CATHOLICISM CATHOLICISM, revealed in the public consciousness since the time...
I’m writing it down, my hands are getting cold...
“Our daughter Miletta Konstantinovna, born on 11/VIII 1933, died on IV 26, 1942 - 8 years 8 months and 15 days old.
And Fedor lived from 7/IV 1942 to 26/VI 1942 - 80 days...
On IV 26, the daughter died at one in the morning, and at 6 in the morning Fedor was breastfeeding - not a single drop of milk. The pediatrician said: “I’m glad, otherwise the mother (that is, me) would have died and left three sons. Don’t feel sorry for your daughter, she’s a premature baby - she would have died at eighteen - for sure ... "
Well, since there is no milk, I donated 3/V 1942 to the Institute of Blood Transfusion on 3rd Sovetskaya Street, I don’t remember how many grams, since I have been a donor since June 26, 1941. Being pregnant with Fedya, she donated blood: 26/VI - 300 g, 31/VII - 250 g, 3/IX - 150 g, 7/XI - 150 g. It's no longer possible. 11/XII - 120 gr. = 970 gr. blood..."
12/I - 1942 - I’m writing it down, my hands are getting cold. We had been walking for a long time; I walked across the ice diagonally from the University to the Admiralty along the Neva. The morning was sunny and frosty; a barge and a boat stood frozen in the ice. I walked from the 18th line of Vasilyevsky Island, first along Bolshoy Prospect to the 1st line and to the Neva past the Menshikov Palace and all the colleges of the University. Then from the Neva along the entire Nevsky Prospect, Staronevsky to the 3rd Sovetskaya...
At the doctor’s appointment I undressed, he poked me in the chest and asked: “What is this?” - “I will be a mother for the fourth time.” He grabbed his head and ran out. Three doctors came in at once - it turns out that pregnant women cannot donate blood - the donor’s card was crossed out. They didn’t feed me, they kicked me out, and I had to get a certificate for February 1942, a work card and rations (2 loaves, 900 grams of meat, 2 kg of cereal), if they took my blood...
She walked back slowly, slowly, and three children were waiting at home: Miletta, Kronid and Kostya. And my husband was hired as a sapper... I will receive a dependent card for February, and this is 120 grams. bread a day. Death…
When I got onto the ice, I saw a mountain of frozen people on the right under the bridge - some were lying, some were sitting, and a boy of about ten, as if alive, had his head pressed against one of the dead. And I so wanted to go to bed with them. I even turned off the path, but I remembered: at home three people were lying on one single bed, and I was limp, and I went home.
I walk through the city, one thought worse than the other. On the 16th line I meet Nina Kuyavskaya, my childhood friend, she works in the executive committee. I tell her: “They kicked me out as a donor and didn’t give me a certificate for a working card.” And she says: “Go to the antenatal clinic, they must give you a certificate for a work card”...
The apartment has four rooms: ours is 9 meters, the last one, the former stable of the owner of four houses (19, 19a, 19b, 19c). There is no water, the pipes have burst, but people still pour into the toilets, the slurry pours down the wall and freezes from the frost. But there is no glass in the windows; in the fall they were all broken from a bomb explosion. The window is covered with a mattress, only a hole has been made for the pipe from the potbelly stove...
She came home cheerful, and the children were glad that she came. But they see that it is empty, and not a word, they are silent, that they are hungry. And at home there is a piece of bread. Three times. For an adult, that is, me - 250 gr. and three children's pieces - 125 g each. Nobody took...
I lit the stove, put on a 7-liter saucepan, let the water boil, and threw in dry blueberry and strawberry herbs. She cut a thin piece of bread, spread a lot of mustard and salted it very strongly. They sat down, ate, drank a lot of tea and went to bed. And at 6 o’clock in the morning I put on trousers, a hat, a jacket, a coat, and go to take my turn. The store just opens at 8, and the line is long and 2-3 people wide - you stand and wait, and the enemy plane flies slowly and low over Bolshoy Prospekt and fires cannons, people scatter, and then stand up again without panic - creepy ...
And for water, you put two buckets and a ladle on the sled, and you go to the Neva along Bolshoy Prospekt, line 20, to the Mining Institute. There is a descent to the water, you cut a hole, and you scoop water into buckets. And we help each other lift the sleigh with water up. It happens that you go halfway and spill water, you get wet and again you go, wet, to get water...
The umbilical cord was tied with black thread
The apartment is empty, except for us, everyone has gone to the front. And so on day after day. Nothing from my husband. And then came the fateful night of 7/IV 1942. One in the morning, contractions. While I dressed my three children, I packed my laundry into a suitcase, tied my two sons to a sled so they wouldn’t fall - I took them to the yard to the trash heap, and left my daughter and suitcase in the gateway. And she gave birth... in her pants...
I forgot that I have children outside. She walked slowly, holding on to the wall of her house, quietly, afraid to run over the little one...
And in the apartment it’s dark, and in the corridor there’s water dripping from the ceiling. And the corridor is 3 meters wide and 12 meters long. I walk quietly. She came, quickly unbuttoned her pants, wanted to put the baby on the ottoman and lost consciousness from pain...
It’s dark, cold, and suddenly the door opens and a man comes in. It turned out that he was walking through the yard, saw two children tied to a sled, and asked: “Where are you going?” And my five-year-old Kostya says: “We’re going to the maternity hospital!”
“Eh, children, your mother probably brought you to your death,” the man suggested. And Kostya says: “No.” The man silently took up the sled: “Where should I take it?” And Kostyukha is in command. A man looks, and there’s another sled, another child...
So I took the children home, and at home I lit a cinder in a saucer, a varnish wick - it smokes terribly. He broke a chair, lit the stove, put on a pot of water - 12 liters, ran to the maternity hospital... And I got up, reached for the scissors, and the scissors were black with soot. Wicky trimmed and cut the umbilical cord in half with such scissors... I said: “Well, Fedka, half is for you, and the other for me...” I tied his umbilical cord with black thread number 40, but not mine...
Even though I gave birth to my fourth, I didn’t know anything. And then Kostya took out from under the bed the book “Mother and Child” (I always read at the end of the book how to avoid unwanted pregnancy, but then I read the first page - “Childbirth”). Got up, the water warmed up. I tied up Fyodor’s umbilical cord, cut off the extra piece, smeared it with iodine, and didn’t put anything in his eyes. I could hardly wait for the morning. And in the morning the old woman came: “Oh, you didn’t even go for bread, give me the cards, I’ll run.” The coupons were cut off for a decade: from the 1st to the 10th, but there remained the 8th, 9th and 10th - 250 grams. and three 125 gr. For a three days. So the old lady didn’t bring us this bread... But on 9/IV I saw her dead in the yard - so there’s nothing to blame her for, she was a good person...
I remember the three of us were chopping ice, holding a crowbar in our hands, counting: one, two, three - and they lowered the crowbar and chopped off all the ice - they were afraid of infection, and the military threw ice into the car and took it to the Neva so that the city would be clean...
The man through the door said, “The doctor will come tomorrow morning.” The old woman went to buy bread. The sister came from the maternity hospital and shouted: “Where are you, I have the flu!” And I shout: “Close the door on the other side, it’s cold!” She left, and five-year-old Kostya stood up and said: “The porridge is cooked!” I got up, lit the stove, and the porridge froze like jelly. On April 5, I bought a large bag of semolina at the Haymarket for 125 grams of bread. A man walked with me from Sennaya Square to the house, saw my children, took a coupon for 125 grams. bread and left, and I started cooking the porridge, but the porridge never thickened, although I poured all the cereal into a three-liter saucepan...
