People who survived the siege of Leningrad. Siege of Leningrad, children of the siege

“By the beginning of the war, I was not yet 7 years old. In October 1941, after the bombing and injury, my mother took me to get a dressing done at the clinic on Krasnaya Street.

All the way she instructed me not to cry when the nurse took off, or rather tore off, the old bandage: “It’s a shame to cry. It’s difficult, hard, painful for everyone, not just you, clench your fists and be silent.”

"... The townspeople quickly ate all their supplies in their houses. They cooked a stew from slabs of wood glue... All the cats and dogs disappeared in the city... My relatives went to work, and I was left alone in an empty apartment and lay on the bed. When the adults left, they left me a mug of water and a small piece of bread. Sometimes rats came for him, I called them "pussies"
".“We didn’t know another life, didn’t remember it. It seemed that this was a normal life - sirens, cold, bombings, rats, darkness in the evenings... However, I think with horror what mom and dad must have felt, seeing how their children are slowly moving towards starvation. I can only envy their courage, their fortitude.”


“One day in October, my mother took me to the bakery to buy bread... I suddenly saw a fake bun in the window and screamed that I wanted it. The line began to explain to me that this is not a real “bun” and you can’t eat it, you could break your teeth. But I no longer heard anything, I didn’t understand, I saw the bun and wanted it. I started to break free, rush to the display window, and I started to get hysterical...”
“Schools closed one after another because there were fewer and fewer students. And we went to school mainly because they gave us a bowl of soup. I remember roll calls before classes, at each of which they said: “He’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead...”


“Mom admitted that she could not look into our sunken eyes, and, having muffled her conscience, she once caught an equally hungry cat in the basement. And so that no one would see, she skinned him right away. I remember that for many years after the war, my mother brought home unfortunate stray cats, wounded dogs, and various tailless birds, which we treated and fed.”
Mom lost milk, and Verochka had nothing to feed her. She died of starvation in August 1942 (she was only 1 year and 3 months old). This was the first difficult test for us. I remember: my mother was lying on the bed, her legs were swollen, and Verochka’s body was lying on a stool, and her mother put dimes on her eyes.”


“Every day I wanted to eat more and more. Hunger accumulated in the body. Today, I’m writing these lines, and I’m so hungry, as if I haven’t eaten for a long time. This feeling of hunger always haunts me. From hunger, people became dystrophic or swollen. I was swollen and it was funny to me, I slapped my cheeks, letting out air, bragging about how plump I was.”
“Out of our entire densely populated communal apartment, there were three of us left during the blockade - me, my mother and our neighbor, the most educated, most intelligent Varvara Ivanovna. When the hardest times came, her mind became clouded from hunger. Every evening she watched my mother from work in the common kitchen. “Zinochka,” she asked her, “probably the baby’s meat is tasty, and the bones are sweet?”
“People died right on the move. I was driving a sled and fell. Dullness appeared, the presence of death was felt nearby. I woke up at night and felt whether my mother was alive or not."


"... Mom ended up in the hospital. As a result, my brother and I were left alone in the apartment. One day my father came and took us to an orphanage, which was located near the Frunze School. I remember how dad walked, holding onto the walls of the houses, and led two half-dead children, hoping that maybe strangers would save them."


“One day we were served soup for lunch, and for the second a cutlet with a side dish. Suddenly, the girl Nina sitting next to me fainted. She was brought to her senses and lost consciousness again. When we asked her what was happening, she replied that she could not calmly eat cutlets from her brother’s meat... It turned out that in Leningrad, during the blockade, her mother hacked her son to death and made cutlets. At the same time, the mother threatened Nina that if she did not eat the cutlets, she would suffer the same fate.”
“My sister came out to me, sat me on a bench and said that my mother had recently died. ...I was informed that they were taking all the corpses to the Moscow region to a brick factory and burning them there. ...The wooden fence was almost completely dismantled for firewood, so it was possible to get quite close to the stoves. The workers placed the dead on a conveyor, turned on the machines, and the corpses fell into the oven. It seemed that they were moving their arms and legs and thus resisting being burned. I stood dumbfounded for several minutes and went home. This was my farewell to my mother.”

“My brother Lenya was the first to die of hunger - he was 3 years old. His mother took him to the cemetery on a sled and buried him in the snow. A week later I went to the cemetery, but only his remains were lying there - all the soft parts had been cut out. They ate him."
“The corpses were lying in the room - there was no strength to take them out. They didn't decompose. The room had frozen walls, frozen water in mugs, and not a grain of bread. Just the corpses and my mother and I.”
“One day our flatmate offered my mother meat cutlets, but my mother sent her away and slammed the door. I was in indescribable horror - how could I refuse cutlets with such hunger. But my mother explained to me that they are made from human meat, because there is nowhere else to get minced meat in such a hungry time.”
“Grandfather said to my father, who was leaving for the front: “Well, Arkady, choose - Lev or Tatochka.” Tatochka is eleven months old, Leo is six years old. Which of them will live?“. This is how the question was posed. And Tatochka was sent to an orphanage, where she died a month later. It was January 1942, the most difficult month of the year. It was very bad - terrible frosts, no light, no water..."
“One day one of the guys told a friend his cherished dream - a barrel of soup. Mom heard and took him to the kitchen, asking the cook to come up with something. The cook burst into tears and told my mother: “Don’t bring anyone else here... there’s no food left.” There is only water in the pan. “Many children in our garden died of hunger - out of 35 of us, only 11 remained.”


“Employees of child care institutions received a special order: “Distract children from talking and talking about food.” But no matter how hard we tried to do it, it didn’t work. Six- and seven-year-old children, as soon as they woke up, began to list what their mother cooked for them and how delicious it was.”


“Not far away, on the Obvodny Canal, there was a flea market, and my mother sent me there to exchange a pack of Belomor for bread. I remember how a woman went there and asked for a loaf of bread for a diamond necklace.”
“The winter of 1942 was very cold. Sometimes she collected snow and thawed it, but she went to the Neva for water. It’s a long walk, it’s slippery, I get to the house, but I can’t climb the stairs, it’s all covered in ice, so I fall... and again there’s no water, I enter the apartment with an empty bucket, This happened more than once. A neighbor, looking at me, said to her mother-in-law: “This one will soon die too, we can make money.”
“I remember February 1942, when bread was added to ration cards for the first time. At 7 o'clock in the morning they opened the store and announced an increase in bread. People were crying so much that it seemed to me that the columns were shaking. 71 years have passed since then, and I cannot enter the premises of this store."


“And then spring. The legs of the dead stick out from the melted snowdrifts, the city is frozen in sewage. We went out for cleanup work. It's hard to lift the crowbar and it's hard to break the ice. But we cleaned the yards and streets, and in the spring the city shone with cleanliness.”
“When mail arrived at the pioneer camp where I ended up, it was a great event. And I received the long-awaited letter. I open it and freeze. It’s not my mother who writes, but my aunt: “...You’re already a big boy, and you should know.” Mom and grandmother are no more. They died of hunger in Leningrad...” Everything went cold inside. I don’t see anyone or hear anything, only tears flow like a river from my wide-open eyes.”
“I worked alone in the family during the war. I received 250 grams of bread. Mom and older sister with their little daughter only 125 grams. I was losing weight, my mother was losing weight, my niece was losing weight, and my sister was gaining weight. At the age of 17, I weighed a little over 30 kg. In the morning we get up, I’ll cut a strip of bread for everyone, save a small piece for lunch, and put the rest in the chest of drawers... The shell weighed 23-24 kilograms. And I’m small, thin, and in order to lift a projectile, I would first lay it on my stomach, then stand on tiptoes, put it on the milling machine, then wrap it up, work it, then again on my stomach and back. The norm per shift was 240 shells.”

