On May 7, the editors of AiF will hold a marathon in memory of the Voice of Victory at the Radio House for the sixth time. This year it is dedicated to the fate of children evacuated from the besieged city.

Mass evacuation is a separate page in the history of the blockade. It was carried out in several stages, from June 1941 to November 1943, and affected hundreds of thousands of little Leningraders.

kids under the bombs

The whole country accepted them. So, 122 thousand kids and teenagers arrived in Yaroslavl. Such a large number is explained by the fact that this city, on the way to the east, was the first railway junction and regional center not occupied by the Germans.

The Germans knew about the evacuation and did not spare anyone. A terrible tragedy occurred on July 18, 1941 at the Lychkovo station in the Novgorod region. There arrived a train of 12 heating wagons, where there were 2,000 children and the teachers and doctors accompanying them. The German plane flew in so suddenly that no one had time to hide. The pilot accurately dropped about 25 bombs, and an hour later four more appeared ... The Nazis had fun by shooting the fleeing kids with machine guns. The exact number of children who died then has not been established so far, but few managed to escape.

They were buried in a mass grave along with teachers and nurses. The monument was erected only in 2003. On a granite slab - the flame of an explosion that threw up a child, at the foot of the monument - toys.

Cared for like her own

Despite the risk, children continued to be sent inland. So, 3.5 thousand children were sheltered by Kyrgyzstan. Most were settled in orphanages on the shores of Lake Issyk-Kul. 800 little Leningraders left without parents were adopted by the Kyrgyz into their families.

A unique story is connected with Toktogon Altybasarova, who became the mother of 150 children from besieged Leningrad. In the Great Patriotic War, she was only 16, however, “for activity and literacy,” the girl was elected secretary of the village council of the village of Kurmenty, where they brought the starving Leningraders.

She welcomed them like family. Some could not walk, and the villagers carried the children in their arms. Toktogon distributed everyone to their homes and looked after them as if they were her own. Over time, the younger ones began to call the woman Toktogon-apa, which in Kyrgyz means “mother”. She died in 2015, and all this time the grateful pupils and their descendants communicated with their mother - sent letters, came to visit.

Alas, not all evacuees managed to return home after the war. Leningrad remained for a long time closed city, and in order to register here and get a job, even the indigenous people needed a call and a lot of information. As a result, many settled in Siberia, the Urals, and Kazakhstan. Today, over 11,000 of those same evacuated boys and girls live in 107 cities in Russia and abroad. And although they are outside the city, in their hearts they still remain Leningraders.

STORIES OF THE CHILDREN OF THE BELOCADE LENINGRAD

On November 22, 1941, during the blockade of Leningrad, an ice route through Lake Ladoga began to operate. Thanks to her, many children were able to go to the evacuation. Before that, some of them went through orphanages: someone's relatives died, and someone else disappeared at work for days on end.

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

Several women who had once been taken out of besieged Leningrad told us their stories. Stories of stolen childhood, loss, 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 in the war. “I had absolute pitch. I managed to study at a music school,” says Irina Konstantinovna. “They wanted to take me to the 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: dad was a regent in the church, and mom sang in the choir. In the late 1930s, my father began working as the chief accountant of a technological institute. 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 a stump. The Pope died a year before the start of the war. And before his death, he said to 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 their relatives. “Dad had an amazing library, and we could only take the most necessary things. We collected two large suitcases,” says Irina Konstantinovna. “It was a cold April. 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 pulp of seeds that remained after pressing the oil. She returned with a fever and did not get up again.

So the sisters of eleven and fourteen 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 - the transport did not go for a long time. And slowly - because there was no strength. Came for three days. And the cards were stolen from them again - all but one. Her girls were given away to 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. “So we parted 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 hardly move - like old women.

“Somehow, on a walk, I saw painted “classics,” she says. “I wanted to jump. I got up, but I couldn’t tear my legs off! tears are flowing. She told me: "Don't cry, honey, then you'll jump. We were so weak."

In the Yaroslavl region, where the children were evacuated, the collective farmers were ready to give them anything - it was so painful to look at the bony, emaciated children. There just wasn't much to give. “We saw the 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 found out that she had lost her hearing due to the bombing and stress. Forever and ever.

Irina Konstantinovna

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There was a piano at school. I ran up to him and I understand - I can’t play. The teacher came. She says: "What are you, girl?" I answer: here the piano is out of tune. She told me: "Yes, you do not 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 guys to the fields - to earn workdays. “We spread flax, we had to fulfill the norm - 12 acres per person. Curly flax was easier to spread, but after fiber flax, all hands festered,” recalls Irina Konstantinovna. “Because the little hands were still weak, scratched.” So - in work, hunger, but security - 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 a medical examination, the doctors recorded that she was 11 - the girl looked so undeveloped outwardly. So already in 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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I was not hired because I was allegedly 11 years old. Do you need something? I went to the dining room to wash the dishes, peel the potatoes. Then they made documents for me, went through the archives. During the year got a job

Irina Konstantinovna

Then there were eight years of work at a confectionery factory. In the post-war city, this made it possible sometimes to eat off defective, broken sweets. Irina Konstantinovna fled from there when they decided to promote her along the party line. “I had a wonderful leader, he said: “Look, you are being prepared for the head of the shop.” I say: “Help me escape.” I thought that I should mature before the party.

Irina Konstantinovna "washed away" to the Geological Institute, and then traveled a lot on expeditions to Chukotka and Yakutia. "On the road" managed to get married. She has over half a century of happy marriage behind her. "I am very satisfied with my life," says Irina Konstantinovna. Only now she never had a chance to play the piano again.

"I thought Hitler was the Serpent Gorynych"

The story of Regina Romanovna Zinovieva

“On June 22, I was in the 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 go 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 his fire comes from his mouth ... "

Then the five-year-old Regina was very upset that she never walked with a 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 on the "black funnel" - they took him immediately upon returning from the assignment, without even letting him change clothes. His surname was German - Hindenberg. The girl stayed with her mother, and famine began in the besieged city.

Once Regina was waiting for her mother, who was supposed to pick her up from kindergarten. The teacher took the two late children out into the street 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 out, and we fled,” says Regina Romanovna. “Then the teacher came out. We wanted to show her this woman, and she was already trace is gone." Now Regina Romanovna understands that she managed to escape from the cannibal. At that time, Leningraders, mad with hunger, stole and ate children.

Mom tried to feed her daughter as best she could. Once she 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 before the war, Regina was presented with a plush monkey, she was called Foka.

Regina Romanovna

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I grabbed this monkey and shouted: "Take what you want, but I will not give this one! This is my favorite." And she really liked it. My mother and I ripped out a toy from me, and I roared ... 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 your favorite toy from a small child?” Mom said: "Perhaps this toy saved your life."

One day, while taking her daughter to the 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, we were lying in bed two by two. They put me with a girl, she was all swollen. Her legs were all in ulcers. you will be hurt.” And she told me: “No, they don’t feel anything anyway.”

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

Regina Romanovna

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When we got there, they gave us semolina porridge. Oh, it was such a delight! We licked this porridge, licked the plates from all sides, but we had not 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 boys are lucky: Tyumen region they were received very well. The children were given a former manor house - a strong, two-story one. They stuffed mattresses with hay, gave them land for a vegetable garden and even a cow. The guys weeded the beds, fished and gathered nettles for cabbage soup. After the 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 senior group looked after the wounded and washed bandages in the local hospital, the boys, along with their teachers, went to logging. 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 the fourteen-year-old children already old enough to go to restore the liberated Leningrad. “Our manager went to the district center - part of the way on foot, part on hitches. The frost was 50–60 degrees,” recalls Regina Romanovna. “She traveled for three days to say: the children are weak, they will not be able to work. Only seven or eight of the strongest boys were sent to Leningrad."

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

Regina Romanovna

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The manager had a crepe de chine red dress. She tore it up and hung it up like a flag. It was so beautiful! So, no regrets. And our boys staged a salute: they spread all the pillows and threw feathers. And the teachers didn't even fight. And then the girls collected feathers, made pillows for themselves, and the boys were left without pillows. This is how we celebrated Victory Day

Regina Romanovna

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

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

Regina Romanovna

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

Regina Romanovna

"We were called" vykovyrki"

The story of Tatyana Stepanovna Medvedeva

Mom called little Tanya the last child: the girl was youngest child in a large family: she had a brother and six sisters. In 1941 she was 12 years old. “June 22 was warm, we were going to go sunbathing and swimming. And suddenly they announced that the war had begun,” says Tatyana Stepanovna. “We didn’t go anywhere, everyone cried, screamed ... And my brother immediately went to the draft board, said: I will go to fight” .

