrance directly from the street. During the NEP, my grandfather had a watch workshop here. The house has no basements and no bomb shelter. Every night, residents from the upper floors spend the night with us; they come with their own chairs and cots. They bomb every day, a lot, persistently. For what? To intimidate? But it's no longer scary. The impending famine and frost are terrible. A kilometer away from us is the Big House, they say that this is the target for the German pilots, and also bridges across the Neva. But bombs hit houses on Pestel, Mokhovaya, Rynochnaya. Are the planes not reaching their target, are the pilots afraid of anti-aircraft guns, or are they saving this building for the Gestapo? How are we protected? Blackout, curtains, electricity is turned off. Lots of balloons and spotlights. Anti-aircraft guns are located on the Field of Mars, in Solyany Lane

I still do not sleep. The bomb, with a nasty screech, falls two meters from the window, not on a solid panel, but on the lawn, buries itself in the ground (the Germans adjusted it incorrectly) and explodes. The meter-high walls of the old house survived, but the glass all over the area shattered. The wounded with cuts from glass began to be brought into the room. My mother drags me through the back door to the neighbors who have windows into the courtyard - they survived.

You can’t live without glass, the frosts are terrible. My grandmother and I are moving to a hostel on Shchorsa Avenue. I want to eat all the time. I always remember the half-eaten cake in Peterhof. Once every two days the mother comes and brings a can of soup. Transport does not work. She walks in the evening in thirty-degree frost from the Kalinkin Bridge to the Petrogradskaya Side, often under artillery fire, and in the morning she returns to the hospital by 8 o’clock. She is close to insanity, she talks all the time about the half-eaten cutlet in Moscow. She, like other women, wears a diaper; her muscles are no longer able to resist the urge. Slippery, lots of snow. One time she fell and broke a precious can of soup.

The end of January - the mother loses strength, besides, there is no water in the hostel, the toilets do not work. She decides to take and hide me and my grandmother in the hospital. I, wrapped in a huge woolen scarf and blanket, was being taken across the city on a sled. There is shelling on the Kirov bridge. I remember the howl of shells overhead.

I’m not the first to find myself in an illegal position in the hospital; there are two more girls about seven years old. The three of us secretly go to the wards of the wounded, read poems, sing songs. The hospital saved me from death and cold. (maybe we got portions of the wounded who died in the morning?). A month later we caught the eye of the head doctor and we were evicted with a bang to a hostel on Egorova Street. But spring was already coming, they began to provide more bread, and the water supply started working.

1942, May. My grandmother and I stand in line for bread and dream that if there is some extra bread, my grandmother will give it to me. And now she really gives me a magically smelling piece of bread. Suddenly someone pushes me in the back, takes a piece and puts the whole thing in his mouth. People from the queue pounce on the guy, throw him to the ground, beat him, and he, covering his face with his hands, manages to swallow the bread. I'm crying.
1942, August. The mother was completely exhausted. She is transferred to a aviation school in the village of Krasny Yar, 40 km from Kuibyshev. We are sailing through Ladoga in a small tanker adapted for transporting people. It makes me sick. Mother takes me out onto the deck. Two planes are flying, bombs are whistling, they are flying past, the machine gun on our ship is chirping, the cannon on the guard patrol is firing. The planes are taking off.

1942 - September. There is an address where you can stay for a couple of days with complete strangers. I have a temperature of 39.5, diphtheria (it’s contagious), and the owner has two children. But they took us in and helped treat me. In Krasny Yar we live in a room next to the headquarters of the aviation school. The cadet poured gasoline into the lamp without putting out the fire. Mother woke up from a crash and a glow - the headquarters was burning. They jumped out barefoot, stripped, through a broken window into the snow. They were sheltered, warmed and clothed by collective farmers, complete strangers.
1943, autumn.. Stalingrad, We sailed here along the Volga from Kuibyshev. The mother was transferred to a hospital in Yeisk and there is a transplant here. A terrible view of a completely destroyed city. Absolutely all the buildings were destroyed, only boxes of walls with shell holes remained. Very few people. It’s night, we’re sitting on knots on the street. They are showing the film “She Fought for the Motherland”, the screen is stretched on the wall of the station.

1945, May 9. Yeisk. Victory Day. They shoot a lot. Single rockets fly in the air. Few, probably very lucky, were destined to survive the blockade. Both my grandmother and mother fed me at first, being content with the leftovers. Based on her experience of the Civil War, my grandmother had small reserves of flour and cereals. She also shared them with her sister. “We were lucky” that the bomb was buried in the ground before the explosion, that the broken windows forced us to move to a hostel, where it was warm, then to a hospital, where there was water. It was lucky that the wounded, hungry sailors were treated to pieces of sugar and crackers. We were lucky that on the road of life the planes attacked not our ship, but the neighboring one, that we met kind-hearted people.