“He who remembers the past thinks about the future” - folk wisdom

It is not easy to face the military past, but we must not forget about it. About how many wartime events related to our hometown, village, we know unforgivably little or nothing at all. But the attitude towards the past is considered an indicator of the moral health of society, its cultural level. By assessing the present and our actions, we put the past side by side and construct the future.

Individual episodes of their memories, collected into a single whole, are a story about the exploits and courage of the people who did not allow the enemy to defeat Leningrad.

From here you can learn about the life of besieged Leningrad, how difficult it was for people at that time.

“The most terrible days were when the bombing of Leningrad began. In July there was still nothing, but on September 8 the Badayevsky warehouses caught fire. This was the most powerful impression for all Leningraders, because these were food warehouses. The fire and glow stood over the city for several days, streams of sugar molasses flowed. The city was deprived of its provisions." (Anna Noevna Soskina)

“When the blue lights went out, we had to go by memory. When the night is light, you can navigate by the roofs of houses, but when it’s dark, it’s worse. The cars weren’t running, you came across people who didn’t have a firefly badge on their chest” (from the diary of O.P. Solovyova)

People had nothing to eat, they were starving. They had to eat almost everything...

“During the blockade we ate peat, it was sold at the market, it was called black cottage cheese. They dipped the peat in salt and washed it down with warm water. Plant roots were still preserved in the peat. It was a very difficult year. A lot of people died.” (Mirenko L.I.)

“One day dad brought us a cat, and it didn’t occur to us to refuse it... I believe that everyone should know the truth. After all, Leningraders ate not only cats and dogs, but also everything that was more or less edible. For ration cards, instead of soup with cereals, they received yeast soup, and they ate all the grass they could eat. If there was nothing to eat, we simply sucked salt and drank water and it seemed that we were full” (Volkova L.A.)

“Children of besieged Leningrad is the most acute concept. I saw not only deadly hunger and cold, but also death every day. A constant feeling of hunger paralyzed all thoughts. At seven or eight years old, I looked like a little old lady, wrapped in several scarves, jackets and coats... and I myself was part of this rags" (Yulia Vladislavovna Polkhovskaya)

From the memoirs we see how difficult life was for people in the winter: “In winter, they burned everything they could: books, chairs, cabinets, tables. It was scary to look at the communal apartments: there was no water, the toilets didn’t work, there was dirt all around. For water they went to the Neva, where an ice hole had been made, and scooped up water, some in a mug, some in a glass. They carried all this on a sled: you tied a bucket, and you brought no more than two liters home, since it was far away and you didn’t have enough strength. It was cold and hungry, but we didn’t lose heart. People often gathered and listened to information bureau messages from the front on the radio that was installed in the square.” (Boikova N.N.)

But, despite such difficult times, there were still pleasant moments for the city residents.

“Even during the war, Leningrad maintained spiritual life. I remember in the summer of 1941, in the building of the Academy of Arts, an exhibition of diploma works of former students who became soldiers of the Red Army - they were released from the front to defend their diplomas. Throughout the blockade, the radio was the personification of life. For a long time it was the only thing that connected us with the mainland. A metronome beat from the black loudspeaker around the clock: slowly during rest and quickly during bombing and artillery shelling. The spirit of the townspeople was supported by the speeches of Akhmatova, Berggolts, Simonov, Tikhonov, Vishnevsky, 98-year-old Dzhambul, and journalist Magrachev.

With the arrival of warmer weather, libraries, theaters, cinemas, and printing houses began to operate. And what was the cost of the football of the blockade survivors, which was broadcast on the radio! At the beginning of August, Shostakovich’s 7th Symphony about the perseverance of Leningraders and faith in Victory sounded from the large hall of the Leningrad Philharmonic.” (Chaplinskaya K.N.)

“Everything possible and impossible was done to distract us from thoughts about food. Suddenly the gramophone started up, and the apartment was filled with the sounds of pre-war romances. “Now it’s winter, but the same spruce trees, covered in darkness, stand...” sang Isabella Yuryeva. However, my brother quickly got tired of this, he began to fidget and ask for food. Then my mother read us my favorite fairy tales by Andersen. Or she remembered something funny, pre-war...” (G. Glukhova)

“On December 31, 1941, in besieged Leningrad, my grandfather organized a New Year’s tree. He was a cheerful and good-natured inventor. There were no real Christmas trees, so he decided to paint a Christmas tree on the wall. He asked me for watercolor paints, climbed onto a chair and painted a tall, branched beauty right on the wallpaper.” (A.V. Molchanov)

“Of course, there are still joyful memories from the war. These are January 18, 1943 and January 27, 1944 - the days of breaking through and lifting the blockade, these are fireworks in honor of the liberation of our cities and, of course, the Victory Salute! They stand out in the eyes, and none of the anniversaries were more beautiful and joyful!” (Troitskaya T.S.)

The people were heroically able to withstand these 900 days. “Hunger, cold, lack of water, light, constant bombing, artillery shelling did not break us” (Yadykina N.N.)

“It was joyful to realize that our wonderful, unique Leningrad again lives, works, loves, raises children, teaches them in schools and universities, and honors the memory of those who defended it.” (Kalenichenko L.A.)

Many people who lived through those days expressed their thoughts in their poems.

Ninel Vaivod

I remember the blockade

I remember the blockade as if it were now,

Although I tried to forget everything.

But it doesn’t depend on us:

She remained alive in her soul.

I remember hunger, terrible fear,

When the life in the eyes went out,

And people are like mannequins

They walk with difficulty, holding onto the walls.

Everything is still before my eyes:

Someone is pulling a sleigh with a dead man,

Here's a can of water from the Neva

The blockade runner is carrying him, barely alive.

Who quickly forgot this,

He never saw the blockade.

So, from hearsay, from the movies...

He's not a siege runner anyway.

But if he was little,

And he also lived in Leningrad,

Oh, the blockade runner is real,

Having seen all this horror,

Lost family and friends.

I sing a hymn to the siege survivors,

I never get tired of writing poetry,

Poems should be dedicated to them -

To the siege survivors from Leningrad.

While working on this topic, we visited the Museum of the Leningrad Siege of Novosibirsk, located at st. Belinsky, 1 (MOU secondary school No. 202).

During the blockade from Leningrad, mainly in 1941-1942, 50 factories, enterprises and organizations and many tens of thousands of evacuated Leningraders were evacuated to Novosibirsk.

The society decided to leave a memory in Novosibirsk of a glorious page in its history by organizing a museum of Leningrad siege survivors in the city and creating a memorial column to perpetuate all the factories, enterprises and organizations that were evacuated from Leningrad to Novosibirsk and contributed to the cause of the Victory of the Soviet people.

The creation of the Museum of the Leningrad Siege in Novosibirsk began in 1993 and continues to this day. Its creators were a group of activists from the Blockadnik society, of which, first of all, it should be mentioned: Vasilyeva D.S., Vasilyeva M.M., Kishchenko E.M., Evdokimova L.N. and etc.