Parents were already elderly, they did not have the strength to fight. They quickly died: dad - in February, mom - in March. Tanya sat at home with her nephews, who were not much different from her in age - 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 city ​​of the dead children. And relatives were afraid that Tanya would be among them. “Ray’s sister said: ‘Tanya, you won’t survive here alone.’ The nephews were taken apart by their mothers — Volodya was taken to the factory by his mother, he worked with her, — says Tatyana Stepanovna. — Raya took me to the orphanage. 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 blockade grams", 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's a matter of geography: after all, the front line here was much closer than in Siberia. “When the commission came, we said that there was not enough food. They answered us: we give you horse portions, and you all 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, covered themselves with another. There was nothing else to hide.

Tatyana Stepanovna

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

Tatyana Stepanovna

The evacuation is one of the most memorable and painful pages in the history of besieged Leningrad. Five days after the start of the war, on June 27, 1941, by decision of the bureau of the city committee and the regional committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the Leningrad City Evacuation Commission was created. Three weeks later, or rather on July 14, 1941, the plans of the German command to rapidly capture Leningrad became known. This was reported in the report of the NKVD of the USSR to the Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army Georgy Zhukov.

The evacuation commission had to do a colossal amount of work related to the removal of institutions, equipment, enterprises, military cargo and cultural property, as well as the population, especially children. And this is in conditions when a stream of refugees poured into the city from areas under the threat of occupation (from Karelia, the Baltic states, and later from the Leningrad region).

A month before the start of the blockade, the entire population of the city was divided into those who wanted to leave as soon as possible, and those who wanted to stay in Leningrad. Some did not want to leave their relatives who remained in the city, others feared for their property, others considered it their patriotic duty to remain in their native city. Finally, the majority simply doubted that they would be better off in the outback, without any definite prospects, without housing, far from relatives and friends.

However, the evacuation began. The children left first. Already on June 29, 1941, the first batch was sent by ten echelons - 15 thousand 192 children with schools and children's institutions. In total, it was planned to take 390 thousand children to the Yaroslavl and Leningrad regions. True, about 170 thousand children returned to the city very soon, since fascist troops were rapidly approaching the south of the Leningrad region, where they were placed.

little known fact: paradoxical as it may seem, but the parents and persons replacing them had to bear the financial expenses for ensuring the evacuation of children and adolescents, as well as for their further stay in children's institutions in the rear. This order was observed both before the blockade of the city, and after the blockade ring around Leningrad closed. In the article Petersburg historian, candidate of sciences Anastasia Zotova“On the collection of fees for the evacuation of children from besieged Leningrad”, with reference to the Central State Archive of St. Petersburg, documents and resolutions of the blockade time are analyzed, from which it follows that the collection of funds from parents was regularly carried out all the blockade years, and special commissions were created for this , monthly reporting on the collected amounts until 1944. Parents were temporarily exempted from payments if they left Leningrad and their whereabouts were not established. Only the export and provision of children who did not have parents and guardians was fully funded by the state.

The evacuation of the adult population took place later. Until mid-August 1241, it was planned to evacuate 1 million 600 thousand people, but before the land blockade, only 636 thousand 203 people managed to leave, according to the City Evacuation Commission, including almost 150 thousand residents of the region and refugees from the Baltic states.

When the Road of Life opened, the evacuation continued by water across Lake Ladoga. In total, by the end of navigation in 1941, about 33,500 people were evacuated from the besieged city by water.

“The opening of the Ladoga route gave many Leningraders hope for salvation,” says blockade survivor Lidia Alexandrovna Vulman-Fyodorova. “The crossing on Ladoga moved us to a magical land with bread, porridge and other dishes, although the evacuation itself was under fire, during which people also died.”

This navigation claimed hundreds of lives. During storms and bombings, 5 tugboats and 46 barges sank. The biggest casualties among the evacuees were on September 18 and November 4. In the first case, a barge sank, and in the second, a patrol ship was bombed. Both ships were transported to mainland hundreds of Leningraders, of which about 500 people died.

This is how the blockade survivor Lev Nikolaevich Krylov, born in 1935, recalls the bombing of ships and his failed evacuation: “In the early summer, they tried to take us with the boarding school along Ladoga to the mainland. On the shore, everyone was given a “fabulous” package with rations: a roll, crackers, cookies, even a chocolate bar! We were warned that there is a lot at once - it is dangerous. I followed my brother Yura, and he was capricious and asked not to interfere. After sailing, a storm broke out. Many children became ill, they were sick. The bombing started. For some reason, we were not afraid, rather interesting. When a bomb hit the head steamer, our ship turned back, and the evacuation did not take place.

In the autumn, before frost set in and the ice on Ladoga got stronger, the evacuation was almost interrupted. By December 1941, the first peak of mortality was recorded in the city - about 50 thousand Leningraders. And already in January, this figure was doubled: according to a secret certificate from the Leningrad city registry office, in the first month of 1942, 101,825 people died in the city.

By the end of January, evacuation became almost the only chance to escape from certain death. Leningraders who left the city sold their things for next to nothing, just to leave as soon as possible. By this time the city had turned into a huge market. Hundreds of ads on the walls of houses announced an urgent sale of valuables, books, paintings, furniture, clothing and luxury items that many families still had from pre-revolutionary times.

Those leaving were in dire need of funds. From the conversations and rumors that circulated in the city, they knew that money, vodka, tobacco, or valuables were needed to safely leave the city, overcome the deadly path through Lake Ladoga, and survive in a new place. So they sold everything that they could not take with them. “The city is full of announcements: “for sale, changing”, the city is a solid market; things, especially furniture, cost pennies, ”Leningrad architect Esfir Gustavovna Levina wrote in her diary.

In total, during the winter and early spring of 1942, according to official data, 554 thousand 186 people were evacuated over the ice. And after the opening of navigation in May 1942 and until August, when the evacuation was basically over, there were still more than 432 thousand people. After that, the flow of evacuees dropped sharply. The wounded, the sick, the last remaining orphanages in the city left.

No one counted how many people survived after they got out of the besieged city. This data simply does not exist. Leningraders were dying in trains, at distribution points, in hospitals. Weakened from hunger, with dystrophy and other ailments, many could not survive the hardships of the road in the conditions of war and confusion. People even died from the fact that after many months of hunger they received plenty of food.

For the entire period of evacuation, namely from June 29, 1941 to December 17, 1943, it was evacuated from Leningrad, according to archival documents Leningrad city evacuation commission, 1 million 763 thousand 129 people, including residents of the Leningrad region and the Baltic republics.

Since then and until today, many Leningraders continue to search for their loved ones who were lost during the evacuation process. " There were nine of us, children, with mom and dad - small and small less, - says the blockade survivor Alevtina Alexandrovna Startseva, born in 1938. - Some of my sisters and brothers ended up in orphanages after the evacuation of pioneer camps. In December 1942, my mother and I were evacuated to Omsk. There, my brother and I went to a kindergarten, and my mother and sister, a ninth-grader, got a job at a factory.

By the end of the war, our mother found all the children who disappeared in 1941. With my sister Nadia, she is 8 years older than me, she was amazing story. She had already been adopted, but her mother was given the address where she lived. When my mother arrived there, Nadia's adoptive mother said: “Let's agree on who Nadia will approach, and she will stay with that. She lived the whole war with us, we love her.” When mother and this woman entered the room, Nadya threw herself on our mother's neck and shouted: "Mommy!" With whom she will stay, the question no longer arose.

But there are also those Leningraders who were evacuated along with children's institutions and did not find their parents, brothers and sisters after the war. Until now, some of them are looking for their loved ones. Moreover, it is in Last year there was a chance to find people lost many years ago, since the scattered archives were brought together, while others were declassified. Project “Siege of Leningrad. Evacuation" was launched on April 27, 2015. This is a unified information database on the inhabitants of Leningrad, evacuated from the city during the years of the blockade, which continues to be updated with new archival data and allows you to independently search for information.