Freeloader, or maybe victory
So we ate this porridge without bread and drank a 7-liter pot of tea, I dressed Fedenka, wrapped her in a blanket and went to the Vedeman maternity hospital on the 14th line. I brought it, mommies - not a soul. I say: “Treat your son’s belly button.” The doctor responded: “Go to the hospital, then we’ll treat you!” I say: “I have three children, they were left alone in the apartment.” She insists: “Still lie down!” I yelled at her, and she called the head doctor. And the head doctor yelled at her: “Treat the child and give a certificate to the registry office for metrics and a child’s card.”
She turned the child around and smiled. She praised the umbilical cord that I had tied: “Well done, mom!” She noted the baby's weight - 2.5 kg. She put drops in her eyes and gave all the information. And I went to the registry office - it was located on the 16th line, in the basement of the executive committee. The queue is huge, people are standing behind documents for the dead. And I’m walking with my son, the people make way. Suddenly I hear someone shouting: “You’re carrying a freeloader!” And others: “It brings victory!”
They wrote out the metrics and a certificate for the child’s card, congratulated me, and I went to the chairman of the executive committee. I went up the wide stairs and saw an old man sitting at a table with a telephone in front of him. He asks where and why I am going. I answer that I gave birth to a son at one in the morning, and there are three other children at home, in the corridor there is ankle-deep water, and in the room there are two front walls, and half-wet pillows are stuck to them, and slurry is creeping from the walls...
He asked: “What do you need?” I answered: “My eight-year-old daughter, sitting under the arch on a sled at night, got cold, she should go to the hospital.”
He pressed some button, three girls in military uniform came out, as if on command, ran up to me, one took the child, and two took me by the arms and took me home. I burst into tears, suddenly tired, I barely made it home...
On the same day we were moved to another apartment on our own stairs - the fourth floor. The stove is in working order, two glasses from our bookcase are inserted into the window, and on the stove there is a 12-liter pan with hot water. The antenatal clinic doctor, who also came to the rescue, began to wash my children, the first - Miletta - bare head, not a single hair... The same with my sons - skinny, scary to look at...
At night there is a knock on the door. I open it and my sister Valya is standing in the doorway - she was walking from the Finland Station. There is a bag behind my shoulders. They opened it, oh my God: pure rye bread, soldier’s bread, a loaf - a fluffy brick, a little sugar, cereal, sour cabbage...
She is a soldier in an overcoat. And a feast like a mountain, what happiness!..
The radio worked for 24 hours. During shelling - signal, go to shelter. But we did not leave, although our area was shelled several times a day from long-range guns. But the planes didn’t spare bombs, there were factories all around...
Eyes overgrown with moss
26/IV - 1942 - Miletta died at one in the morning, and at six in the morning the radio announced that the bread quota had been increased. Workers - 400 grams, children - 250 grams... I spent the whole day in queues. She brought bread and vodka...
She dressed Miletta in a black silk suit... She was lying on the table in a small room, I came home, and my two sons - seven years old Kronid and five years old Kostya - were lying drunk on the floor - half of the little one had been drunk... I got scared, ran to the second floor to the janitor - her daughter graduated medical school She came with me and, seeing the children, laughed: “Let them sleep, it’s better not to disturb them”...
9/V - 1942 My husband came on foot from the Finland Station for a day. We went to the zhakt to get a cart and a certificate for the funeral at the Smolensk cemetery. Besides my baby, there were two unidentified corpses... One of the dead was dragged by the legs by the janitors and her head banged on the steps...
You couldn't cry in the cemetery. An unfamiliar woman carried Miletta and carefully placed her on the “woodpile” of the dead... Miletta lay at home for 15 days, her eyes were overgrown with moss - she had to cover her face with a silk rag...
At 8 o'clock in the evening, the husband left on foot to the station: he could not be late, otherwise he would end up in court, and the train ran only once a day.
6/V 1942 - went out for bread in the morning. I come, and Kronid is unrecognizable - he’s swollen, he’s become very fat, he looks like a Vanka doll. I wrapped him in a blanket and dragged him to the 21st line to the consultation, and there it was closed. Then she carried him to the 15th line, where the door was also locked. I brought it back home. She ran to the janitor and called the doctor. The doctor came, looked and said that this was the third degree of dystrophy...
There's a knock on the door. I open: two orderlies from the Krupskaya hospital - about my daughter. I closed the door in their face, and they knocked again. And then I came to my senses, my daughter was gone, but Kronya, Kronechka, was alive. I opened the door and explained that my son needed to go to the hospital. She wrapped him in a blanket and went with them, taking the metrics and the child’s card.
In the waiting room, the doctor tells me: “You have a daughter.” I answer: “The daughter died, but the son is sick...” The son was taken to the hospital...
There are no tears, but my soul is empty, creepy. Kostyukha is quiet, kisses me and looks after Fedya, and Fedya lies in the children’s galvanized bathtub...
On the radio they say: “Every Leningrader should have a vegetable garden.” All public gardens have been turned into vegetable gardens. Carrot, beet, and onion seeds are given free of charge. We have onions and sorrel planted on Bolshoy Prospekt. There was also an announcement on the radio: you can get a pass to Berngardovka, to Vsevolozhsk, and Valya works there in my hospital. I'm going to the 16th police station, to the chief. He writes me a pass, and I ask him for a nanny while I’m leaving. And he calls a woman - Rein Alma Petrovna and asks her: “Will you go as her nanny?”, pointing at me. She has three sons: one is seven, the second is five years old, and the third is a newborn...
She went to my house. And I’m on foot to the Finland Station. The train was traveling at night and there was shelling. I arrived in Vsevolozhsk at five in the morning: the sun, the leaves on the trees were blooming. Valin hospital is a former pioneer camp.
Across the river, in the gazebo...
I’m sitting on the bank of the river, the birds are singing, there’s silence... Just like in peacetime. Some grandfather came out of the house with a shovel. He asks: “Why are you sitting here?” I explain: “Well, I came to dig a garden, but I don’t know how to hold a shovel in my hands.” He gives me a shovel, shows me how to dig, and he sits down and watches me work.
His land is light and well-groomed, and I try. I dug up a large area, and then my Valya came: she was carrying bread and half a liter of black currants...
I sat down, little by little I plucked some bread, ate some berries, and washed it down with water. My grandfather came up to me and said: “Write a statement - I’ll give you two rooms and a small room in the attic...
So I’m not far from here, but I took them out of the city. Fedenka was taken to a 24-hour nursery, and Kostyukha’s grandfather looked after him...
6/VI - 1942 Went to Leningrad for Kronid. He was discharged from the hospital with diagnoses of grade III dystrophy, paratyphoid fever, and osteomyelitis. Not a single hair on my head, but about 40 large white lice were killed. We sat at the station all day. I met women who explained: this is a cadaverous louse, it doesn’t run to a healthy person...
At five in the morning we got off the train. My son is heavy, I carry him in my arms, he can’t hold his head up. When we got to the house, Valya looked at him and cried: “He will die...” The doctor Irina Aleksandrovna came, gave an injection and left silently.