The museum presents: authentic documents related to the defense of the besieged city and samples of military equipment of its defenders, passes for walking around the city at night, samples of food cards, evacuation certificates, samples of siege bread, military maps, diagrams, photographs of survivors of the siege, books, views old and restored St. Petersburg and much more. (Appendix p. 29)

The museum is sometimes visited by up to 300 people a month, mostly young people - students, schoolchildren, JCC cadets. But there are also many middle-aged and elderly people, as well as Leningrad siege survivors living in Novosibirsk. They say: “This is our second home.” The museum is also visited by guests from St. Petersburg, as well as from abroad - the USA, Bulgaria, Germany, etc.

The memories we read in books and poems are very important. But you perceive them much more emotionally and are more subtly aware of them when you hear them. Therefore, we interviewed one of the blockade survivors, Lyudmila Alekseevna Sokolova, who saw the beginning of the blockade and was later evacuated to Siberia.

Tell us about your family.

“I lived with my mother, grandmother and little sister in Sestroretsk, on the old Finnish border until 1939. Our house stood on the shore of the Gulf of Finland.”

How did you find out about the war?

“I heard about the war on the station square when my mother and I were walking through the city. Molotov spoke over the loudspeaker, and everyone heard that the war had begun. Germany attacked the USSR."

Tell me about that time

“In 1941 I graduated from 6th grade and at the beginning of the war we came to school every morning.

We were taken to the old Finnish border. There, the military handed out gas masks and sapper shovels, and we dug anti-tank ditches. We haven't been bombed or shelled yet. But German bombers flew over us to Leningrad, there they dropped all their bombs and flew over us again. We heard explosions and saw fires (Sestroretsk is 18 km from Leningrad). Then the Badaevsky food warehouses burned, and black smoke hung over the city for several days.

Soon the enemy approached the old Finnish border and began shelling Sestroretsk; we often had to sit in a bomb shelter. We were evacuated to Razliv. The shells did not reach the Spill. We started studying in 7th grade. But soon the studies ended. Leningrad was surrounded.

When there were only a few people left in the class, I remember the only conversation was about food. Who eats what: some bark from trees, some belts, bear skins, who had them. And we ate potato peelings. Since the fall, my grandmother has been throwing them not in the trash, but near it. In winter, she dug them up and laid them out on the stove - fried them. The little sister could barely reach the stove with her hands and asked her grandmother to fry them more crispy, but the bitterness still remained. Who taught us how to make poppy seeds? Pour salt into a tin box and throw it into the oven, into the fire. Once it burns and cools down, the box produces a gray poppy-like mass that smells like rotten eggs (hydrogen sulfide). We sprinkled this poppy seed on bread and drank tea with it.

The winter was very cold, and people froze and fell as they walked. The dead were not buried in coffins, but sewn up in rags and covered with snow near the road. They ate all the cats and dogs. Since the fall, the boys have been shooting birds with slingshots. Then they started eating people too. But the cannibals were identified and said that they were destroyed.

They gave me 125g of bread, and it wasn’t real. There were long lines for bread. Often I had to stand for several days and nights. People held on to each other so as not to fall. Large white lice crawled across my outer clothing, but they were not from dirt, but from hunger from the body.

I remember once we, the children, were given 75 grams of soldier’s crackers, because... they didn’t deliver flour and the sailors shared their rations with us.

But it was real bread! Cake!

It was cold in the house and there was nothing to heat it with. They burned all the fences and everything that was burning.

In the spring, the birch trees began to fill with sap. There were several birch trees in the yard and they were all hung with bottles. Then the grass came - nettle, quinoa.

Grandmother baked us flatbreads from them and cooked gruel soup.

When the snow melted, teams were organized to collect the dead and take them on carts to mass graves. The teams went from house to house and found out who was alive and who was dead. Living children were sent to orphanages, dead children were taken to mass graves.

Then we kids went to the hospital to weed the beds. For this we were given a bowl of gruel soup. My arms and legs were swelling.

When we drove away from Ladoga, there was no more shooting there, but everything was plowed up and pitted with shells and bombs.

But this was already the beginning of another life!

At the beginning of the war, the Germans threw leaflets where they promised us that “victory will be yours, but from Leningrad there will be porridge, and from Krondstadt - water.”

But neither porridge nor water came out. They didn't wait.

Leningrad and Krondstadt survived! Victory was ours!

From an interview with Lyudmila Alekseevna, we see how difficult it was for Leningraders to endure the blockade. Terrible hunger, severe cold, deafening explosions... - this is her memory, her memories.

Episodes of memories of Leningraders, collected into a single whole, tell us about their exploits, perseverance and courage.

After all, it is thanks to these memories that descendants will be able to form a holistic picture of the siege of Leningrad, and understand what role this heroic defense of the legendary city played during the Great Patriotic War.

In conclusion, we would like to quote the words of the commander, military commander, Marshal of the Soviet Union G.K. Zhukova: “... a lot has been written about the heroic defense of Leningrad. And yet, it seems to me that even more should be said about it, as about all our hero cities, to create a special series of books - epics, richly illustrated and beautifully published, built on a large amount of factual, strictly documentary material, written sincerely and truthfully."

Childhood memories of siege survivors

New Year trees in besieged Leningrad

The winter of 1941/1942 was severely frosty (down to -420 C). In one of the schools in the Krasnogvardeisky district there was a decorated Christmas tree waiting for the children. City transport was inactive. Mom, Mamaeva Evgenia Ivanovna, being the director of the school, turned to the director of the state farm “Ruchi” with a request for the allocation of three carts. And we children, wrapped in blankets and sheepskin coats, were taken by horses to Nikolaevsky Prospect (now Mechnikov Avenue) to the school, which now houses a children's leisure center. Melodies flowed from a mechanically wound gramophone. No round dances, no dancing, no singing - exhausted children stood at the windows and walls. Some were as thin as skeletons covered in skin, many with unwashed faces and dirty hands - the water supply and sewerage systems did not work. Many of the guys had glass jars in their hands, there were no traditional gifts, we were treated to lunch. I don’t remember what was for the first course, but for the second - porridge with a tiny cutlet, which was put in jars: everything was then divided among everyone in the household. This is how the New Year 1942 was celebrated. I was 10 years old then.

Mom died in July... Dad died at the front... And my sister Lisa and I began to live with our aunts - my mother's sisters, surrounded by care and attention.

I remember the New Year tree of 1943 on Petrogradskaya in the Molniya cinema. We, the children, filled the auditorium, sitting in rows on seats, and on the stage near the lit Christmas tree, artists performed - they recited, sang for us (the Christmas tree was lit from a battery brought by the soldiers). And suddenly they announced: “Air raid alert!” The adults took us to the bomb shelter and each of us was given a bag with a small selection of sweets.

We lived all 900 days of the siege in Leningrad. We, the children, visited hospitals, organized concerts for the wounded, repaired their laundry and darned their socks, and wrote letters to their relatives and friends at their request.

Khazova N.V. Member of the NGO "Blockadnik" North-Eastern Administrative District of Moscow

“There is no bread again - only frost and dead people”

Leningrad December 23, 1941 Frost at thirty degrees, snow has fallen for a long time, which no one removes, and everyone walks along well-trodden paths. As always in the morning, I go to the neighboring house No. 11 to the bakery for bread (I’m 12 years old), they give me and my mother 125 grams on cards. The bread is heavy and sticky, no more than 50% flour, the rest is paper and some additives.