Here's what she said Senior Inspector of the Archival Committee of St. Petersburg Elizaveta Zvereva, who participated in the project from the first days: “There are already cases when it was thanks to the Evacuation database that citizens managed to confirm the fact of their stay in the besieged city and, accordingly, apply for the sign “Inhabitant of besieged Leningrad” and relying social benefits. A specific example was quite recently: a woman was 21 years old at the beginning of the war, and she had just given birth to a daughter. She claimed that she was evacuated from Leningrad with her daughter in 1942, and complained that she still could not confirm the fact of the evacuation. She lived during the war on Khersonskaya Street, then it was the Smolninsky District, and until recently, all inquiries received a negative answer. Now we have the opportunity to search the combined database. And we got results right away! It turned out that the woman and her daughter had been evacuated from an enterprise in the Vyborg district where her brother worked. That's why they were listed there."

According to Elizabeth Zvereva, the creation of the database has not yet been completed, it takes place in several stages. First of all, documents on the evacuated citizens from the archives of the district administrations were transferred to the Central State Archive. In most cases, these are files. Unfortunately, in a number of districts, such as Kurortny and Kronstadt, file cabinets were not kept. In such cases, the only source of information is the lists of evacuees, filled out by hand, often in illegible handwriting, and poorly preserved. And in the Petrogradsky, Moskovsky, Kirovsky, Krasnoselsky and Kolpinsky districts, documents have not been preserved at all, which greatly complicates the search. However, work on the project continues and every day everything more people find documents for themselves and loved ones. From April 27, 2015 to the end of September 2016, more than 39,000 people have already used this database.

Tatyana Trofimova

On the eve of the 70th anniversary of the Victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic war at the initiative of the Archives Committee Petersburg an electronic database (hereinafter referred to as the DB) “Siege of Leningrad. Evacuation". Now users can independently find information about their relatives evacuated from besieged Leningrad in 1941-1943.

The painstaking work on the project is carried out by specialists from several services and departments: archivists of the Central State Archive Petersburg, their colleagues from the departmental archives of district administrations, employees of city committees on education and health, as well as employees Petersburg Information and analytical center.

The creation of the database took place in several stages. First of all, documents on the evacuated citizens from the archives of the district administrations were transferred to the Central State Archive. Admiralteisky, Vasileostrovsky, Vyborgsky, Kalininsky, Nevsky, Primorsky and Central regions promptly provided the necessary materials. In most cases, these are card indexes - that is, alphabetically selected cards on the evacuees. As a rule, they indicate the number, surname, name, patronymic of a citizen, year of birth, address of residence before evacuation, date of evacuation, as well as the place of departure and information about family members who traveled with the evacuee.

Unfortunately, in a number of districts, such as Kurortny and Kronstadt, file cabinets were not kept or have not been preserved. In such cases, the only source of information is the lists of evacuees, filled out by hand, often in illegible handwriting, and poorly preserved. All these features create additional difficulties when transferring information to a single database. In the Petrogradsky, Moskovsky, Kirovsky, Krasnoselsky and Kolpinsky districts, documents have not been preserved, which significantly complicates the search.

The next step in creating a database is the digitization of file cabinets, that is, their conversion into electronic form by scanning. Digitization is carried out on in-line scanners by the staff of the Information and Analytical Center. And here the physical condition of the scanned documents is of particular importance, since some of them have hard-to-read text or physical damage. In many ways, it is this indicator that affects the quality and speed of the information subsequently loaded into the database.

On the final stage electronic images of cards are sent for processing to the operators of the Information and Analytical Center, who enter the information contained in them into the database by manual typing.

On the eve of the anniversary of the Victory on April 29, 2015, as part of the reception of veterans, the reception at the Archives Committee Petersburg war veterans and residents of besieged Leningrad within the framework of events held on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War of 1941 - database “Siege of Leningrad. Evacuation" was solemnly opened and became available to a wide range of Internet users at: http://evacuation.spbarchives.ru.

In the process of working on the project, documents of the war period (1941 - 1945) were additionally identified in a large volume, work with which will continue in the future, as well as the replenishment of the database with new information. Currently, about 620.8 thousand cards have been entered into the database.

However, work on the project continues. To replenish the database with new information, a long process of scanning the actual lists of evacuated residents of Leningrad will be necessary.

The blockade of Leningrad is a siege of one of the largest Russian cities that lasted more than two and a half years, which was conducted by the German Army Group North with the help of Finnish troops on Eastern Front World War II . The blockade began on September 8, 1941, when the Germans blocked last way to Leningrad. Although on January 18, 1943, Soviet troops managed to open a narrow corridor of communication with the city by land, the blockade was finally lifted only on January 27, 1944, 872 days after it began. It was one of the longest and most destructive sieges in history, and perhaps the most costly in terms of casualties.

Prerequisites

The capture of Leningrad was one of the three strategic goals of the German operation "Barbarossa" - and the main one for the Army Group "North". Such importance was due to the political status of Leningrad as former capital Russia and the Russian Revolution, its military importance as the main base of the Soviet Baltic Fleet, the industrial power of the city, where there were many factories producing military equipment. By 1939, Leningrad produced 11% of all Soviet industrial output. It is said that Adolf Hitler was so confident in the capture of the city that, on his orders, invitations to the celebration of this event at the Astoria Hotel in Leningrad were already printed.

There are various assumptions about Germany's plans for Leningrad after its capture. The Soviet journalist Lev Bezymensky claimed that his city was supposed to be renamed Adolfsburg and turned into the capital of the new Ingermanland province of the Reich. Others claim that Hitler intended to completely destroy both Leningrad and its population. According to the directive sent to Army Group North on September 29, 1941, "after the defeat Soviet Russia there is no interest in the continued existence of this large urban center. [...] Following the encirclement of the city, requests for surrender negotiations should be rejected, since the problem of moving and feeding the population cannot and should not be decided by us. In this war for our existence, we cannot have an interest in preserving even a part of this very large urban population. It follows that Hitler's ultimate plan was to raze Leningrad to the ground and hand over the areas north of the Neva to the Finns.

872 days of Leningrad. In a hungry loop

Blockade preparation

Army Group North was moving towards Leningrad, its main objective (see the Baltic operation of 1941 and the Leningrad operation of 1941). Its commander, Field Marshal von Leeb, at first thought to take the city outright. But due to Hitler's withdrawal of the 4th Panzer Group (head of the General Staff Halder persuaded to transfer it to the south, to throw Fyodor von Bock to Moscow), von Leeb had to start a siege. He reached the shore of Lake Ladoga, trying to complete the encirclement of the city and connect with the Finnish army of Marshal Mannerheim waiting for him on the Svir River.

Finnish troops were located north of Leningrad, while the Germans approached the city from the south. Both of them had the goal of cutting off all communications to the defenders of the city, although Finland's participation in the blockade mainly consisted of re-capturing lands lost in the recent Soviet-Finnish war. The Germans hoped that hunger would be their main weapon.

Already on June 27, 1941, the Leningrad Soviet organized armed detachments from civilian militias. In the coming days, the entire population of Leningrad was informed of the danger. Over a million people were mobilized to build fortifications. Several lines of defense were created along the perimeter of the city, from the north and south, defended mainly by civilians. In the south, one of the fortified lines ran from the mouth of the Luga River to Chudov, Gatchina, Uritsk, Pulkovo, and then across the Neva River. Another line passed through Peterhof to Gatchina, Pulkovo, Kolpino and Koltushi. The line of defense against the Finns in the north (the Karelian fortified area) had been maintained in the northern suburbs of Leningrad since the 1930s and has now been renewed.

As R. Colli writes in his book The Siege of Leningrad:

... By order of June 27, 1941, all men from 16 to 50 years old and women from 16 to 45 years old were involved in the construction of fortifications, except for the sick, pregnant women and caring for babies. The mobilized were supposed to work for seven days, followed by four days of "rest", during which they had to return to their usual workplace or continue your studies. In August, the age limits were extended to 55 for men and 50 for women. The duration of work shifts has also increased - seven days of work and one day of rest.

In reality, however, these norms were never observed. One 57-year-old woman wrote that for eighteen days in a row, twelve hours a day, she pounded the earth “hard as stone” ... Teenage girls with delicate hands, who came in summer sundresses and sandals, had to dig the earth and drag heavy concrete blocks , having only scrap ... The civilian population erecting fortifications often found itself in the bombing zone or they were shot at strafing flight by German fighters.

It was a titanic work, but some considered it in vain, confident that the Germans would easily overcome all these defensive lines ...