Kronya opened his eyes and said: “I’m great, I didn’t even wince.” And fell asleep...
And at 9 am the doctors came: the head physician of the hospital, a professor and a nurse, examined me and gave recommendations. We fulfilled them as best we could. But he still couldn’t hold his head up, he was very weak, he didn’t eat - he only drank milk. Day by day I got better a little...
I tried to make money. She made girls' tunics, subtracting from those that were made for men. And the customers brought me some stew, some porridge. And I sewed everything as best I could.
I sewed a gray suit for my blond Suit at home. One day I was at work, and so as not to get bored, he sang loudly and loudly: “Partisan detachments are occupying cities.” The hospital doctors were sitting in a gazebo across the river, they heard a clear child’s voice and couldn’t stand it, they ran across the river along a log, asked them to sing again, and treated them to candy...
Fedora took the already hopeless man from the nursery
My husband came on leave and said that he was being transferred from sapper to driver in Leningrad. “I’m a sailor,” he said. “And I don’t know any locomotives.” The boss even hugged him: “This is even better: take the new boat to the Central Park of Culture and Culture, load it onto a freight train and off to Ladoga!..”
6/VII 1942 We are going to Leningrad. Kronya should be admitted to the hospital, but I donate blood - I need to feed the children... I sit with my sons at the Institute of Blood Transfusion - where donors are fed lunch. We sip the soup, and the war correspondent films us and, smiling, says: “Let the front-line soldiers see how you are here in Leningrad...” Then we go to the Rauchfus hospital. There they take my documents, and Kronya goes into the ward. My son spent four months in the hospital...
A 26/VII 1942 Fedenka, Fedor Konstantinovich, died. I took him from the nursery, already hopeless. He died like an adult. He screamed somehow, took a deep breath and straightened up...
I wrapped him in a blanket - an envelope, very beautiful, silk, and took him to the police, where they wrote out a funeral certificate... I took him to the cemetery, picked flowers here, put him in the ground without a coffin and buried him... I couldn’t even cry...
On the same day, I met the doctor of Fedya kindergarten - the kindergarten of the Baltic Shipping Company. She told me that her son had died, we hugged and kissed...
To Ladoga
On July 1, 1942, I came to the personnel department of the shipping company. She said: she buried her daughter and son. And my husband serves in Ladoga. I asked to become a sailor. She explained: I don’t need cards, I’m a donor, I get a work card, but I need a permanent pass to Ladoga. He took the passport, stamped it, and wrote out a pass to Osinovets, the Osinovets lighthouse. I issued a permanent ticket for the second carriage of the train going there - free of charge, and on the 10th I arrived at my destination. They let me through to the port. They explained to me that the boat carrying evacuees and food (they managed to unload the cargo well) sank to the bottom during the bombing. And the crew - the captain, mechanic and sailor - escaped and swam out. Then the boat was raised, and now it is under repair...
The boats usually went to Kobona, carrying live cargo... From time to time I went to the city. But I couldn’t take even a grain, even a speck of flour with me - if they found it, I’d be shot immediately. Over the pier, where there are sacks of cereal, peas, flour, an airplane will fly low, make a hole, supplies will spill into the water - disaster!
My Kostya made sourdough and baked pancakes - the whole pier came to us. Finally, the head of the port ordered to supply us with flour and butter. And then the loaders and military men took the soggy mass out of the water and onto the stove. They eat it, and then they twist their intestines and die... How many such cases have there been!
So I came to court again. I have two work cards: I give one to the kindergarten, they are happy there, Kostyukha is well looked after, and the other card I give to Valya. When I go to my grandfather, who has our things, he pampers me with cabbage and berries. And he also gives me apples, I take them to Leningrad, to Krona’s hospital. I’ll treat the nanny, the doctor, deliver letters from Osinovets and back to Ladoga, to the port... So I’m spinning like a squirrel in a wheel. People’s smiles are a gift, and my husband is nearby...
27/VIII. Summer passed quickly. Ladoga is stormy, cold, windy, the bombing has intensified... We are sailing to Kobona. The cargo was unloaded, and the boat sank not far from the shore. This happened often, but this time the Epron team couldn’t lift the boat...
Kostya was sent to the water pumping station (Melnichny Ruchey station). He's on duty for 24 hours, he's free for two...
At that time, Kronya was transferred from the Rauchfus hospital to the hospital on Petrogradka, and was told that an operation would be performed there. They put him in the women's department. The women fell in love with him - they taught him to sew, knit...
At the end of December, Krone had a piece of her jaw removed, and in January she was told to take her home.
3/I 1943 Again I went to ask for housing, they offered me an empty house in Melnichny Ruchey. In this house the stove was lit - it smokes, there is a wonderful stove with a brick oven... And nearby the military dismantled the houses log by log and took them away, and they approached us, but we intimidated them, and they did not touch our house.
The ground is soft
Kronid and Kostyukha were taken home, and the kindergarten bought us cards. My husband Kostya is close to going down to work - he will cross the railway track, and there will be a water pump. While he is on watch for 24 hours, he will cut, split, dry, and bring home firewood.
To warm up the house, you have to fire the stove continuously. Warm, light, lots and lots of snow. My husband made a sled. On the way, a horse will pass by the house two or three times a day - children on a sled. They take with them a box, a broom, shovels - they will collect the horse’s “goods” and pile the manure near the porch - it will be useful for future plantings...
15/III 1943 A huge pile of manure has accumulated at the porch. “Leningradskaya Pravda” just published an article by Academician Lysenko that it is possible to grow a rich harvest of excellent potatoes from potato sprouts. To do this, you need to make a greenhouse, fill it with horse manure, then cover it with frozen soil and add snow. Cover with frames and plant sprouts after two to three weeks.
We had to remove five internal frames in the house, and they did something like what was written in the newspaper.
22/III 1943 The ground is soft. We bought a bowl full of sprouts from an old neighbor for 900 g of sweets. We spent a long time planting - it was a troublesome task...
5/VI 1943 The frosts were very severe, and the whole earth froze - it was a great pity for our labors. And now it’s time to plant cabbage, rutabaga, and beets. They dug day and night.
Opposite are two two-story houses. Former kindergarten of the Meat Processing Plant. No one guarded them, but no one touched them - state...
In Leningrad, I got hold of onion sets—that’s how “onion” things work: they last forever, once you plant them, they grow for several years. Onions are growing by leaps and bounds, but I don’t know how to sell, and I don’t have time - the market is far away. I’ll cut it into a basket and take it to the sailors. They wrote me a thank you note. Then they themselves came to me, carefully cut them with scissors and took them to their place...
Hope is born
...I haven’t taken up the diary for a long time—I haven’t had the time. I went to the doctors. They examine me, listen to how you are growing there, and I talk to you, stroke you - I dream that you will grow up affectionate, pretty, smart. And you seem to hear me. Kostya has already brought you a wicker crib - very beautiful, we are waiting for you with great joy. I know that you are my daughter, growing up, you know what Miletta was like...
I remember the blockade - it protects the brothers. I'll leave, and the three of them will be alone. As soon as the bombing begins, she will throw everyone under the bed... Cold, hunger, she will share her last crumbs with them. She saw me dividing bread, and she shared it too. He’ll keep a smaller piece for himself and more mustard, like me... It’s scary to be alone in a four-room apartment... Once a bomb exploded in the yard - glass from the neighboring house is falling down, and ours is staggering...