In the dimly lit bakery (there has been no electricity for a long time) there are only 5-6 women standing, silent and confused, and the saleswoman has the same facial expression. I approach the counter. “Girl, we won’t give out bread today, there is no water or electricity at the bakery,” she tells me. I go outside. “What are we going to drink boiling water with, which my mother is already preparing on the stove, and we haven’t had any food for a long time?”
The end of the month, our cards have already been sold, there is only one coupon left for 200 grams of cereal. I take a card at home and go to house number 6 on the other side of the street (we lived on Smolny Prospekt), buy barley groats, since there is no other one, and, tightly clutching a small bag to my chest, I go home. Light. The dead were already taken on sleds, wrapped in sheets and tied to the sleds with ropes; they were flat and straight, like boards. They are taken across the Neva, which is very close, along the Okhtinsky Bridge to the Piskarevskoye cemetery. Nobody cries or talks.

December 25 - no bread. My mother and I lie in bed almost all day and listen to the radio. They broadcast beautiful symphonic music and poetry. In the morning there is a continuous stream of dead people on our avenue. Two three-ton cargo trucks with high sides passed by, filled to the brim with dead frozen teenage artisans in their black greatcoats and hats with their arms and legs sticking out in all directions. I’m running home because I don’t have the strength to look at it anymore.

On December 31, my swollen, blackened dad came home for the New Year, barely moving his legs. He served in the air defense of the Severnaya Verf shipyard and said that on December 26, 126 thousand people died of starvation in the city. Later I came across this figure in official and printed publications.

Kolesnikova I.P. Member of the NGO "Blockadnik" North-Eastern Administrative District of Moscow
How I stayed alive!

I was born in the beautiful city of Leningrad. When the war started, I was eight years old. My parents were on a long business trip, my dad was a military man. I stayed with my grandparents. We lived on Vasilyevsky Island, in Gavan.

On September 8, 1941, the Germans closed the blockade by land. Supply became possible only by air or across Lake Ladoga. The norms for issuing food began to be reduced many times, and the issuance of bread was reduced to 125 grams. It was blockade bread - black, heavy, with surrogates. It's starting to get cold. Cold and hungry.

Grandfather was very tall and large. He kept saying: “Tanya, I’m hungry, cook me some ficus.” This flower grew at the head of his bed and was very tall. Grandma refused for a long time, but then she finally cooked it. He ate and said: “Now I’ll fall asleep.” The next day my grandfather died. My grandmother and I took him on a sled to the place where they piled up all the dead. My grandmother kept saying: “Hold his legs, for some reason they are falling off,” but I was afraid.

My grandmother and I were left alone. The frosts were getting stronger. The glass flew out during the bombing and shelling. The windows were boarded up with plywood and covered with a blanket. There was no fuel, it was dark, there was only one smoker. We went together to get water and bread. My grandmother was afraid to leave me alone. It was difficult to walk, there was compacted snow and snowdrifts everywhere.

Grandmother began to weaken and rested often. We slept dressed together in the same bed, she held me close to her to make it warmer. At night, during the bombing, we got up and went to the bomb shelter.

One night she didn’t wake me up to get up, and I was glad that I could sleep. By the morning, when I turned to her, she somehow abruptly pulled away from me. I started to bother her - I didn’t wake up and was cold. Grandmother was dead. It was very scary. The room is cold, dark, dirty. I somehow climbed over it, fell out of bed and hid in the closet that stood in the corridor. I lay there for three days until I was picked up by anti-aircraft defense units and taken to an apartment where children like me were picked up.
I was sick for a long time - I could not recover from dystrophy. Then tuberculosis, deafness. But I still survived, although I still suffer from the consequences of hunger. Almost all of us became disabled.

Mindel I., member of the NGO “Blockadnik” of the North-Eastern Administrative District of Moscow

New Year's tree for forty-two

Now, after so many years, I remember this strange holiday with surprise.
Everything that was gifted to me, ten years old, and thousands of my peers was transported across the Ladoga ice. "New Year's gifts for Leningrad children!" - such banners were hung on the sides of the lorry. And these gifts were called special-purpose cargo. And they took care of it like shells and other ammunition. But I read about this in books later. And then...

One evening there was a persistent knock on the door and a familiar voice was heard, from which I had become unaccustomed during the blockade months: after several lessons at my native school, at the very beginning of September, classes there stopped, moving to a bomb shelter for a month and a half. But with the onset of frost and hunger, no one went to classes in the bomb shelter. This was my teacher Lyubov Yakovlevna from first to third grade. She noisily congratulated us on the increase in bread quota. It was from this day that the norm for dependents and employees, which included my mother, me and my younger brother and sister, was increased from 125 to 200 grams. It was December 25, 1941. And my mother found out about the increase in the morning at the bakery.

Of course, Lyubov Yakovlevna went around her students not only to congratulate them on their increase. She brought an invitation card to the New Year's tree party. This holiday was held at school number thirty - on the corner of Maklin Avenue and our Pechatnikov Street. They will give gifts there. And the guys still have a New Year's surprise waiting for them.

And then this day came. Over the sweater and leggings I put on my day off outfit - a sailor suit. This blue blouse with a turn-down collar and white trim was associated in my memory with pre-war holidays: birthdays and Sunday walks with my parents - to the zoo or to a neighboring kindergarten. Mom silently tied a thick scarf around me, already dressed in a coat and hat, so that I wouldn’t freeze. And she ordered to remember about the younger ones - sister and brother: not to open the gift and bring it home untouched.
I will forever remember this New Year's party. The Christmas tree stood in the corner of the gym, hung with glass and paper toys. Only there were no candles or light bulbs on it: the electricity had long been turned off, and instead of candles, everywhere was lit by smokehouses. But I remember that all the children left their scarves, coats and fur coats in the locker room: that means it was warm in the hall. Whether they heated it or somehow heated the vast gym, I don’t know.

An unfamiliar music teacher played the piano, and Lyubov Yakovlevna and other teachers tried to get us into a round dance. But they couldn't do it. There was neither the strength nor the desire to move. And the Christmas tree did not arouse any interest in us children. In addition, our attention was drawn to the tables arranged in a row along one of the walls of the hall. And on the tables there are deep plates and next to each one there is a spoon and a fork. I immediately guessed what they would feed. And I realized what surprise Lyubov Yakovlevna was talking about. And I was already waiting for this.

I don’t remember very well what else the teachers did for us. It seems that poems were read, songs were sung in discord and riddles were asked. Time dragged on and on, and no one was invited to the table. And finally, the long-awaited command - to sit down. The doors opened and two women in white coats and caps wheeled a cart in. And on the cart were aluminum vats, above which a cloud rose with such an intoxicating smell of live cooking.