A total of 306 km of wooden barricades were erected by the civilian population, 635 km barbed wire, 700 km of anti-tank ditches, 5,000 earth and wooden and reinforced concrete pillboxes and 25,000 km of open trenches. Even the guns from the cruiser Aurora were transferred to the Pulkovo Heights, south of Leningrad.

G. Zhukov claims that in the first three months of the war, 10 voluntary militia divisions were formed in Leningrad, as well as 16 separate artillery and machine-gun battalions of the militia.

... [City party head] Zhdanov announced the creation in Leningrad of " militia“... Neither age nor health was an obstacle. By the end of August 1941, over 160,000 Leningraders, 32,000 of them women, signed up for the militia [voluntarily or under duress].

The militias were poorly trained, they were given old rifles and grenades, and were also taught how to make incendiary bombs, which later became known as the “Molotov cocktail”. The first division of the militia was formed on July 10 and already on July 14, almost without preparation, sent to the front to help the regular units of the Red Army. Almost all the militiamen were killed. Women and children were warned that if the Germans broke into the city, it would be necessary to throw stones at them and pour boiling water on their heads.

... Loudspeakers continuously informed about the successes of the Red Army, holding back the onslaught of the Nazis, but kept silent about the huge losses of poorly trained, poorly armed troops ...

On July 18, food distribution was introduced. People were given ration cards that expired in a month. In total, four categories of cards were installed, the highest category corresponded to the largest ration. It was possible to maintain the highest category only at the expense of hard work.

The 18th army of the Wehrmacht accelerated the throw to Ostrov and Pskov, and Soviet troops The Northwestern Front retreated to Leningrad. On July 10, 1941, Ostrov and Pskov were taken, and the 18th Army reached Narva and Kingisepp, from where it continued to move towards Leningrad from the line of the Luga River. The German 4th Panzer Group of General Göpner, attacking from East Prussia, by August 16, after a rapid advance, reached Novgorod and, having taken it, also rushed to Leningrad. Soon the Germans created a solid front from the Gulf of Finland to Lake Ladoga, expecting the Finnish army to meet them along the eastern shore of Ladoga.

On August 6, Hitler repeated his order: "Leningrad should be taken first, Donbass second, Moscow third." From August 1941 to January 1944, everything that happened in the military theater between the Arctic Ocean and Lake Ilmen related in one way or another to the operation near Leningrad. Arctic convoys carried American Lend-Lease and British supplies along the Northern Sea Route to the Murmansk railway station (although its railway connection to Leningrad was cut off by Finnish troops) and to several other places in Lapland.

Troops involved in the operation

Germany

Army Group North (Field Marshal von Leeb). It included:

18th Army (von Küchler): XXXXII Corps (2 infantry divisions) and XXVI Corps (3 infantry divisions).

16th Army (Busch): XXVIII Corps (von Wiktorin) (2 Infantry, 1 Panzer Division 1), I Corps (2 Infantry Divisions), X Corps (3 Infantry Divisions), II Corps (3 Infantry Divisions), (L Corps - from the 9th Army) (2 infantry divisions).

4th Panzer Group (Hoepner): XXXVIII Corps (von Chappius) (1st Infantry Division), XXXXI Motorized Corps (Reinhardt) (1 Infantry, 1 Motorized, 1 Panzer Division), LVI Motorized Corps (von Manstein) (1 infantry, 1 motorized, 1 tank, 1 tank-grenadier divisions).

Finland

Finnish Defense Forces HQ (Marshal Mannerheim). They included: I Corps (2 infantry divisions), II Corps (2 infantry divisions), IV Corps (3 infantry divisions).

Northern Front (Lieutenant General Popov). It included:

7th Army (2 rifle divisions, 1 militia division, 1 brigade marines, 3 motorized rifle and 1 tank regiment).

8th Army: X Rifle Corps (2 rifle divisions), XI Rifle Corps (3 rifle divisions), separate units (3 rifle divisions).

14th Army: XXXXII Rifle Corps (2 rifle divisions), separate units (2 rifle divisions, 1 fortified area, 1 motorized rifle regiment).

23rd Army: XIXth Rifle Corps (3 rifle divisions), separate units (2 rifle, 1 motorized division, 2 fortified areas, 1 rifle regiment).

Luga task force: XXXXI rifle corps (3 rifle divisions); separate divisions (1 tank brigade, 1 rifle regiment).

Kingisepp operational group: separate units (2 rifle, 1 tank division, 2 militia divisions, 1 fortified area).

Separate units (3 rifle divisions, 4 guard divisions of the militia, 3 fortified areas, 1 rifle brigade).

Of these, the 14th Army defended Murmansk, and the 7th Army defended the areas of Karelia near Lake Ladoga. Thus, they did not take part in the initial stages of the siege. The 8th Army was originally part of the Northwestern Front. Retreating from the Germans through the Baltic, she was transferred to the Northern Front on July 14, 1941.

On August 23, 1941, the Northern Front was divided into the Leningrad and Karelian fronts, since the front headquarters could no longer control all operations between Murmansk and Leningrad.

Encirclement of Leningrad

Finnish intelligence broke some of the Soviet military codes and was able to read a number of enemy messages. This was especially helpful to Hitler, who was constantly asking for intelligence information about Leningrad. The role of Finland in the operation "Barbarossa" Hitler's "Directive 21" denoted as follows: "The mass of the Finnish army will be tasked with the advancement of the northern wing German armies bind the maximum of Russian forces with an attack from the west or from both sides of Lake Ladoga.

The last railway connection with Leningrad was cut off on August 30, 1941, when the Germans reached the Neva. On September 8, the Germans reached Lake Ladoga near Shlisselburg and interrupted the last land road to the besieged city, stopping only 11 km from the city limits. The Axis troops did not occupy only the land corridor between Lake Ladoga and Leningrad. Shelling on September 8, 1941 caused 178 fires in the city.

The line of greatest advance of the German and Finnish troops near Leningrad

On September 21, the German command considered options for the destruction of Leningrad. The idea to take the city was rejected with the indication: "we would then have to supply food to the inhabitants." The Germans decided to keep the city under siege and bombard it, leaving the population to famine. “Early next year we will enter the city (if the Finns do this first we will not mind), sending those who are still alive to inner Russia or into captivity, wipe Leningrad off the face of the earth, and transfer the area north of the Neva to the Finns ". On October 7, 1941, Hitler sent another directive, reminding that Army Group North should not accept surrender from Leningraders.

Participation of Finland in the blockade of Leningrad

In August 1941, the Finns approached 20 km to the northern suburbs of Leningrad, reaching the Finnish-Soviet border of 1939. Threatening the city from the north, they advanced along Karelia to the east of Lake Ladoga, creating a danger to the city from the east. Finnish troops crossed the border on the Karelian Isthmus that existed before the Winter War, "cutting off" the Soviet ledges on Beloostrov and Kiryasalo and straightening the front line. Soviet historiography claimed that the movement of the Finns stopped in September due to the resistance of the Karelian fortified area. However, already at the beginning of August 1941, the Finnish troops received an order to stop the offensive after reaching its goals, some of which lay beyond the pre-war border of 1939.

Over the next three years, the Finns contributed to the battle for Leningrad by holding their lines. Their command rejected German persuasions to launch air attacks on Leningrad. The Finns did not go south of the Svir River in Eastern Karelia (160 km northeast of Leningrad), which they reached on September 7, 1941. In the southeast, the Germans captured Tikhvin on November 8, 1941, but could not complete the final encirclement of Leningrad by throwing further north , to connect with the Finns on the Svir. On December 9, a counterattack by the Volkhov Front forced the Wehrmacht to retreat from its positions at Tikhvin to the line of the Volkhov River. Thanks to this, the line of communication with Leningrad along Lake Ladoga was preserved.

September 6, 1941 Chief of Operations of the Wehrmacht Headquarters Alfred Jodl visited Helsinki in order to convince Field Marshal Mannerheim to continue the offensive. Finnish President Ryti, meanwhile, told his parliament that the aim of the war was to regain the areas lost during the "Winter War" of 1939-1940 and gain even more territories in the east, which would allow the creation of a "Greater Finland". After the war, Ryti claimed: “On August 24, 1941, I visited the headquarters of Field Marshal Mannerheim. The Germans urged us to cross the old border and continue the attack on Leningrad. I said that the capture of Leningrad was not part of our plans and that we would not take part in it. Mannerheim and War Minister Walden agreed with me and rejected the German proposals. As a result, a paradoxical situation developed: the Germans could not approach Leningrad from the north...”.