...I have not donated blood since May, because I know that it is harmful to you, my beloved daughter. I went out to get some logs, neighbors were walking by, they were happy, the blockade had been broken...
The soldiers of the 63rd Guards Division gave my husband Kostya a new officer's fur coat. Full of people, noise, jokes, happiness! Is the blockade behind us?
2/II 1943 I tell Kostya: “Run for the doctor, it’s starting!” There is a 12-liter saucepan with warm boiled water on the stove, and water is already boiling in a 7-liter one. And yesterday, February 1, a doctor looked at me, put drops in my eyes, gave me iodine, a silk thread in a bag and said: “Don’t go to the hospital - it’s wildly cold there, and it’s all littered with dead people, and it’s located 4 kilometers from home.” ..."
The husband returned, his face was gone. He didn’t find a single person in the hospital - apparently they had quietly taken off at night... People told him that the weak were sent to the rear, and those who were stronger were sent to the front...
The contractions are already intolerable. The children are sleeping in the room, I’m standing in the trough, wearing Kostya’s shirt. He is opposite me, scissors at the ready... He’s already holding your head, you’re already in his arms... His face is bright... I take you in my arms. He cuts the umbilical cord, smears it with iodine, and ties it. There is a bath next to it. If you pour water on your head, your head is hairy. You yell, the children jump up, the father shouts to them: “Get in your place!”
He wraps you up and carries you to the bed...
I wash myself, Kostya takes me in his arms and also carries me to the bed. And he pours water out of the containers, washes the floor, washes his hands and comes to watch you sleep in the crib. Then he comes up to me, strokes my head, says good night, goes to sleep on the kitchen bench... The moon outside the window is huge...
In the morning, my husband tells me: “I didn’t sleep all night, listening to my daughter snoring. And I thought: let’s call her Nadezhda, and we will think that Hope and joy await us. It’s fortunate that he was there, delivered the baby, named you, otherwise he was still at sea...
Resin River
5/II 1944 Kostya was sent to Terijoki (translated from Finnish as the Resin River), and my mother Zoya, Dagmara and Lyusya came to see me from Udmurtia.
Zoya’s husband Ivan Danilovich Rusanov (they shared joy and sadness together for many years) was killed at the front...
Before the war, Ivan Danilovich and we were united by joint work: he was the chief engineer (graduated from the Forestry Academy), my Kostya was a mechanic, and I was a mechanic - I repaired and issued tools at the tool station at the Aleksandrovsky logging station. Mom Zoya and he got married on the eve of the war, in May, and left...
And now Ivan Danilovich is already lying somewhere in Sinyavino... And Kostya and I are young, healthy, but we lost our daughter and son, they were carried away by the blockade...
27/V 1944 We moved to Kostya in Terijoki. There are a lot of empty houses there. We settled in a small one with a veranda. Under the windows there is a garden, currant bushes, a well three steps from the porch. A huge barn and cellar - unexpectedly this cellar turned out to contain wine. Fifteen minutes to the station...
19/XI 1944 Kostya and I were invited to a holiday in honor of Artilleryman’s Day, we had to go to Leningrad. The children were put to bed; the train departed at three in the morning. Shortly before leaving, one military man brought us a bucket of gasoline. I covered the bucket with my basin, it stood next to the potatoes...
We arrived in the city, went to a meeting in honor of the holiday, and visited my mother. And then they didn’t know that our house in Terijoki caught fire. Fortunately, the children were not harmed - their neighbors saved them by pulling them out through the window. And when they pulled him out, the house collapsed. After the fire was extinguished by the arriving military, the following items were discovered missing: Kostya’s memory of her father—a heavy silver cigarette case, a box of bonds (maybe, of course, burned), and the military loaded the wine from the cellar onto a car and took it away.
They blamed everything on Kronya: as if he went with a candle to get potatoes, and a spark got into the gasoline...
20/XI - 1944 We got off the train, approached the house and saw ashes... Kostya says: “If only the children were alive, I don’t care about the rest!” It’s true: if we have an apartment in Leningrad, we won’t die. The neighbor comes out and reassures: “I have children, but without clothes, undressed...”
And they told how the house collapsed. They came up, and there was a 7-liter aluminum pan on the stove, like it was alive. They touched it and it fell apart. The box of wheat did not burn, but the grain turned out to be bitter...
We called the Leningrad military unit on Labor Square. Kostya called Valerian, he immediately took the car, loaded us up (and we took the frozen potatoes and two live rabbits and took them to Leningrad). In the city, kind people brought clothes to the children - at least they didn’t die, they just became very hungry.
Did you really survive the war?
We ate the rabbits and the potatoes. The children did not go to school because they were naked. And from the railway, Sergei Nikolaevich brought me work, collecting cartridges for street lighting, they paid very little...
You'll stand in line for bran. If you stay overnight, they will give you enough bread in the morning. You soak the bread, the bran, scalded with boiling water, swells, mix the soaked bread and bran, crush frozen, boiled potatoes, and put it in a frying pan. Aroma in the rooms. Let’s eat and get to work collecting cartridges...
Finally the spring of 1945. Did we really survive the war?.. My husband and I went to Repino. They painted the beds and walls. They hired me as a management manager, at night I guarded the dachas of artists and performers - none of them lived there. The prisoners lived. Even one night they gave me a gun, unloaded. I put it on my right shoulder. And the prisoners looked at me from the windows, cackling... I spent the night, came home and burst into tears. In the morning Kostya went to the board of directors to demand that they pay me off.
I'm still breastfeeding Nadya. We go to the bay with the whole family. Father and sons catch fish: perch and even pike perch. Shallow: fish gather near the stones, and there is a haze on the side of Kronstadt; naval sappers are clearing the fairway of mines. There are a lot of fish - we’ll collect a whole gas mask of little things, and we’ll string the big ones onto a branch and carry them over our shoulders. The shores are deserted, not a soul, but the sand is hot...
We take a bath and put the youngest Nadya in some water (she started early, at ten months). Cheerful, jumping, fussing, squealing, wants to catch a fish, but it runs away. The children laugh, and my father and I feel good...
Kostya is dragging two huge pike perch over his shoulder. We walk along the alley, and a huge fellow comes towards us. First he looks at the pike perch, and then let’s hug! It turned out that Kostin is the head of the BGMP, captain. My husband was sailing with him on some ship...
The siege story of one family
The story-memoir of a resident of besieged Leningrad, Roza Filipenkova
Leningrad
The branch of the Admiralteysky district of the society of residents of besieged Leningrad was headed by Rosa Fedorovna Filipenkova in 1990. He says that public affairs began to take up more and more time after two sons did not return from “hot spots”. When she had to bury her husband, a colonel of the missile forces, with whom she had lived for more than 40 years, business concerns came to the fore...
“Do you like songs? – the voice on the phone is very young. – We’ll meet you and sing: “Our tankers are special; they’re not used to retreating anywhere.” Do you know? It's a very old song." It’s hard to believe that this woman is 85, as well as the fact that she spent her childhood in a besieged city, and that she raised two boys in the post-war years...
Events that for my peers are history, for today’s schoolchildren are memories, for her are real life events. “When I tell elementary school kids about the blockade, they are so naively surprised: “What, did you already live then?”