That blockade three-course dinner at the New Year's Eve celebration is etched in my memory forever. For starters - noodle soup with surprisingly tasty sticky grounds. For the second course - a cutlet and mashed dried potatoes, in which there were semi-solid, uncooked pieces. For the third - dried fruit compote with round apples on the bottom of the glass. And another slice of black bread. Oh, it was a wonderful holiday!
Lyubov Yakovlevna, with tears in her eyes, walked around her former third-graders and persuaded them not to swallow unchewed food. There's nowhere to rush, they say. There is no shelling. And after lunch you can still play and have fun.
I can't guarantee that we really had fun after dinner. I only remember how they gave everyone a colorful bag with a gift. And in the bag there is a pack of cookies, a long chocolate bar and several sweets.
On the way home, I couldn’t resist and still ate one or two candies, and lied to my mother that I didn’t touch anything from the gift. Mom then divided this gift among everyone and spread it out over several days. And she kept lamenting that the youngest were not entitled to anything: only schoolchildren were given gifts...
After the New Year, we lived in Leningrad for another eight months: we were taken around Ladoga in September '42.

Homeland Z.A. Member of the NGO "Blockadnik" North-Eastern Administrative District of Moscow

“This can never be forgotten”

I, Rodina (Stanovova) Zinaida Aleksandrovna, lived all 900 days and nights of the blockade in the suburbs of Leningrad, at the station. Borisova Griva, 7 km from Lake Ladoga, through which the “Road of Life” passed.

The most difficult trials that befell the inhabitants of Leningrad were as unexpected as the appearance of the enemy at its walls. At first it was artillery shelling and aerial bombardment, which, due to its intensity and duration, not a single city was subjected to during the Second World War. Then came hunger, cold and mass mortality.

65 years have passed since the beginning of the Leningrad Siege, but everything that can never be forgotten has been preserved in memory. I will tell you about two incidents from my life under the siege.

I, a seven-year-old girl, together with my grandmother Natalya Mikhailovna, in mid-September 1941, went to the Ladoga swamp to pick cranberries. While picking berries, we suddenly heard the wild sound of flying German planes, which, having bombed the Ladoga crossing, were returning back. But one plane descended so low that I remembered it for the rest of my life - the fascist’s face, his glasses, his grin, and how, pressing the trigger, he began to shower us with deadly fire, and so on until we reached the edge of the forest. There was nowhere to hide in the swamp and we lay down on the hummocks, and when the fascist made a new approach, we ran, and then again into the hummocks. The tracks whistled around. Remembering this now, I think with a shudder what kind of monster-man one must be to chase a child and an old man through a swamp. With difficulty we reached the forest, rested and went home with the words of our grandmother: “Zinushka, we won’t go anywhere else.”

It was already 1942. Schools were opened, children who were still alive were gathered, but hunger was doing its vile work. I fell ill and couldn’t get up again, complete dystrophy. And there was a military unit nearby, and the soldiers often saw me and even treated me to a cracker; I walked past this unit to school. And when the soldiers learned from my mother that I was dying, the platoon refused the daily ration and brought it to me (there were three sailors and one girl). It was thanks to such actions that Leningraders were saved during that harsh (hungry, cold) time. Thanks to those people, low bow and eternal memory of them and their exploits. In such a cruel time, giving a person a cracker, a “duranda” or something else is heroism of soul and body.

Why didn't we evacuate? They tried to send us, three children, through the “Road of Life” many times, but my mother could not leave with us, since she was liable for military service (she worked on the Leningrad-Ladozhskoye Ozerov railway, and we children had to be evacuated alone, and even divided into different age groups, which my mother objected to. A car came for us several times, loaded our bundles (our things were tied up for an emergency), and we scattered according to my mother’s instructions, and the car left. All this is difficult to describe in words - There was a brutal war going on, the Germans took Shlisselburg and the commandant of Borisova Griva station called my mother and threatened her with a tribunal, since the German was 7-10 km from us.

But someone needed us to survive and tell children in schools, during courage lessons, about the brutal siege of Leningrad.

Seletskaya G.Ya. Head of the NGO "Blockadnik" North-Eastern Administrative District of Moscow

Girl from the Unconquered City

I, a little preschool girl, lived in besieged Leningrad for all 900 days of the siege.
When the war started, I was three years old. My mother and stepfather and I lived in an old house on Teatralnaya Square, in a huge, crowded and friendly communal apartment. Almost all the neighbors managed to evacuate. My stepfather, a top-class turner, was not allowed to evacuate - he worked at the Admiralty Plant, making shells for the front. He died in 1943 when a bomb hit the factory building. Mom served in a river shipping company, in the personnel department. But she worked at the office desk two or three days a week, and the rest of the time the employees were sent to peat mining and logging. In addition to our family, the Yasyukevichs lived in the apartment - a friend of the same age as Valya and her mother. My father fought at the front. There was another neighbor who died at the beginning of the blockade.

It’s fortunate that we were small and did not accommodate all the tragedy that was happening around us.
What can a three to five year old child remember? There is a lot, but very fragmentarily, like individual episodic pictures snatched from the darkness by a spotlight. We, the children of the siege, remember that there was no panic in the city. There was quiet despair, but the Leningrad radio saved us from it. They leaned close to the black loudspeaker plate, listened to Levitan’s voice and, if the Sovinformburo report was good, they rejoiced, jumped, shouted “Hurray!” Olga Berggolts's poems were perceived not as poetry, but as a continuation of the front-line report. Of course, I remember both the Leningrad metronome and the air raid siren. They hid from the bombings in the basement of the house, which was turned into a bomb shelter. Previously, firewood was stored there, which Valya and I ourselves somehow carried to the third floor. The basement was home to hordes of huge, dog-sized rats. These creatures were not afraid of adults, much less children. We were afraid of them, but we did our job - we provided the apartment with firewood. It’s bad that the firewood quickly ran out: even hunger was not as painful as the cold. They burned luxurious St. Petersburg parquet in ovens, burned furniture and books. We went from apartment to apartment, getting fuel. They carried water from the Griboyedov Canal on sleds. The cards were sold in a bakery and pastry shop, which, after the name of the previous owner, was called “U Krin” and was decorated with figurines of angels. In the summer, they collected clover and other edible herbs in city squares. The clover was then used to make soup on kerosene stoves.

After the “Siege Book” by Ales Adamovich and Daniil Granin was written, it is difficult to add anything, and yet we had a childhood! We went sledding down an ice slide. We went - just think! - to the theater and cinema. Next to the house was the Kirov (Mariinsky) Theater. Both during the war years and after the war, free tickets were distributed to apartments - just go! The conservatory was open. From the conservatory buffet they brought it home slightly colored - most importantly, hot! - ersatz tea. In the besieged city, the Musical Comedy Theater gave performances, and there were concerts at the Philharmonic. Everything is free - money has lost all meaning. Valya and I became “avid theatergoers.” They were not so much drawn to art as to the relative warmth and crowds of people. We also went to the cinema - the cinema hall of the Palace of Culture named after the 1st Five-Year Plan on Dekabristov Street was open throughout the blockade.

One day my mother exchanged her diamond ring at a flea market for a loaf of black bread and 50 grams of Caucasian soy candies. And we had a real celebration with a “cake” - a thin slice of bread and a piece of candy on top.

By the way, about sweets. After the war there were many captured Germans in Leningrad. They built something, repaired something. They walked, unescorted, around the city, trying to sell or exchange their drawings. And the children who survived the blockade took pity on them, thrusting caramel or cookies into their hands, tearing them off. Generous little winners who learned from childhood that “you can’t beat someone who’s lying down”...