From the memoirs of Margarita Fedorovna Neverova

“...I left the house. My little dog and I went to get some bread. We left. An old man was lying there. Now he already had three fingers folded in prayer, and he was lying there, frozen, in his felt boots.
When we arrived at the bakery, there was no bread, my little dog suddenly poked my nose into my felt boot. I leaned over.

- What are you doing?
It turns out that she found a piece of bread. He gives it to me. And, you know, I jumped up like a raven and grabbed the bread. And she looks at me: “Will you give it to me or not?” I speak:
- I'll give you, my dear, I'll give you!
And I made such a stew from this bread that you can’t even imagine how we treated ourselves to it!
And we walked back - this old man was already lying without his felt boots. Well, of course, he has no need for felt boots in the next world - I understand... Yes, he already folded the cross and didn’t carry it, poor thing.”

Kolesnikova Elena Vladimirovna (born 1932)

“In 1941, I turned 9 years old. At the end of May, the first school year in my life ended, but this summer my mother did not take me to my grandmother for the holidays as usual.
My mother and I celebrated the first day of the war on the beach near the Peter and Paul Fortress. When Molotov's speech was announced on the radio, the beach somehow froze. People listened in silence, quickly packed up and left. The word WAR was heard everywhere.

My father was drafted into the army; he was somewhere on the Leningrad front.
Children and adults carried sand into the attics, filled iron barrels with water, laid out shovels... Everyone felt like a fighter. The basements were to become bomb shelters.
The first bombing in my life remained in my memory more vividly than others, because it was scary as never before in my entire life. The roar of planes, the roar of anti-aircraft guns, explosions. And still darkness.
Once or twice during the bombing, my mother and I went down to the basement. Then they stopped. Mom said it was pointless to waste time like that.

Mom began drying potato peelings and all sorts of crusts. Since the summer, she left a bottle of boiled sunflower oil and did not order anyone to touch it.

There are much fewer children at school. It was almost impossible to study: shelling, raids, and we studied by candlelight. When only three came one day, the teacher said that we would not gather anymore.
Soon my mother stopped going to work, her organization was evacuated. She often left for a long time, sometimes for the whole day - on duty, in line for bread, for water, for firewood, for some food.
Then everyone walked slowly, there was no strength. Yes, the blockade remained in my memory as a time when it was dark, as if there was no day, but only one very long, dark, icy night.

In December, all the crusts ran out. There is no food for everyone who remained in Leningrad. After the war, in a conversation with someone, my mother said: “Thanks to my daughter, she never asked me for food!”
Of the blockade years, I remember one New Year - this was probably the first New Year without a beautiful Christmas tree with sweets, nuts, tangerines and shiny lights. Olga Berggolts spoke on the radio. I didn’t know then that this was our Leningrad poetess, but her voice, with its characteristic intonation, somehow touched me and made me listen carefully to what she said. “I don’t need to tell you what this year is like...” Then I remembered the poems. It seems like this: “Comrade, we have had bitter, difficult days, and grief and troubles threaten us. But we are not forgotten, we are not alone, and this is already a victory!”

There is this piece in my mother’s notes: “Despite the horrors of the blockade, constant shelling and bombing, the theater and cinema halls were not empty.”

I can't say exactly when it was. Violinist Barinova gave a solo concert in the Great Hall of the Philharmonic. I was lucky to get there. The hall was not heated, we sat in coats. It was dark, only the figure of the artist was illuminated by some kind of light. You could see how she breathed on her fingers to warm them up at least a little.
Our school had garden beds in the Summer Garden. There we weeded carrots, lettuce and beets. When green leaves just appeared on the old linden trees in the spring, we ate them endlessly, then we ate linden flowers, and then the seeds.

On some day in the spring of 1943, the courtyard of the Nekrasovskaya bathhouse came to life. Dirty people in quilted jackets tried to revive the boiler room. The day came when the bathhouse opened. We went to the bathhouse, hoping to have time to wash ourselves between shelling. In the bathhouse, walking barefoot on the cement floor, we held hands and for some reason laughed. We suddenly saw how scary we are! Two skeletons are walking through an empty bathhouse with washcloths in their hands, shaking from the cold and laughing. The water was warm, but the bathhouse had not yet warmed up. Four more brave women from the siege, thin and bony, were splashing around in the soap bar. It was awkward to look at each other.

The war was still going on when the Leningrad Defense Museum appeared in the city. Everything about him was stunningly true. It is impossible to retell it. There has never been such a museum before. But then it was destroyed. They destroyed memory, destroyed people’s experience, the experience of survival. Then some more time passed and the museum was opened, but what is now is a pitiful reminder...
When people ask me about the happiest day of my life, I say that it was Victory Day on May 9, 1945. I have never seen happier faces on people since then. And then, on May 9, 1945, it was believed that after such losses, suffering, horrors, people would finally understand the senselessness of wars.

It is now impossible to recognize in the overgrown trees those thin linden and apple tree seedlings that we planted as schoolchildren in the Moscow and Primorsky Victory Parks."