I say, “Yes, you’re in third grade now, and I just went to second grade.”…
...The blockade ring closed on September 8, 1941, but Rosa Filipenkova’s classmates still tried to go to school: they still fed them more or less decently, and they didn’t want to give up their studies. This practice had to be abandoned only after a bomb hit the building. “No one was hurt then, but my mother didn’t let me go to school anymore, and by October I didn’t even have the strength to go to school,” she says. “From exhaustion, I began to look like a skeleton covered in skin, and my sister’s legs began to swell from hunger. She was 15 then - a transitional age - and it was incredibly difficult for her to physically endure the lack of nutrition. In November 1941, the bread quota for each unemployed city resident dropped to 125 grams - that stale, hard blockade bread (with sawdust, dust, 30 percent of it, it seems, was just flour). However, by winter it already seemed like a cake to us. He was missed so much."
Rosa's father, a disabled person from the Finnish War, received the same amount -125 grams - due to health reasons, he was unfit for service and could not perform work at the factory.
“All disabled people from the previous war received this standard. Before the new year, dad passed away,” recalls Rosa. “Even though my grandmother was retired before the war, she went to work for Triangle at the beginning of the war and decided that it was her duty. Mom was unharmed at defense work: along with the soldiers, they dug trenches, trenches, and built bunkers on the outskirts of the city.
The four of us stayed at home with our younger brother and two sisters: as best we could, we also participated in defense work - we extinguished lighters that were thrown onto the roofs (I remember these three-liter cans of sand that were carried upstairs from the first floor). Death in those days had already become almost part of everyday life: every day several people were taken out of the house on sleds. In order to somehow support each other, we communicated with our neighbors by knocking: we checked if everything was okay. So, it happened that you knocked: “Are you all alive?” “With us, yes. And you?". And from another apartment, maybe no one will answer.
They say that in those days both the Philharmonic and museums were open. But we personally didn’t have the strength to reach the center then.
We didn’t complain about the cold - there was a barn full of firewood in the yard, and not everyone had such luxury. But it was really difficult with food: my mother made jelly from wood glue to feed us. One day I managed to find a small piece of this glue, the size of a book, in my father’s supplies, and it was first soaked in boiling water for a long time, then boiled, and the result was jelly. But it was a luxury.
A couple of times that winter we even had duranda on the table: a paste made from cottonseed cake.
It was also not easy with water back then. Behind our house, a water pipe was pierced by a shell and from the resulting crater we took water: we lay on our stomachs and scooped it up with a ladle, cans, buckets - for tea, for cooking. However, you had to stand in line for a long time.
And we washed ourselves with melt water: there was a lot of snow - we collected it, drowned it in buckets - and used this water...
By winter, my brother developed a strange illness from hunger - something like prolapse of the intestines. There was such exhaustion that the internal organs had nothing to hold onto, and they fell out.
Mom always patiently tucked them back in, sewed him special tight underpants so that everything would stay inside... And my sister lay with swollen legs that didn’t even bend.
Our apartment was on the 5th floor in a building on Shkapina Street: this area was bombed especially heavily. The bomb shelter was located in the basement: a clean, long, narrow room with benches around the perimeter, illuminated by a torch or candle. It was built as a gas shelter with a tightly closed door and windows. Then it was used as a bomb shelter.
Behind our house was the Baltic Freight Station: there were freight cars and fuel storage facilities there - they tried to get into them. In December, a bomb hit our house: it penetrated through the fifth, fourth, and third floors and exploded on the ceiling of the third floor. The staircase was left hanging - all the insides of the house with bricks and furniture were washed out onto the sidewalk...
The patch on our house still remains: the hole was repaired then, but the building has not undergone major repairs since then...
I remember all this now and don’t understand how my mother held on: she never complained, I don’t even remember crying, although it was war: her husband died, four children in her arms... She got up every morning and ran to defense work. And after work, hurry home: the only thing is to see if our house is intact and if we are all alive.
When the German came very close to the city, she, of course, no longer went to work: she was with us... And we somehow maintained our spirit, our faith in victory. The radio always worked, it seemed to me almost around the clock. We listened all the time - the alarm signal was broadcast on the radio.
We often listened to the poems of Olga Bergolts and Dzhambula Dzhambaev. Even now tears come to my eyes when I remember this: “Leningraders, my children...”. I was 9 years old, and I was so surprised how he knew that I was here, that I was listening to him...
Evacuation
...We were taken out of the city in the summer of '42. They were taken out in freight trains - wagons designed for transporting livestock - beyond the Urals. Our food ration, of course, immediately increased: along with bread, at some stations we were given stew. Following the rules, they also gave us shag, which my mother exchanged at the stations with soldiers from oncoming trains for sugar... However, we couldn’t eat much then: our gums were swollen from scurvy and our teeth were falling out. They could only eat pulp. Mom made sure not to eat it all at once... - one could die from eating a large meal at once.
The move, of course, was difficult: the toilet was under the carriage, the sleeping places were on bunks, and at almost every station orderlies entered the carriage and asked if there were any dead. On one of these visits, we had to answer that it was true: my grandmother died.
In Kurgan, where we were brought, we were given rations: 400 grams of bread per person, and milk. Mom was hired to work on a collective farm...We survived.
Return
People were not allowed back into the city right away: only on a call from those who were mobilized to restore it. My sister left us - she was already 17 at that time. She sent a call and in 1946 we also returned to our apartment...
Leningrad was rebuilt quickly - holes from shell hits were “smoothed out”, new houses were rebuilt. We helped as best we could: we took out the garbage on stretchers, planted trees in the then unnamed Park - now it is Moscow Victory Park. With enthusiasm, just like that, without additional payments. It never occurred to us...
The city, however, was already different: many young people then came from other cities to rebuild... And of the 2 million 400 thousand people who lived in the city before the war (as I heard), by 1945 only 900 thousand remained: two-thirds of the population the city was destroyed.
Society of Residents of Siege Leningrad
We were officially recognized as war victims only in 1989. We were given a badge from the residents of besieged Leningrad - those who survived the war. Before this, of course, much was kept silent: many did not know the scale of the tragedy.
I was pleased: first of all, because of my mother - after all, she worked just like the soldiers. She told me: as soon as they dig a trench, they immediately occupy it: they retreated then...
The decision “to provide, at the expense of the federal budget, housing for persons awarded the badge “Resident of besieged Leningrad,” was supported, if you remember, by former governor Valentina Matvienko. In St. Petersburg, at least, many residents of the besieged city managed to get apartments. In the three years from 2009 to 2011, 1,500 people left the Admiralteysky district alone, receiving new housing: mainly to the Primorsky and Krasnoselsky districts. However, many now complain that there are no such cultural programs and historical surroundings as here...
To tell the truth, we were all in love with Matvienko: she really did a lot. During her governorship, our district administration was headed by Natalya Gennadievna Gordeeva. With her, we were often invited to discuss festive and memorial events dedicated to the blockade...
Even now the authorities do not forget about us: for example, our deputies of the legislative assembly of St. Petersburg now have the opportunity to allocate subsidies for cultural and social programs of blockade survivors.
We conduct excursions to places of military glory: not everyone has been, for example, to the place where the blockade was broken - in the village of Poroshki, Lomonosov district. 
We also conduct excursion walks on Ladoga, we take blockade survivors to the “Breakthrough Diorama”, to the Sinyavinsky Heights, to the suburbs, of course, we also go: to Lomonosov, Peterhof, Gatchina, Pushkin….