Stepanova Z.G. Member of the NGO "Blockadnik" North-Eastern Administrative District of Moscow

I'm proud to be from Leningrad

It’s been 62 years since the blockade of Leningrad was broken, and it’s still hard to remember. The war caught me when I was less than 5 years old, but then we began to grow up very quickly. My father volunteered in the first days of the war. A twenty-six-year-old mother was left with two children, my sister was 2.5 years old. Grandmother died soon after. Mom went to work. She worked at a military factory. I remained the eldest.

You have to imagine the state of my mother, who, leaving for work, instructed me: don’t open the door for anyone, don’t go near the window, since we lived on the first floor, and above us lived a woman who froze her dead mother in the barn and ate her piece by piece. (and this happened).
The sister cried from hunger, pulled threads out of rags and ate them. When it began to get dark, my mother was returning from work, and we, despite the ban, were waiting for her at the window. Mom brought tiny pieces of something like bread, but they had to be divided into the evening and the next day. Mom often gave her ration of bread to us, and she herself boiled water, adding salt and pepper to it, and drank this liquid to quench her hunger.

In the spring of '42, when the snow melted, we went to the fields where potatoes were planted last year, but we did not have time to harvest them because of the war. From these frozen and bad-smelling potatoes, my mother made cakes, which then seemed delicious.

People were exhausted by spring, but the bulk of Leningraders did not lose their human qualities.
I remember there was such an incident in the first spring of the siege of the city. Not far from our house (and we lived on the outskirts of the city, which was already under fire from the Germans) there was a military unit. When I went out onto the porch of my house to bask in the sun, a young soldier called out to me and asked: “Girl, do you need bones from the soup that was cooked for the soldiers?” I ran to my mother and jumped out with a plate. The soldier gave me several completely bare bones. But it was a treasure, because my mother once again made broth from them and we drank it with pleasure.

In general, there were much more decent people who passionately loved their city and everyone tried to help each other.

When the opportunity arose to evacuate women and children across Lake Ladoga, despite the German bombing, since there was nothing to feed the people, Leningraders left their beloved city with great difficulty. But an order is an order. During the evacuation, many children and women died, as the Germans bombed and sank barges with defenseless people, but the evacuation continued. We were lucky: our barge safely reached the opposite shore of Ladoga, and how many barges were sunk that day. Children's panama hats and clothes floated on the water. Until now, the body is shaking from the memories, from the screaming and crying of the children who went under the water.

Treptsov V.E. Member of the NGO "Blockadnik" North-Eastern Administrative District of Moscow

To the front line - by tram

Sunny, clear morning. But there is some tension. Adults are serious and gloomy. Mom said: “War!” My father went to the front to defend Leningrad. The adults began to dig a shelter on the sports ground - a bomb shelter.

One evening a woman came in and gave her father a note. She dug trenches next to his unit. Early in the morning I went with her from Vyborg to the front line. We passed the porcelain factory named after. Lomonosov and a few more stops. Walk another five kilometers. There is a checkpoint under the railway tracks. To my surprise and excitement, they let us through. People went to dig trenches and make fortifications. My father hugged me at the dugout. He was worried that the shelling would begin at dawn.

A nurse from our area asked me to deliver a letter. When it got dark, my father walked us to the highway and explained: as soon as the Germans began to fire at passing cars, they would quickly drive flat into the ditch.
They were waiting for me at home. We crumbled gifts from my father, crackers, into hot water for several days. And we had soup for several days - lunch, breakfast and dinner.
I took the letter to the address the nurse gave me. And I see: there is no house - ruins. A lonely wall with holes and shell holes. Under the moon, the wind sways the scorched curtains and swings the lampshade on the wires.

They got used to bombings and shelling and stopped going to shelters, but they couldn’t get used to hunger!
Mom divided each one hundred and twenty-five grams of bread for lunch, breakfast and dinner. This made it possible to live in time. She acted wisely and in every possible way distracted us from the dull and boring feeling of hunger. She asked me to read aloud and told us Russian folk tales. The three-year-old brother vigilantly watched the hour hand and at twelve shouted: “Dinner!” In the morning I went to collect firewood. Long pieces of wood were sawed with a two-handed saw by my mother. Of course, she sawed the wood, and I had enough strength to hold the saw straight.

One day, the mother of classmate Valya Ivanov, with whom we were sitting at the same desk, came in from a neighboring house and said sadly: “Come on, say goodbye to Valechka.” He lay in a surprisingly small coffin, white-white, either from the frost, or from the cold light of the window.

Sad news came from relatives. Cousins ​​died. They lived on the first floor, a bomb exploded in front of the window. They sat and did their homework.

In December, the radio suddenly started working, like a metronome chiming a clock. Messages were sent “From the Soviet Information Bureau”: “Near Moscow our troops defeated the fascists and drove them to the West.” Joy, delight, hope appeared.

But Leningrad was still surrounded. For the fifth time I rode through the snowy city by tram. The alarm was sounded several times. Lights out - and everyone returns to the empty, cold carriage. The feeling of fear has dulled. The sirens are howling terribly. There are explosions in the distance, anti-aircraft guns are snarling. I reached the checkpoint. Nobody is guarding. There is no one in the dugout. Commands are given, the troops leave. With tears in his eyes he asked the Red Army soldier: “Where are the soldiers from this dugout?” In response: “The Germans were pushed back and the troops went forward.” He wandered back dejectedly. I don’t remember how I drove, I was sad and sad that I didn’t find my father. I unexpectedly met him near the house. The father was returning to a new place. He was given four hours leave. Thank God, he is alive and heading to another line of defense. This was the last meeting - a farewell. In February, my father died.
The tedious, winter, dark days of waiting and hoping for a breakthrough of the blockade dragged on. I remembered pre-war life: sunny, serene days. Completed second grade successfully. In May, I enrolled in an art studio at the Palace of Pioneers on Nevsky, near the Anichkov Bridge. In September I decided to take classes. The sad attendant said: “Boy, come and paint after the war.” We were sure that all this would end soon. “And on enemy soil we will defeat the enemy...”

Shelling and bombing continued here and there. Good news - the norm for issuing bread using cards has been increased. The snowdrifts and paths began to thaw. Without surprise, I found the hand and face of a frozen man in the snow. May, white nights, light. The frozen bodies of city residents were laid on the truck.
The neighbors brought my mother from the factory. She fainted, and after resting for one day, she began to prepare for evacuation. The plant compiled lists of large families. In June we were brought to Ladoga - the “Road of Life”.

We are sailing on a small tugboat. The motor is quiet. We are tensely waiting for bombings and raids. Luckily, we made it to the other side. Doctors and nurses meet us. Help the weak. There is an open-air dining room. They feed us semolina porridge and give us food. In a sparse birch forest there is a puffing train with freight cars. Vanity and excitement - loading is underway. So we went into evacuation.

God forbid anyone to experience this

When the war started, I was eight years old. Father and mother worked at the Arsenal arms factory. From the first days of the war, the plant was transferred to barracks status. True, the mother was allowed to go home for a few hours once every two weeks, and the men had no right to leave the factory territory. So my grandmother and I were left alone. I remember how my grandmother and I were returning from the People’s House. It took almost 24 hours to get from the Petrograd side to our Kondratievsky Prospekt. Our tram was constantly stopped due to air raids, and we fled to the air raid shelter. I counted 23 raids on the road.