Trying to whitewash himself in the eyes of the winners, Ryti, thus, assured that the Finns almost prevented the complete encirclement of the city by the Germans. In fact, the German and Finnish troops held the siege together until January 1944, but there was very little systematic shelling and bombing of Leningrad by the Finns. However, the proximity of the Finnish positions - 33-35 km from the center of Leningrad - and the threat of a possible attack from their side complicated the defense of the city. Until Mannerheim stopped (August 31, 1941) his offensive, the commander of the Soviet Northern Front, Popov, could not release the reserves that stood against the Finnish troops on the Karelian Isthmus in order to turn them on the Germans. Popov managed to redeploy two divisions to the German sector only on September 5, 1941.

The borders of the advance of the Finnish army in Karelia. Map. The gray line marks the Soviet-Finnish border in 1939.

Soon, Finnish troops cut off the ledges at Beloostrov and Kiryasalo, which threatened their positions on the seashore and south of the Vuoksa River. Lieutenant General Paavo Talvela and Colonel Järvinen, commander of the Finnish coastal brigade in charge of the Ladoga sector, proposed to the German headquarters to block the Soviet convoys on Lake Ladoga. The German command formed an "international" detachment of sailors under the Finnish command (this included the Italian XII Squadriglia MAS) and the naval unit Einsatzstab Fähre Ost under the German command. These water forces in the summer and autumn of 1942 interfered with communications with the besieged Leningraders along Ladoga. The appearance of ice forced the removal of these lightly armed units. Later they were never restored due to changes in the front line.

City defense

The command of the Leningrad Front, formed after the division of the Northern Front in two, was entrusted to Marshal Voroshilov. The front included the 23rd Army (in the north, between the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga) and the 48th Army (in the west, between the Gulf of Finland and the Slutsk-Mga position). It also included the Leningrad fortified area, the Leningrad garrison, the forces of the Baltic Fleet and the operational groups Koporye, Yuzhnaya (at the Pulkovo Heights) and Slutsk-Kolpino.

... By order of Voroshilov, parts of the people's militia were sent to the front line just three days after the formation, untrained, without military uniforms and weapons. Due to the lack of weapons, Voroshilov ordered that the militia be armed with "hunting rifles, homemade grenades, sabers and daggers from Leningrad museums."

The shortage of uniforms was so acute that Voroshilov addressed the population with an appeal, and teenagers went from house to house, collecting donations in money or clothing ...

The shortsightedness of Voroshilov and Zhdanov had tragic consequences. They were repeatedly advised to disperse the main food supplies stored in the Badaev warehouses. These warehouses, located in the south of the city, spread over an area of ​​one and a half hectares. Wooden buildings closely adjoined each other, they stored almost all the city's food supplies. Despite the vulnerability of the old wooden buildings, neither Voroshilov nor Zhdanov heeded the advice. On September 8, incendiary bombs were dropped on the warehouses. 3,000 tons of flour burned, thousands of tons of grain turned to ash, meat was charred, butter melted, melted chocolate flowed into the cellars. “That night, molten burnt sugar flowed through the streets,” said one of the eyewitnesses. Thick smoke was visible for many kilometers, and with it the hopes of the city disappeared.

(R. Colli. "Siege of Leningrad".)

By September 8, German troops had almost completely surrounded the city. Dissatisfied with Voroshilov's inability, Stalin removed him and temporarily replaced G. Zhukov. Zhukov only managed to prevent the capture of Leningrad by the Germans, but they were not driven back from the city and laid siege to it for "900 days and nights." As A.I. Solzhenitsyn writes in the story "On the Edge":

Voroshilov failed Finnish war, temporarily removed, but already during the attack of Hitler received the entire North-West, immediately failed both him and Leningrad - and removed, but again - a prosperous marshal and in the closest trusted environment, like two Seeds - Tymoshenko and the hopeless Budyonny, who failed both the South-West and the Reserve Front, and all of them were still members of the Headquarters, where Stalin had not yet included a single Vasilevsky, nor Vatutin, - and of course they all remained marshals. Zhukov - he did not give a marshal either for saving Leningrad, or for saving Moscow, or for the Stalingrad victory. And what then is the meaning of the title, if Zhukov turned affairs above all the marshals? Only after removal Leningrad blockade- suddenly gave.

Rupert Colley reports:

... Stalin was fed up with Voroshilov's incompetence. He sent to Leningrad to save the situation… Georgy Zhukov… Zhukov flew to Leningrad from Moscow under the cover of clouds, but as soon as the clouds cleared, two Messerschmites rushed in pursuit of his plane. Zhukov landed safely and was immediately taken to Smolny. First of all, Zhukov handed Voroshilov an envelope. It contained an order addressed to Voroshilov to immediately return to Moscow ...

On September 11, the German 4th Panzer Army was transferred from near Leningrad to the south in order to increase the pressure on Moscow. Zhukov, in desperation, nevertheless made several attempts to attack the German positions, but the Germans had already managed to build defensive structures and received reinforcements, so all attacks were repulsed. When Stalin called Zhukov on October 5 for the latest news, he proudly reported that the German offensive had stopped. Stalin recalled Zhukov back to Moscow to lead the defense of the capital. After Zhukov's departure, the command of the troops in the city was entrusted to Major General Ivan Fedyuninsky.

(R. Colli. "Siege of Leningrad".)

Bombing and shelling of Leningrad

... On September 4, the first shell fell on Leningrad, and two days later it was followed by the first bomb. Shelling of the city began ... The most a prime example Devastating destruction was the destruction on September 8 of the Badaevsky warehouses and a dairy. The carefully camouflaged Smolny did not receive a single scratch during the entire blockade, despite the fact that all neighboring buildings suffered from hits ...

Leningraders had to be on duty on rooftops and stairwells, holding buckets of water and sand ready to put out incendiary bombs. Fires raged throughout the city, caused by incendiary bombs dropped by German aircraft. Street barricades designed to block the road German tanks and armored vehicles, if they break into the city, only interfere with the passage of fire trucks and ambulances. It often happened that no one extinguished the burning building and it completely burned out, because the fire trucks did not have enough water to put out the fire, or there was no fuel to get to the place.

(R. Colli. "Siege of Leningrad".)

The air attack on September 19, 1941 was the worst air raid that Leningrad endured during the war. 1,000 people were killed by 276 German bombers hitting the city. Many of those killed were fighters treated for wounds in hospitals. During the six air raids of that day, five hospitals and the city's largest market were hit.

The intensity of artillery shelling in Leningrad increased in 1942 with the delivery of new equipment to the Germans. They intensified further in 1943, when several times larger shells and bombs were used than a year earlier. During the blockade, 5,723 civilians were killed and 20,507 were injured from German shelling and bombing. Aviation of the Soviet Baltic Fleet, for its part, made more than 100,000 sorties against the besiegers.

Evacuation of residents from besieged Leningrad

According to G. Zhukov, “before the war, Leningrad had a population of 3,103,000 people, and with the suburbs - 3,385,000. Of these, 1,743,129, including 414,148 children, were evacuated from June 29, 1941 to March 31, 1943. They were transported to the regions of the Volga region, the Urals, Siberia and Kazakhstan.”

By September 1941, the connection between Leningrad and the Volkhov Front (commander - K. Meretskov) was cut off. The defensive sectors were held by four armies: the 23rd Army in the north, the 42nd Army in the west, the 55th Army in the south and the 67th Army in the east. The 8th Army of the Volkhov Front and the Ladoga Flotilla were responsible for maintaining the route of communication with the city along Ladoga. Leningrad was defended from air attacks by the air defense forces of the Leningrad Military District and the naval aviation of the Baltic Fleet.

The evacuation of residents was led by Zhdanov, Voroshilov and A. Kuznetsov. Additional military operations were carried out in coordination with the forces of the Baltic Fleet under the overall command of Admiral V. Tributs. The Ladoga flotilla under the command of V. Baranovsky, S. Zemlyanichenko, P. Trainin and B. Khoroshikhin also played an important role in the evacuation of the civilian population.