It’s a pity that they don’t remember us so often if we don’t remind ourselves. January 27, for example, is the Day of Breaking the Siege of Leningrad. But the news on Channel One didn’t say a word about it. They talk about which prince married whom, who divorced... Just not about us: but there was no such thing in the world as the Leningrad tragedy. Piskarevskoye Cemetery is still one of the largest graveyards in the world. Thank you - local TV channels don’t forget: NTV-Petersburg, Channel 5, Channel 100 come regularly.
It’s also a shame because our generation is passing away, every year there are fewer of those who really remember. When the society of siege survivors was just being created, and the Admiralteysky district was made up of two - Leninsky and Oktyabrsky - then in the first there were 20 thousand siege survivors, and in the second - 18.
And today in the united area there are only 2,250 residents of the besieged city.
…………………….
I’m not complaining: I have a job I love—I’m not currently a deputy on the municipal council, but we often organize meetings in schools. Recently, schoolchildren were told about the siege, and after that they drew our story - they represented the war and our life during the siege in drawings. It’s so interesting: who is a tank, who is an airplane, and some even depicted crisscrossing pillars of light in the dark sky and for some reason how they were transporting the dead on sleds.
...I receive a pension for my son - they don’t pay for two. I have daughters-in-law, grandchildren, and even one great-grandson. The second one should appear soon: I thought in February, but my granddaughter called yesterday and said that I had mixed everything up again - in March...
Reference:
According to some data, at the time the blockade was established, there were 2 million 544 thousand people in the city, including about 400 thousand children. In addition, 343 thousand people remained in the suburban areas, that is, also within the blockade ring. In September, when systematic bombing, shelling and fires began, many wanted to leave, but the routes were already cut off.
The townspeople began to prepare for the siege: people rushed to withdraw funds from the savings banks, and in a few hours the entire cash reserve in the city was taken out. There were huge queues outside all the shops. Few people believed in a siege, but out of old habit they stocked up on sugar, flour, soap, and salt.
The NKVD Directorate for the Leningrad Region carried out an inspection of the state of storage of emergency food supplies. In its “top secret” report addressed to the secretary of the Leningrad City Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the department reported that “the storerooms are unsuitable for storing food, the requirements of sanitary supervision are not met, and the emergency stock is damaged. Due to water leaking from the ceiling, bags of dried fruits are soaked, butter is covered with mold, rice and peas are infested with mites, bags of crackers are torn by rats, covered with dust and rodent droppings.”
In principle, there was no serious supply in Leningrad - the city lived on imported products, eating “from the wheels.” At the end of July 1941, there was approximately a week's supply of food on hand.
From the first days of September, food cards were introduced in Leningrad. Canteens and restaurants have closed. All livestock on collective and state farms were slaughtered, and the meat was delivered to procurement points. Feed grain was transported to mills to be ground and used as an additive to rye flour.
Lines from letters seized by military censorship (from archival documents of the FSB Directorate for St. Petersburg and the region [materials of the NKVD Directorate for the Leningrad Region]):
“...Life in Leningrad is getting worse every day. People start to get plump because they eat mustard and they make flatbreads out of it. The flour dust that used to be used to glue wallpaper can no longer be found anywhere.” “...There is a terrible famine in Leningrad. We drive through fields and landfills and collect all sorts of roots and dirty leaves from fodder beets and gray cabbage, and even those are not there.” “...I witnessed a scene when a cab driver’s horse fell from exhaustion on the street, people came running with axes and knives, began to cut the horse into pieces and drag it home. It's horrible. The people looked like executioners."
From October 1, workers and engineers began to receive 400 grams of bread per day on cards, all others - 200 grams. 8,000 tons of malt were taken from the breweries and ground. The floors of the mills were opened and all the flour dust was collected.
The figure - “125 blockade grams with fire and blood in half” - forever remained one of the symbols of the blockade, although these norms lasted just over a month. 125 grams of bread per day for dependents were introduced on November 20, 1941, and replaced by higher ones on December 25. However, for the residents of the besieged city it was a disaster - most of them, not accustomed to making any serious supplies, had nothing but this piece of bread mixed with bran and cake. And even these grams were not always obtained
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 basement rooms,” 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. 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 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.
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 if 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. Gradually the norms for bread distribution 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 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 shards.”
Incredible events happened. This happened on January 6, 1943 at the Dynamo stadium. Speed skating competitions were held.
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 monument 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
Tue, 01/28/2014 - 16:23
The further from the date of the incident, the less the person is aware of the event. The modern generation is unlikely to ever truly appreciate the incredible scale of all the horrors and tragedies that occurred during the siege of Leningrad. The only thing worse than the fascist attacks was the all-encompassing famine, which killed people with terrible deaths. On the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Leningrad from the fascist blockade, we invite you to see what horrors the residents of Leningrad endured at that terrible time.
From the blog of Stanislav Sadalsky
In front of me stood a boy, maybe nine years old. He was covered with some kind of scarf, then with a cotton blanket, the boy stood frozen. Cold. Some of the people left, some were replaced by others, but the boy did not leave. I ask this boy: “Why don’t you go and warm up?” And he: “It’s still cold at home.” I say: “What, do you live alone?” - “No, with your mother.” - “So, mommy can’t go?” - “No, she can’t. She's dead." I say: “Like she’s dead?!” - “Mom died, I feel sorry for her.” Now I guessed it. Now I only put her in bed during the day, and at night I put her near the stove. She's still dead. Otherwise it’s cold from her.”
"The Siege Book" Ales Adamovich, Daniil Granin
"The Siege Book" by Ales Adamovich and Daniil Granin. I once bought it at the best second-hand bookstore in St. Petersburg on Liteiny. The book is not a desk book, but it is always in sight. A modest gray cover with black letters contains a living, terrible, great document that collects the memories of eyewitnesses who survived the siege of Leningrad, and the authors themselves who became participants in those events. It's hard to read, but I would like everyone to do it...
From an interview with Danil Granin:
"- During the blockade, marauders were shot on the spot, but also, I know, cannibals were released without trial or investigation. Is it possible to condemn these unfortunates, mad with hunger, who have lost their human appearance, whom one cannot dare to call people, and how frequent were the cases when, for lack of other food, they ate their own kind?
- Hunger, I’ll tell you, deprives you of restraining barriers: morality disappears, moral prohibitions go away. Hunger is an incredible feeling that does not let go for a moment, but, to my and Adamovich’s surprise, while working on this book, we realized: Leningrad has not become dehumanized, and this is a miracle! Yes, cannibalism took place...
- ...ate children?
- There were worse things.
- Hmm, what could be worse? Well, for example?
- I don’t even want to talk... (Pause). Imagine that one of your own children was fed to another, and there was something that we never wrote about. Nobody forbade anything, but... We couldn’t...
- Was there any amazing case of survival during the siege that shook you to the core?
“Yes, the mother fed the children with her blood, cutting her veins.”
“...There were dead people in every apartment. And we were not afraid of anything. Will you go earlier? It’s unpleasant when the dead... Our family died out, and that’s how they lay. And when they put it in the barn!” (M.Ya. Babich)
“Dystrophic people have no fear. Corpses were dumped near the Academy of Arts on the descent to the Neva. I calmly climbed over this mountain of corpses... It would seem that the weaker a person is, the more afraid he is, but no, the fear disappeared. What would have happened to me if this had happened in peacetime? I would have died of horror. And now: there is no light on the stairs - I’m afraid. As soon as people ate, fear appeared” (Nina Ilyinichna Laksha).