My grandmother and I slept together to keep it warmer. And on February 23, just on Red Army Day, she died. I looked at her, dead, and hordes of lice crawling across her face. I pulled her off the bed straight from the sheets and dragged her to the window. I wake up at night, the smokehouse is on fire, I hear a squeak, I look towards the window, and there, in the light of the smokehouse, shadows are flickering - rats are eating her body. It became creepy. I huddled in a corner under the blanket and couldn’t sleep until the morning. In the morning I decided to bury her. We lived on the fifth floor, but getting the corpse down was not particularly difficult, since all the steps were covered in ice (people carried water and spilled it). Below he put her on a sled and took her to the Bogoslovskoye cemetery, which is next to Piskarevskoye. When the mother came for leave, the grandmother was no longer there

With the onset of spring, life became easier. The sun warmed up and greenery began to sprout. They tore quinoa and nettles and made soup from them. And they also went for land. In the Badayevsky warehouses, after the fire, it was sweetish from sugar. And in the Sosnovka area, where a train with starch was blown up at the station due to sabotage, the ground was saturated with starch. Kissel was made from this soil.

Schoolchildren in Leningrad did not study for a whole year; classes resumed in 1942. Due to constant bombing, classes were held in basement bomb shelters. And in 1943, a minelayer - a warship - moored at the Stalin plant. The sailors poured out onto the pier and danced the bullseye to the accordion. An extinct city, smoke from fires, and they dance, so detachedly... They escaped from hell, few returned from the Baltic.

In 1944, there were fireworks on the May Day holidays. And the boys and I decided to arrange our own fireworks display. They hauled about 400 rockets onto the roof and took off at nine o’clock in the evening. But the district police officer and the janitor caught all four of us, they called my mother from work, and she prescribed me such an “Izhitsa” that I couldn’t sit for a week after that.

When I walk around the city, no, no, and those times come to mind: fires, cold, hunger, bombs (I threw 12 landmines from the roofs during the blockade). I remember that I stood at this house for long nights to get bread rations, and along those streets I walked to the Neva for water, about three kilometers away, somewhere in these courtyards I collected firewood - pieces of fences, pieces of furniture.

May God rest the souls of the Leningrad siege survivors. Forgive them their sins and create for them an eternal Memory.

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

Remembering the siege of Leningrad, we read the stories of those who survived 900 harsh days and did not give up - they persevered...

They withstood a lot: cold (everything that burned went into the firebox, even books!), hunger (the norm for bread distribution was 150 grams, they caught birds and animals!), thirst (water had to be drawn from the Neva), darkness (the lights went out, the walls of the houses covered with frost), the death of relatives, friends, acquaintances...

On January 27, 1944, the blockade of Leningrad was lifted. 72 years have passed. A whole life... Reading about this time is both difficult and painful. For today's schoolchildren, the blockade is a long history.

Let us recall how the blockade was broken through in dry numbers, and then we will read stories and memories of those terrible days.

January 15 - In the Pulkovo Heights area, the 42nd Army cut off the Krasnoe Selo - Pushkin road to the enemies.

January 17 - Fierce battles began for Voronya Mountain, the highest point in the Leningrad region. The 2nd Shock Army continues fighting in the Ropshin direction.

January 20 - In the Ropsha area, the advanced units of the 42nd Army and the 2nd Shock Army united and completely surrounded the enemy group.

January 21 - The enemy group was destroyed. The city of Mga was liberated by the troops of the Volkhov Front.

On the evening of January 27, in honor of the complete liberation of Leningrad from the blockade, a solemn artillery salute of 324 guns thundered on the banks of the Neva.

Sometimes you will hear the comparison: “Just like during a blockade.” No, not like during a blockade. And God forbid anyone else should experience what the adults and children of Leningrad experienced: a piece of siege-baked bread - a regular daily ration - almost weightless...

But the residents of the city, doomed to starvation, were not embittered. Common grief, common misfortune brought everyone together. And in the most difficult conditions people remained people.

A resident of besieged Leningrad, Evgenia Vasilievna Osipova-Tsibulskaya, recalls this. In those terrible years, she lost her entire family, was left alone, but did not disappear - she survived. She survived thanks to those who helped the little girl stay alive...

Zhenya Osipova's passport was issued after the war, in 1948. She graduated from school in 1951, entered the journalism department of the philological department at Leningrad University, worked as a correspondent on Sakhalin, in Leningrad newspapers, as a librarian, and as a lecturer. She spoke to schoolchildren and told them about what she experienced during the war.

Evgenia Vasilievna's stories will not leave you indifferent.

E.V. Tsibulskaya

From stories about the blockade

"WORLD" HAS CRASHED

I hold flowers in my hand. I shout from the doorway:

Mom, look! Lilies of the valley in the dew! - and I stop at the door, closing my eyes.

The whole room is covered in glittering bouquets. Sunny bunnies jump on the walls, ceiling, floor. In the blinding light, mom kneels and collects the fragments of the broken mirror.

We called this mirror - from floor to ceiling, in a beautiful frame - “the world”. It reflected the world outside. In autumn - flying golden leaves from maples and lindens, in winter - whirling snowflakes, in spring - singing birds at our feeder, and in summer - sunlight and blooming lilacs falling from the front garden into the open window. And there are always girls and boys playing in the yard.

What about without “peace”? I say with bitterness:

It's a pity... "The world" crashed!

Daughter! War! - Mom answers and hides her tear-stained face in a towel.

Molotov’s speech is broadcast on the radio: “Our cause is just... the enemy will be defeated... victory will be ours!”

IVAN TSAREVICH

My older brother Ivan composed a war tale for me at the front and signed it “Ivan Tsarevich.” In each “triangle” its continuation came. But I couldn't understand the last letter. One sentence is written in large letters: “Everything is fine with me, only my legs are dull...”

“Mom,” I pestered, “knives may become dull, but how are your legs?”

Mom went to the neighbors.

Calm down, Andreevna! - they consoled. - For reasons of military censorship, it is impossible to tell Ivan that rations in the army are a bit tight. So I wrote it in code...

I didn’t know what a “code” was, and I urgently sent a message to the front: “Ivan Tsarevich! What's the joke with feet? I don’t know such a fairy tale.”

In response, someone else's letter came. I re-read it several times: “Gangrene... amputated... agony... staff... wounded...”

What is "gangrene" and "amputated"? These words are not in the dictionary of the school textbook. But I still caught the main thing: my Ivan Tsarevich remained only in a fairy tale:

He did not drive the waves of the sea,
I didn’t touch the golden stars,
He protected the child:
Rocked the cradle...

HOLD ON, BOY!

Well, it was winter in 1942! Fierce, snowy, long! And all gray. The gray houses frowned, the trees frozen from the cold turned grey, the bushes and roads were covered with gray snowdrifts. The air is also gray and angry - you can’t breathe...

The New Year started with losses. On January 1st, Andrei’s grandfather passed away. A week later, two sisters died on the same day - Verochka and Tamara. The brother died a few days later in the firebox of a round stove, warming himself on warm bricks. Mom found out about this only in the morning when she threw the lit paper there.

In desperation, she smashed the stove with an ax to get her brother out of there. The bricks did not give in, they crumbled, the iron bent, and my mother pounded on the stove left and right, turning it into ruins. I was raking up crushed bricks.