... After the first few days, the city authorities decided that too many women were leaving the city, while their labor was needed here - and the children began to be sent alone. Mandatory evacuation was declared for all children under the age of fourteen. Many children arrived at the station or at the collection point, and then, due to confusion, waited for four days for dispatch. Food, carefully collected by caring mothers, was eaten in the very first hours. Of particular concern were rumors that German planes were shooting trains with evacuees. The authorities denied these rumors, calling them "hostile and provocative", but confirmation soon came. The most terrible tragedy occurred on August 18 at Lychkovo station. A German bomber dropped bombs on a train with evacuated children. The panic began. An eyewitness said that a scream arose and through the smoke he saw severed limbs and dying children ...

By the end of August, over 630,000 civilians had been evacuated from Leningrad. However, the population of the city did not decrease due to refugees fleeing the German offensive in the west. The authorities were going to continue the evacuation, sending 30,000 people a day from the city, however, when the city of Mga, located 50 kilometers from Leningrad, fell on August 30, the encirclement was almost completed. The evacuation has stopped. Due to the unknown number of refugees who were in the city, estimates differ, but approximately 3,500,000 [people] turned out to be in the blockade ring. There was only three weeks of food left.

(R. Colli. "Siege of Leningrad".)

Famine in besieged Leningrad

The two and a half years of the German siege of Leningrad caused the most destruction and the greatest loss of life in the history of modern cities. By order of Hitler, most of the royal palaces (Ekaterininsky, Peterhof, Ropsha, Strelna, Gatchina) and other historical sites located outside the city's defenses were looted and destroyed, many art collections were transported to Germany. A number of factories, schools, hospitals and other civilian structures were destroyed by air raids and shelling.

872 days of the siege caused severe famine in the Leningrad region due to the destruction of engineering structures, water, energy and food. It resulted in the death of up to 1,500,000 people, not counting those who died during the evacuation. Half a million victims of the siege are buried at the Piskarevsky Memorial Cemetery in Leningrad alone. Human losses in Leningrad on both sides exceeded those suffered in the Battle of Stalingrad, the Battle of Moscow and in atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The blockade of Leningrad was the deadliest siege in world history. Some historians consider it necessary to say that in its course genocide was carried out - "racially motivated famine" - an integral part of the German war of extermination against the population of the Soviet Union.

Diary of a Leningrad girl Tanya Savicheva with records of the death of all members of her family. Tanya herself also died of progressive dystrophy shortly after the blockade. Her diary of a girl was shown at the Nuremberg Trials

The civilians of the city especially suffered from hunger in the winter of 1941/42. From November 1941 to February 1942, only 125 grams of bread were distributed per person per day, which consisted of 50-60% of sawdust and other non-food impurities. For about two weeks at the beginning of January 1942, even this food was available only to workers and soldiers. Mortality peaked in January-February 1942 - 100 thousand people a month, mainly from starvation.

...After several months, there were almost no dogs, cats and birds in cages left in the city. Suddenly, one of the last sources of fat, castor oil, was in demand. His supplies soon ran out.

Bread baked from flour swept off the floor along with garbage, nicknamed the “blockade loaf”, turned out black as coal and had almost the same composition. The broth was nothing more than boiled water with a pinch of salt and, if you're lucky, a cabbage leaf. Money lost all value, like any non-food items and jewelry - it was impossible to buy a crust of bread with family silver. Even birds and rodents suffered without food, until they all disappeared: they either died of hunger or were eaten by desperate people ... People, while they still had strength, stood in long lines for food, sometimes for whole days in the piercing cold, and often returned home empty-handed, overwhelmed with despair - if they remained alive. The Germans, seeing long queues of Leningraders, dropped shells on the unfortunate inhabitants of the city. And yet people stood in lines: death from a shell was possible, while death from starvation was inevitable.

Everyone had to decide for themselves how to dispose of a tiny daily ration - eat it in one sitting ... or stretch it out for a whole day. Relatives and friends helped each other, but the next day they were desperately quarreling among themselves about who got how much. When all alternative sources of food ran out, people in desperation turned to inedibles - livestock feed, linseed oil and leather belts. Soon, belts, which at first people ate out of desperation, were already considered a luxury. Wood glue and paste containing animal fat were scraped off furniture and walls and boiled. People ate the earth collected in the vicinity of the Badaev warehouses for the sake of the particles of melted sugar contained in it.

There was no water in the city because water pipes froze, and the pumping stations were bombed. The taps dried up without water, the sewerage system stopped working... The inhabitants of the city punched holes in the frozen Neva and scooped up water in buckets. Without water, bakeries could not bake bread. In January 1942, when the water shortage became especially acute, 8,000 people, still strong enough, lined up in a human chain and passed hundreds of buckets of water from hand to hand, just to get the bakeries up and running again.

Numerous stories have been preserved about the unfortunate who stood in line for many hours for a piece of bread only to have it snatched from their hands and greedily devoured by a man who was distraught with hunger. The theft of bread cards became widespread; the desperate robbed people in broad daylight or ransacked the pockets of corpses and those who had been wounded during German shelling. Obtaining a duplicate turned into such a long and painful process that many died without waiting for the new ration card to end its wanderings in the jungle of the bureaucratic system ...

Hunger turned people into living skeletons. Ration sizes reached a minimum in November 1941. The ration of manual laborers was 700 calories per day, while the minimum norm is approximately 3000 calories. Employees were entitled to 473 calories per day, while the norm is 2000-2500 calories, and children received 423 calories per day - less than a quarter of what a newborn needs.

The limbs swelled, the bellies swelled, the skin tightened around the face, the eyes sunk, the gums bled, the teeth grew from malnutrition, the skin became covered with ulcers.

The fingers stiffened and refused to straighten. Children with shriveled faces looked like old people, and old people looked like the living dead... Children, left overnight orphans, wandered the streets like lifeless shadows in search of food... Any movement hurt. Even the process of chewing food became unbearable ...

By the end of September, kerosene for home stoves had run out. Coal and fuel oil were not enough to provide fuel for residential buildings. Electricity supply was carried out irregularly, for an hour or two a day ... The apartments became cold, frost appeared on the walls, the clock stopped working, because their hands froze. Winters in Leningrad are often severe, but the winter of 1941/42 was especially severe. Wooden fences were dismantled for firewood, wooden crosses were stolen from cemeteries. After the supply of firewood on the street had completely dried up, people began to burn furniture and books in stoves - today a chair leg, tomorrow a floorboard, the next day the first volume of Anna Karenina, and the whole family huddled around the only source of heat ... Soon desperate people found another use for books: torn pages were soaked in water and eaten.

The sight of a man carrying a body wrapped in a blanket, tablecloth or curtain to the cemetery on a sled became commonplace ... The dead were laid in rows, but the gravediggers could not dig graves: the ground was frozen through, and they, just as hungry, did not have enough strength for exhausting work . There were no coffins: all the wood was used as fuel.

The courtyards of the hospitals were “littered with mountains of corpses, blue, haggard, creepy” ... Finally, excavators began to dig deep ditches for the mass burial of the dead. Soon, these excavators were the only machines that could be seen on the streets of the city. There were no more cars, no trams, no buses, which were all requisitioned for the "Road of Life" ...

The corpses lay everywhere, and every day their number grew ... No one had the strength left to remove the corpses. The fatigue was so overwhelming that I wanted to stop, despite the cold, sit down and rest. But the crouched person could no longer rise without outside help and froze to death. At the first stage of the blockade, compassion and a desire to help were common, but as the weeks went on, food became scarce, the body and mind weakened, and people withdrew into themselves, as if walking in a dream ... Accustomed to the sight of death, becoming almost indifferent to him, people increasingly lost the ability to help others ...

And against the backdrop of all this despair, beyond the scope of human understanding, German shells and bombs continued to fall on the city.

(R. Colli. "Siege of Leningrad".)

Cannibalism during the blockade

Documentation NKVD about cannibalism during the siege of Leningrad were not published until 2004. Most of the evidence of cannibalism that had surfaced up to that time was tried to be presented as untrustworthy anecdotes.

NKVD records report the first eating of human flesh on December 13, 1941. The report describes thirteen cases - from a mother who strangled an 18-month-old child to feed three others, older, to a plumber who killed his wife in order to feed her sons and nephews.

By December 1942, the NKVD had arrested 2,105 cannibals, dividing them into two categories: "corpse eaters" and "cannibals." The latter (those who killed and ate living people) were usually shot, and the former were imprisoned. There was no clause on cannibalism in the Soviet Criminal Code, so all sentences were passed under Article 59 (“a special case of banditry”).