Pavel Filippovich Gubchevsky, researcher at the Hermitage:
-What did the halls look like?
- Empty frames! It was Orbeli's wise order: to leave all the frames in place. Thanks to this, the Hermitage restored its exhibition eighteen days after the paintings returned from evacuation! And during the war they hung there, empty eye-sockets-frames, through which I conducted several excursions.
- By empty frames?
- On empty frames.
The Unknown Passerby is an example of the mass altruism of the blockade.
He was exposed on extreme days, in extreme circumstances, but his nature was all the more authentic.
How many of them there were - unknown passers-by! They disappeared, returning life to the person; having been pulled away from the mortal edge, they disappeared without a trace, even their appearance did not have time to be imprinted in the faded consciousness. It seemed that to them, unknown passers-by, they had no obligations, no kindred feelings, they did not expect either fame or payment. Compassion? But there was death all around, and they walked past the corpses indifferently, surprised at their callousness.
Most say to themselves: the death of the closest, dearest people did not reach the heart, some kind of protective system in the body was triggered, nothing was perceived, there was no strength to respond to grief.
The siege apartment cannot be depicted in any museum, in any model or panorama, just as frost, melancholy, hunger cannot be depicted...
The siege survivors themselves, remembering, note broken windows, furniture sawn into firewood - the most dramatic and unusual. But then only the children and visitors who came from the front were truly amazed by the appearance of the apartment. As it happened, for example, with Vladimir Yakovlevich Alexandrov:
“You knock for a long, long time - nothing is heard. And you already have the complete impression that everyone died there. Then some shuffling begins and the door opens. In an apartment where the temperature is equal to the ambient temperature, a creature appears wrapped in God knows what. You hand him a bag of some crackers, biscuits or something else. And what was surprising? Lack of emotional outburst.
- And even if it’s food?
- Even food. After all, many starving people already had atrophy of appetite.”
Hospital doctor:
- I remember they brought twin boys... So the parents sent them a small package: three cookies and three candies. Sonechka and Serezhenka were the names of these children. The boy gave himself and her a cookie, then they divided the cookies in half.
There are crumbs left, he gives the crumbs to his sister. And his sister throws him the following phrase: “Seryozhenka, it’s hard for men to endure war, you will eat these crumbs.” They were three years old.
- Three years?!
- They barely spoke, yes, for three years, such babies! Moreover, the girl was later taken away, but the boy remained. I don’t know if they survived or not..."
The amplitude of human passions during the blockade increased enormously - from the most painful falls to the highest manifestations of consciousness, love, and devotion.
“...Among the children with whom I was leaving was our employee’s boy, Igor, a charming, handsome boy. His mother looked after him very tenderly, with terrible love. Even during the first evacuation she said: “Maria Vasilievna, you also give your children goat’s milk. I’ll take goat’s milk for Igor.” And my children were even housed in another barracks, and I tried not to give them anything, not even an ounce more than they were supposed to. And then this Igor lost his cards. And now, in the month of April, I was walking past the Eliseevsky store (here dystrophies had already begun to crawl out into the sun) and I saw a boy sitting, a scary, edematous skeleton. “Igor? What happened to you?" - I say. “Maria Vasilievna, my mother kicked me out. Mom told me that she wouldn’t give me another piece of bread.” - "How so? This can’t be! He was in serious condition. We barely climbed up to my fifth floor, I barely pulled him in. By this time my children had already gone to kindergarten and were still holding on. He was so scary, so pathetic! And all the time he said: “I don’t blame my mother. She's doing the right thing. It’s my fault, I lost my card.” - “I say, I’ll get you into school” (which was supposed to open). And my son whispers: “Mom, give him what I brought from kindergarten.”
I fed him and went with him to Chekhov Street. Let's go in. The room is terribly dirty. This degenerated, disheveled woman is lying there. Seeing her son, she immediately shouted: “Igor, I won’t give you a single piece of bread. Get out!” The room is stinking, dirty, dark. I say: “What are you doing?! After all, there are only three or four days left - he will go to school and get better.” - "Nothing! You are standing on your feet, but I am not standing. I won't give him anything! I’m lying here, I’m hungry...” This is the transformation from a tender mother into such a beast! But Igor did not leave. He stayed with her, and then I found out that he died.
A few years later I met her. She was blooming, already healthy. She saw me, rushed towards me, shouted: “What have I done!” I told her: “Well, why talk about it now!” - “No, I can’t do it anymore. All thoughts are about him." After some time, she committed suicide.”
The fate of the animals of besieged Leningrad is also part of the tragedy of the city. Human tragedy. Otherwise, you can’t explain why not one, not two, but almost every tenth blockade survivor remembers and talks about the death of an elephant in the zoo from a bomb.
Many, very many remember the besieged Leningrad through this state: it is especially uncomfortable, creepy for a person and he is closer to death, disappearance because cats, dogs, even birds have disappeared!..
“Below, below us, in the apartment of the late president, four women are stubbornly fighting for their lives - his three daughters and granddaughter,” records G.A. Knyazev. “Their cat, whom they pulled out to save during every alarm, is still alive.
The other day an acquaintance, a student, came to see them. He saw the cat and begged him to give it to him. He pestered me directly: “Give it back, give it back.” They barely got rid of him. And his eyes lit up. The poor women were even scared. Now they are worried that he will sneak in and steal their cat.
O loving woman's heart! Fate deprived student Nekhorosheva of natural motherhood, and she runs around with a cat like a child, Loseva runs around with her dog. Here are two examples of these rocks in my radius. All the rest have long been eaten!”
Residents of besieged Leningrad with their pets
A.P. Grishkevich wrote on March 13 in his diary:
“The following incident occurred in one of the orphanages in the Kuibyshevsky district. On March 12, the entire staff gathered in the boys' room to watch two children fight. As it later turned out, it was started by them on a “principled boyish issue.” And before that there were “fights,” but only verbal and over bread.”
Zavdom comrade Vasilyeva says: “This is the most gratifying fact over the past six months. At first the children were lying down, then they began to argue, then they got out of bed, and now - an unprecedented thing - they are fighting. Previously, I would have been fired from work for such an incident, but now we, the teachers, stood looking at the fight and rejoiced. This means our little people have come to life.”
In the surgical department of the City Children's Hospital named after Dr. Rauchfus, New Year 1941/42.
It was told how Yaroslavl and Siberian cats, brought to besieged Leningrad, helped save this long-suffering and heroic city from an invasion of rats and a plague epidemic.
And in this post I would like to put together several stories about amazing people who were able to save their animals in this hell, and about how cats saved their owners from hunger.
Cat Marquis, who survived the siege of Leningrad.
I’ll tell you about a long, selfless friendship with a cat - an absolutely wonderful person, with whom I spent 24 joyful years under the same roof.
The Marquis was born two years earlier than me, even before the Great Patriotic War.
When the Nazis closed a blockade ring around the city, the cat disappeared. This did not surprise us: the city was starving, they ate everything that flew, crawled, barked and meowed.
Soon we went to the rear and returned only in 1946. It was in this year that cats began to be brought to Leningrad from all over Russia in trains, as the rats overpowered them with their impudence and gluttony...
One day, early in the morning, someone began to tear at the door with his claws and scream at the top of his lungs. The parents opened the door and gasped: a huge black and white cat stood on the threshold and looked at his father and mother without blinking. Yes, it was the Marquis, returning from the war. Scars - traces of wounds, a shortened tail and a torn ear spoke of the bombings he had experienced.
Despite this, he was strong, healthy and well-fed. There was no doubt that this was the Marquis: a wen had been rolling on his back since birth, and a black artistic “butterfly” adorned his snow-white neck.
The cat sniffed the owners, me, and the things in the room, collapsed on the sofa and slept for three days without food or water. He frantically moved his paws in his sleep, meowed, sometimes even purred a song, then suddenly bared his fangs and hissed menacingly at an invisible enemy.
The Marquis quickly got used to a peaceful, creative life. Every morning he accompanied his parents to the factory two kilometers from home, ran back, climbed onto the sofa and rested for another two hours before I got up.
It should be noted that he was an excellent rat catcher. Every day he deposited several dozen rats at the threshold of the room. And, although this spectacle was not entirely pleasant, he received full encouragement for the honest performance of his professional duty.
The Marquis did not eat rats; his daily diet included everything that a person could afford at that time of famine - pasta with fish caught from the Neva, poultry and brewer's yeast.
As for the latter, he was not denied this. On the street there was a pavilion with medicinal brewer's yeast, and the saleswoman always poured 100-150 grams of what she called “front-line” yeast for the cat.
In 1948, Marquis began to have troubles - all his upper teeth fell out. jaws. The cat began to fade away literally before our eyes. The veterinarians were categorical: euthanize him.
And here my mother and I, with bawling faces, are sitting in the zoo clinic with our furry friend in our arms, waiting in line to euthanize him.
“What a beautiful cat you have,” said the man with a small dog in his arms. "What about him?" And we, choking with tears, told him the sad story. “Will you allow me to examine your beast?” - The man took the Marquis and unceremoniously opened his mouth. “Well, I’m waiting for you tomorrow at the Department of the Research Institute of Dentistry. We will definitely help your Marquis.”
When the next day at the research institute we pulled Marquis out of the basket, all the employees of the department gathered. Our friend, who turned out to be a professor at the Department of Prosthetics, told his colleagues about the military fate of Marquis, about the blockade he suffered, which became the main cause of tooth loss.
An ethereal mask was placed on the Marquis's face, and when he fell into deep sleep, one group of doctors made an impression, another hammered silver pins into the bleeding jaw, and a third applied cotton swabs.
When it was all over, we were told to come back for dentures in two weeks, and to feed the cat with meat broths, liquid porridge, milk and sour cream withcottage cheese, which was very problematic at that time. But our family, cutting down our daily rations, managed.
Two weeks flew by instantly, and again we were at the Dentistry Research Institute. The entire staff of the institute gathered for the fitting. The prosthesis was put on pins, and Marquis became like an artist of the original genre, for whom a smile is a creative necessity.
But the Marquis did not like the prosthesis; he furiously tried to pull it out of his mouth. It is unknown how this fuss would have ended if the nurse had not thought of giving him a piece of boiled meat.
The Marquis had not tried such a delicacy for a long time and, forgetting about the prosthesis, began to chew it greedily. The cat immediately felt the enormous advantage of the new device. Intensified mental work was reflected on his face. He forever linked his life with his new jaw.
Between breakfast, lunch and dinner, the jaw rested in a glass of water. Nearby stood cups with false jaws from my grandmother and father. Several times a day, and even at night, Marquis would go to a glass and, making sure that his jaw was in place, would go to doze on his grandmother’s huge sofa.
And how much worry did the cat have when he once noticed the absence of his teeth in a glass! All day, exposing your toothlessgums, the Marquis yelled, as if asking his family, where did they touch his device?
He discovered the jaw himself - it had rolled under the sink. After this incident, the cat sat nearby most of the time, guarding his glass.
So, with an artificial jaw, the cat lived for 16 years. When he turned 24, he felt his departure into eternity.
A few days before his death, he no longer approached his treasured glass. Only on the very last day, having gathered all his strength, he climbed onto the sink, stood on his hind legs and swept the glass off the shelf onto the floor.
Then, like a mouse, he took the jaw into his toothless mouth, transferred it to the sofa and, hugging it with his front paws, looked at me with a long bestial gaze, purred the last song of his life and left forever.
Cat Vasily
My grandmother always said that my mother, and I, her daughter, survived the severe blockade and hunger only thanks to our cat Vaska.
If it weren’t for this red-haired hooligan, my daughter and I would have died of hunger like many others.
Every day Vaska went hunting and brought back mice or even a big fat rat. Grandma gutted the mice and cooked them into stew. And the rat made good goulash.
At the same time, the cat always sat nearby and waited for food, and at night all three lay under one blanket and it warmed them with its warmth.
He felt the bombing much earlier than the air raid alert was announced, he began to spin around and meow pitifully, his grandmother managed to collect her things, water, mother, cat and run out of the house. When they fled to the shelter, he was dragged along with them as a family member and watched so that he would not be carried away and eaten.
The hunger was terrible. Vaska was hungry like everyone else and skinny. All winter until spring, my grandmother collected crumbs for the birds, and in the spring she and her cat went hunting. Grandma sprinkled crumbs and sat with Vaska in ambush; his jump was always surprisingly accurate and fast.
Vaska was starving with us and he did not have enough strength to hold the bird. He grabbed the bird, and his grandmother ran out of the bushes and helped him. So from spring to autumn they also ate birds.
When the blockade was lifted and more food appeared, and even then after the war, the grandmother always gave the best piece to the cat. She stroked him affectionately, saying, “You are our breadwinner.”
Vaska died in 1949, his grandmother buried him in the cemetery, and so that the grave would not be trampled, she put a cross and wrote Vasily Bugrov. Then my mother put my grandmother next to the cat, and then I buried my mother there too. So all three lie behind the same fence, as they once did during the war under one blanket.
The story of Maxim the cat
Maxim’s owner, Vera Nikolaevna Volodina, said: “It got to the point in our family that my uncle demanded Maxim’s cat to be eaten almost every day.
When my mother and I left home, we locked Maxim in a small room.
We also had a parrot named Jacques. In good times, our Jaconya sang and talked. And then he got all skinny from hunger and became quiet.
The few sunflower seeds that we exchanged for daddy’s gun soon ran out, and our Jacques was doomed.
The cat Maxim also barely wandered - his fur came out in clumps, his claws could not be removed, he even stopped meowing, begging for food.
One day Max managed to get into Jacone's cage. At any other time there would have been drama. And this is what we saw when we returned home! The bird and the cat were sleeping in a cold room, huddled together.
This had such an effect on my uncle that he stopped trying to kill the cat.”
However, the touching friendship between the cat and the parrot soon ended - after some time, Jaconya died of hunger. But Maxim managed to survive, and moreover, to become practically a symbol of life for the besieged city, a reminder that all is not lost, that one cannot give up.
People went to the Volodins’ apartment just to look at the surviving cat, a real fluffy miracle. And after the war, schoolchildren were taken on an “excursion” to Maxim.
The brave cat died in 1957 - from old age. Source