There were significantly fewer cannibals than corpse-eaters; of the 300 people arrested in April 1942 for cannibalism, only 44 were murderers. 64% of the cannibals were women, 44% were unemployed, 90% illiterate, and only 2% had a previous criminal record. Cannibals often became women deprived of male support with young children, without a criminal record, which gave the courts a reason for some leniency.

Given the gigantic scale of the famine, the extent of cannibalism in besieged Leningrad can be considered relatively insignificant. No less common were murders over bread cards. In the first six months of 1942, 1,216 of them occurred in Leningrad. Many historians believe that the small number of cases of cannibalism "only emphasized that the majority of Leningraders retained their cultural norms in the most unimaginable circumstances."

Connection with besieged Leningrad

It was vital to establish a permanent supply route to Leningrad. It passed along the southern part of Lake Ladoga and the land corridor to the city west of Ladoga, which remained unoccupied by the Germans. Transportation through Lake Ladoga was carried out by water in the warm season and by cars on ice in winter. The security of the supply route was provided by the Ladoga Flotilla, the Leningrad Air Defense Corps and the road security troops. Food supplies were delivered to the village of Osinovets, from where they were taken 45 km to a small suburban railway to Leningrad. This route was also used to evacuate civilians from the besieged city.

In the chaos of the first war winter, an evacuation plan was not worked out. Until November 20, 1941, the ice road through Lake Ladoga did not work, Leningrad was completely isolated.

The path along Ladoga was called the "Road of Life". She was very dangerous. Cars often got stuck in the snow and fell through the ice, on which the Germans dropped bombs. Due to the large number of people who died in winter, this route was also called the "Road of Death". Nevertheless, he made it possible to bring ammunition and food, to take civilians and wounded soldiers from the city.

... The road was laid in terrible conditions - among snow storms, under the incessant barrage of German shells and bombs. When the construction was finally completed, the movement along it also turned out to be fraught with great risk. Trucks fell through huge cracks that suddenly appeared in the ice. To avoid such cracks, the trucks were driven with their headlights on, making them perfect targets for German aircraft... Trucks skidded, bumped into each other, engines froze at temperatures below 20 °C. Throughout its length, the Road of Life was littered with broken cars, abandoned right on the ice of the lake. During the first crossing alone, in early December, over 150 trucks were lost.

By the end of December 1941, 700 tons of food and fuel were delivered to Leningrad daily along the Road of Life. This was not enough, but the thin ice forced the cars to only be loaded halfway. By the end of January, the lake was frozen by almost a meter, which made it possible to increase the daily volume of supplies to 2,000 tons. And this was still not enough, but the Road of Life gave the people of Leningrad the most important thing - hope. Vera Inber in her diary on January 13, 1942 wrote about the Road of Life as follows: “... perhaps our salvation will begin from here.” Truck drivers, loaders, mechanics, orderlies worked around the clock. They only went to rest when they were already exhausted. By March, the city had received so much food that it was possible to create a small supply.

Plans to resume the evacuation of the civilian population were initially rejected by Stalin, who feared an unfavorable political response, but in the end he gave permission for the most defenseless to leave the city along the Road of Life. By April, 5,000 people were taken out of Leningrad every day ...

The evacuation process itself was a big shock. The thirty-kilometer journey across the ice of the lake took up to twelve hours in an unheated truck bed, covered only with a tarpaulin. There were so many crowds that people had to grab onto the sides, mothers often held their children in their arms. For these unfortunate evacuees, the Road of Life became the "road of death." One of the eyewitnesses tells how a mother, exhausted after several hours of driving in a back in a snowstorm, dropped her wrapped child. The driver could not stop the truck on the ice, and the child was left to die from the cold ... If the car broke down, as happened often, those who rode in it had to wait for several hours on the ice, in the cold, under the snow, under the bullets and bombs of German aircraft . Trucks traveled in columns, but they could not stop if one of them broke down or fell through the ice. One woman watched in horror as the car in front fell through the ice. She was carrying her two children.

The spring of 1942 brought a thaw that made it impossible to continue using the Ice Road of Life. Warming has brought about a new problem: disease. Piles of corpses and mountains of excrement, which had remained frozen until now, began to decompose with the advent of heat. Due to the lack of normal water supply and sewerage, dysentery, smallpox and typhus quickly spread in the city, affecting the already weakened people ...

It seemed that the spread of epidemics would finally wipe out the population of Leningrad, which had already become thinner without it, but in March 1942 people gathered and jointly began a grandiose operation to clear the city. Weakened by malnutrition, Leningraders made inhuman efforts ... Since they had to use tools hastily made from improvised materials, the work progressed very slowly, however ... the cleaning work of the city, which ended in victory, marked the beginning of a collective spiritual awakening.

The coming spring brought a new source of food - pine needles and oak bark. These plant components provided people with the vitamins they needed, protecting them from scurvy and epidemics. By mid-April, the ice on Lake Ladoga had become too thin to withstand the Road of Life, but the rations were still significantly better than they were on the darkest days of December and January, not only quantitatively, but also qualitatively: the bread now tasted like real bread. To everyone's joy, the first grass appeared and vegetable gardens were planted everywhere ...

On April 15, 1942… the power generators, which had been inactive for so long, were repaired and, as a result, the tram lines began to function again.

One nurse describes how the sick and wounded, who were dying, crawled up to the windows of the hospital to see with their own eyes the trams passing by, which had not run for so long ... People began to trust each other again, they washed, changed clothes, women began to use cosmetics, again theaters and museums opened.

(R. Colli. "Siege of Leningrad".)

Death near Leningrad of the Second Shock Army

In the winter of 1941-1942, after the Nazis were repulsed from near Moscow, Stalin gave the order to go on the offensive along the entire front. About this broad but failed offensive (which included the famous, disastrous for Zhukov Rzhev meat grinder) was little reported in former Soviet textbooks. During it, an attempt was made to break the blockade of Leningrad. The hastily formed Second Shock Army was thrown to the city. The Nazis cut it off. In March 1942, the deputy commander of the Volkhov Front (Meretskova), a well-known fighter against communism, General Andrey Vlasov. A. I. Solzhenitsyn reports in The Gulag Archipelago:

... The last winter paths were still held, but Stalin forbade the retreat, on the contrary, he drove the dangerously deepened army to advance further - along the swampy swampy terrain, without food, without weapons, without air help. After a two-month starvation and exhaustion of the army (soldiers from there later told me in the Butyrka cells that they cut hooves, cooked shavings and ate from dead rotting horses), the German concentric offensive began on May 14, 1942 against the encircled army (and, of course, only German aircraft were in the air ). And only then, in mockery, was Stalin's permission received to return beyond the Volkhov. And there were those hopeless attempts to break through! until the beginning of July.

The Second Shock Army perished almost entirely. Vlasov, who was captured, ended up in Vinnitsa in a special camp for senior captured officers, which was formed by Count Stauffenberg, the future conspirator against Hitler. There, from the Soviet commanders who deservedly hated Stalin, with the help of the German military circles opposed to the Führer, began to form Russian Liberation Army.

Performance in blockaded Leningrad of Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony

... However, the event that was destined to make the greatest contribution to the spiritual revival of Leningrad was yet to come. This event proved to the whole country and the whole world that Leningraders survived the most terrible times and their beloved city will live on. This miracle was created by a native Leningrader who loved his city and was a great composer.

On September 17, 1942, Dmitri Shostakovich, speaking on the radio, said: "An hour ago I finished the score of the second part of my new large symphonic work." This work was the Seventh Symphony, later called the Leningrad Symphony.

Evacuated to Kuibyshev (now Samara)... Shostakovich continued to work hard on the symphony... The premiere of this symphony, dedicated to "our struggle against fascism, our coming victory and my native Leningrad", took place in Kuibyshev on March 5, 1942...

... The most prominent conductors began to argue for the right to perform this work. First it was performed by the London Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Sir Henry Wood, and on July 19 it sounded in New York, conducted by Arthur Toscanini ...

Then it was decided to perform the Seventh Symphony in Leningrad itself. According to Zhdanov, this was supposed to raise the morale of the city ... The main orchestra of Leningrad, the Leningrad Philharmonic, was evacuated, but the orchestra of the Leningrad Radio Committee remained in the city. Its conductor, forty-two-year-old Carl Eliasberg, was assigned to assemble the musicians. But out of a hundred orchestra players in the city, only fourteen people remained, the rest were drafted into the army, killed or starved to death ... A call was distributed throughout the troops: all those who knew how to play any musical instrument had to report to their superiors ... Knowing how weakened musicians who gathered in March 1942 for the first rehearsal, Eliasberg understood what a difficult task was before him. “Dear friends,” he said, “we are weak, but we must force ourselves to start working.” And this work was difficult: despite the additional rations, many musicians, primarily wind players, lost consciousness from the strain required by playing their instruments ... Only once during all the rehearsals did the orchestra have the strength to perform the entire symphony in its entirety - three days before public speaking.

The concert was scheduled for August 9, 1942 - a few months ago, the Nazis had chosen this date for a magnificent celebration in the Astoria Hotel in Leningrad of the expected capture of the city. Invitations were even printed, and remained unsent.

The Philharmonic Concert Hall was filled to capacity. People came to best clothes... The musicians, despite the warm August weather, were in coats and gloves with cut off fingers - the starving body constantly experienced cold. All over the city, people gathered in the streets around loudspeakers. Lieutenant General Leonid Govorov, who had led the defense of Leningrad since April 1942, ordered a barrage of artillery shells to rain down on German positions a few hours before the start of the concert in order to ensure silence at least for the duration of the symphony. The loudspeakers, turned on at full power, were directed towards the Germans - the city wanted the enemy to listen too.

“The very performance of the Seventh Symphony in besieged Leningrad,” the announcer announced, “is evidence of the indestructible patriotic spirit of the Leningraders, their steadfastness, their faith in victory. Listen, comrades! And the city listened. The Germans approached him, listening. Listened to the whole world...

Many years after the war, Eliasberg met with German soldiers who were sitting in the trenches on the outskirts of the city. They told the conductor that when they heard the music, they cried:

Then, on August 9, 1942, we realized that we would lose the war. We felt your strength, able to overcome hunger, fear and even death. "Who are we shooting at? we asked ourselves. “We will never be able to take Leningrad, because its inhabitants are so selfless.”

(R. Colli. "Siege of Leningrad".)

The offensive at Sinyavino

A few days later, the Soviet offensive began at Sinyavino. It was an attempt to break the blockade of the city by early autumn. The Volkhov and Leningrad fronts were tasked with uniting. At the same time, the Germans, having pulled up the troops liberated after capture of Sevastopol, were preparing for an offensive (Operation Northern Light) with the aim of capturing Leningrad. Neither side was aware of the other's plans until fighting began.

The offensive at Sinyavino was ahead of the "Northern Light" by several weeks. It was undertaken on August 27, 1942 (the Leningrad Front opened small attacks on the 19th). The successful start of the operation forced the Germans to redirect intended for " northern light» Troops to counterattack. In this counteroffensive of theirs, for the first time (and with a rather weak result) Tiger tanks. Parts of the 2nd shock army were surrounded and destroyed, and the Soviet offensive stopped. However, the German troops also had to abandon the attack on Leningrad.

Operation Spark

On the morning of January 12, 1943, Soviet troops launched Operation Iskra, a powerful offensive on the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts. After stubborn fighting, units of the Red Army overcame the German fortifications south of Lake Ladoga. On January 18, 1943, the 372nd Rifle Division of the Volkhov Front met with the troops of the 123rd Rifle Brigade of the Leningrad Front, opening a land corridor of 10-12 km, which gave some relief to the besieged population of Leningrad.

... January 12, 1943 ... Soviet troops under the command of Govorov launched Operation Iskra. A two-hour artillery barrage fell upon the German positions, after which masses of infantry, covered from the air by aircraft, moved across the ice of the frozen Neva. They were followed by tanks crossing the river on special wooden decks. Three days later, the second wave of the offensive crossed the frozen Lake Ladoga from the east, hitting the Germans in Shlisselburg ... The next day, the Red Army liberated Shlisselburg, and on January 18 at 23.00 a message was broadcast on the radio: "The blockade of Leningrad has been broken!" That evening there was a general feast in the city.

Yes, the blockade was broken, but Leningrad still remained under siege. Under continuous enemy fire, the Russians built a 35-kilometer-long railway line to bring food to the city. The first train, eluding the German bombers, arrived in Leningrad on February 6, 1943. It brought flour, meat, cigarettes and vodka.

A second rail line, completed in May, has allowed even more food to be delivered while simultaneously evacuating civilians. By September, the supply railway became so effective that it was no longer necessary to use the route through Lake Ladoga ... Rations increased significantly ... The Germans continued shelling Leningrad, causing significant losses. But the city was returning to life, and food and fuel were, if not in abundance, then enough ... The city was still under siege, but no longer shuddered in its death throes.

(R. Colli. "Siege of Leningrad".)

Lifting the blockade of Leningrad

The blockade continued until January 27, 1944, when the Soviet "Leningrad-Novgorod strategic offensive" of the Leningrad, Volkhov, 1st and 2nd Baltic fronts expelled German troops from the southern outskirts of the city. The Baltic Fleet provided 30% of the aviation power for the final blow against the enemy.

... On January 15, 1944, the most powerful shelling of the war began - half a million shells fell on German positions within an hour and a half, after which the Soviet troops launched a decisive offensive. One by one, the cities that had been in the hands of the Germans for so long were liberated, and the German troops, under the onslaught of twice the number of units of the Red Army, irresistibly rolled back. It took twelve days, and at eight o'clock in the evening on January 27, 1944, Govorov was finally able to report: "The city of Leningrad has been completely liberated!"

That evening, shells were exploding in the night sky over the city - but it was not German artillery, but fireworks out of 324 guns!

It lasted 872 days, or 29 months, and finally this moment came - the blockade of Leningrad ended. It took another five weeks to completely drive the Germans out of the Leningrad region ...

In the autumn of 1944, Leningraders silently looked at the columns of German prisoners of war who entered the city in order to restore what they themselves had destroyed. Looking at them, the Leningraders felt neither joy, nor anger, nor a thirst for revenge: it was a process of purification, they just needed to look into the eyes of those who had caused them unbearable suffering for so long.

(R. Colli. "Siege of Leningrad".)

In the summer of 1944, Finnish troops were pushed back behind Vyborg Bay and the Vuoksu River.

Museum of Defense and Siege of Leningrad

Even during the blockade itself, military artifacts were collected and shown to the public by the city authorities - like a German plane that was shot down and fell to the ground in the Tauride Garden. Such objects were assembled in a specially designated building (in the Salt Town). The exhibition soon turned into a full-scale Museum of the Defense of Leningrad (now the State Memorial Museum of the Defense and Siege of Leningrad). In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Stalin exterminated many Leningrad leaders during the so-called Leningrad case. It was the same before the war, after assassination in 1934 of Sergei Kirov, and now another generation of local state and party functionaries has been destroyed for allegedly publicly overestimating the importance of the city as an independent fighting unit and their own role in defeating the enemy. Their offspring, the Leningrad Defense Museum, was destroyed, and many valuable exhibits were destroyed.

The museum was revived in the late 1980s with the then wave of "glasnost", when shocking new facts were published that showed the heroism of the city during the war. The exhibition opened in its former building, but has not yet restored its original size and area. Most of its former premises had already managed to pass to various military and government institutions. Plans for a new state-of-the-art museum building have been put on hold due to the financial crisis, but the current Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu promised to expand the museum.

Green belt of Glory and monuments in memory of the blockade

The commemoration of the siege received a second wind in the 1960s. Leningrad artists dedicated their works to the Victory and the memory of the war, which they themselves witnessed. The leading local poet and participant in the war, Mikhail Dudin, proposed erecting a ring of monuments on the battlefields of the most difficult period of the blockade and linking them with green spaces around the entire city. This was the beginning of the "Green Belt of Glory".

On October 29, 1966, on the 40th km of the Road of Life, on the shore of Lake Ladoga, near the village of Kokorevo, the Broken Ring monument was erected. Designed by Konstantin Simun, it was dedicated both to those who escaped through the frozen Ladoga and to those who died during the blockade.

On May 9, 1975, a monument to the heroic defenders of the city was erected on Leningrad's Victory Square. This monument is a huge bronze ring with a gap, which indicates the place where the Soviet troops eventually broke through the German encirclement. In the center, a Russian mother cradles her dying soldier son. The inscription is inscribed on the monument: "900 days and 900 nights." The exhibition below the monument contains visual evidence of this period.