The next day my mother could not get out of bed. I had to take care of the housework, and involuntarily became a “boy.” The whole house is my concern: wood chips, a stove, water, a store.

Not only his business, but also his clothes passed down to me from my brother. Getting ready to line up, I put on his coat, earflap hat, and felt boots. I was always cold. I stopped undressing at night, but early in the morning I was ready to go for food. I stood in line for a long time. In order not to freeze, she knocked her feet against her feet and rubbed her face with mittens.

The women encouraged me:

Hold on, kid! Look what a “tail” is trailing behind you...

Once in a bakery, a woman standing behind me said to me:

Boy! Is mom alive?

At home lies...

Take care of her! Don’t eat extra weights on the way, bring everything to your mother!

And my mother is not dystrophic! - I said. - She even recovered.

Why is she lying there then? Tell him: let him get up, otherwise he will weaken.

Wait a minute! - another woman grabbed me by the sleeve, whose face was completely invisible, it was hidden in a scarf. - Does she have dropsy?

I don’t know... - I said, confused. - Her face shines and her legs are thick.

Having bought the bread, I hurried home. Falling into the snow, I climbed through the snowdrifts on all fours and carried the bread ration to my mother, with all the extras. The bread, frozen in frost, hit the table like a brick. We have to wait until it thaws. As I fell asleep, I leaned against the wall.

And at night it was as if someone pushed me in the side. I opened my eyes - it was dark, I listened - it was quiet. She lit the smokehouse, poured water, and put a piece of bread in it.

Mom never wanted to swallow and moaned loudly.

Mother! - I begged her. - Eat some bread... and speak in words...

But mother’s huge glass eyes were already looking indifferently at the ceiling.

This happened early in the morning. Simultaneously: mother’s death and fire. The school where I used to study burned down.

“DRAW FOOD!”

Let's build our own fortress and live in it! - my sister suggests. - War will never find us in the fortress.

We dragged all our clothes onto the bed and lowered the blankets all the way to the floor. The walls and floor were covered with pillows. “The Fortress” turned out to be warm and quiet. Now, as soon as an “air raid warning” was announced on the radio, we climbed into our shelter and there waited for the all clear.

Little sister doesn’t understand war at all. She believes that the Nazis throw bombs only at our house, and asks to go to another one, where there is no war. My sister loses her memory from hunger. She doesn’t remember what sugar, porridge, milk are... Swinging like a dummy, she waits for her mother with gifts. Mom died before our eyes. Has she forgotten that too?

I found paper, pencils, and leftover paints in my dad’s box. I lay everything out on the table. I warm my hands and get down to business. I am drawing a picture “Little Red Riding Hood met a wolf in the forest.”

Fascist! - the sister declares angrily. - Ate grandma! Don't choke, you cannibal! “Draw,” my sister gives me a task, “some food...

I draw pies that look like buns. Little sister licks the paper, and then quickly eats my drawing and asks:

Draw more - and more...

I write all sorts of things on a sheet of paper with a simple pencil, and my sister immediately destroys everything, stuffing it into her mouth. And I, turning away, swallow the remains of the notebook paper.

My sister divides my drawings into two piles. One - “edible” - is hidden in the “fortress”, the other - “harmful” - in the “potbelly stove”, reprimanding sternly:

So that there are no fascists!

WHAT IS A HOSPITAL?

Unbearably cold. We don’t heat a broken stove. And there is nothing to light the stove with - the wood chips have run out. The barns have long been dismantled for firewood. The porch of our house was broken, only two steps remained. The stools, shelves, and whatnot were burned. The kitchen table, where food for the day used to be stored, has been preserved. Now it is empty. And we don’t sit down at the table anymore. We chew our pieces without hot water. Little sister sucks on a cotton blanket day and night. Due to weakness, she cannot get out of the “fortress”, she does not recognize me, she calls me “mom”.

I went to look for the boss. It turned out to be a young girl. In a fur hat, in a short coat, in men's mittens and felt boots that were not tall enough. She looked like a "bunny". Now he’ll take it and jump into the snow.

What happened, girl? - her thin voice rings. - You're shaking all over!

Save your little sister, I ask, help her!

“Bunny” is silent for a long time, leafing through the notebook, and then asks:

Do you want to go to the hospital? It can be determined!

I look helplessly at the “bunny”, I’m afraid to refuse or agree. I don't know what a "hospital" is...

Two places... - says the girl and writes something in a notebook. - I'll come for you... Give me the address...

Two places in the hospital were not available. They took my sister as the weakest. Next up is mine...

COME MAY!

I was left alone.

The day goes by and I put a stick on the door with a pencil. I'm waiting for May. With warmth, streams, herbs. This is my hope. The sticks “passed” March, “moved” to April, but spring still doesn’t come. Snow is falling in large flakes, tightly covering the ground.

I don't want white anymore! - I shout in an empty house. I scream to make my voice heard. There is no one in the rooms. All the neighbors died.

I bury my face in the pillow and whine like a dog:

When will everything be green?

I try to get up and look out the window. The icicles are crying on the roof, their tears flowing straight onto the windowsill.

It's like a door slammed!

Which door? There are no doors; they were burned when the house was empty. There are only two doors left. Katyusha Minaeva - she needs a door, it says: “Digs trenches.” And mine. She is in a dark corridor, invisible to anyone. This is where I keep my calendar. I put the sticks at the very bottom because I can't reach the real calendar. I can only look at him. And next to the calendar hangs on a carnation a portrait of the one for whom I am waiting so impatiently. I drew with colored pencils myself. I saw her like this. All in blue, joyful, smiling!

Spring! The face is like the sun, only blue, in orange-red colors. The eyes are two small suns, similar to blue lakes, from which come blue and yellow rays. On the head is a wreath of grass and bright flowers. The braids are green branches, and between them are blue rays. These are streams... I wait for spring as if I were the most dear person.

Footsteps were heard outside the door. Yes, steps! They are approaching my door. Isn't it spring knocking its heels? They say she comes with a ringing sound. No, it’s the sound of broken glass ringing and crunching on the floor. Why does it ring like that?

Finally, the door opens wide, and I see the long-awaited guest in an overcoat and boots. The face is joyful, the hands are gentle and affectionate.

How I've been waiting for you!

Spinning with happiness, I plunged into the spring blue to the children's lullaby that my mother sang to us:

Come, O May!
We are children
We are waiting for you soon!
Come, O May!..

I didn't recognize my father.

ORDER: STOP!

In the evening, a fire burned in a broken stove. Dad put his pot on the Taganka and heated the water. A bath was being prepared for me in a barrel.

Now we will wash! It's dirty! It’s like I haven’t washed myself for ages! - and put me in thick steam. From the barrel, I watch as dad lays out black squares of crackers on the tablecloth, pours a mound of sugar, and places cans. I hung the duffel bag on a nail next to my “spring”.

After washing, I sit at the table in my dad’s clean shirt and swallow black pasta with butter. Hardly anyone had such joy. And yet I ask anxiously:

Dad, are you going to war again?

I'll go! - he says. - Now I’ll put things in order at the Baltika and go to my “horse”.

A horse, I know, is a tank. What about Baltika? Password?

Dad laughs. He sits down next to me and watches me swallow my food.

“Baltika” - you, my dear... - he whispers. - Tomorrow I will admit you to the hospital. There they will treat you... from there they will send you to an orphanage... for a short time while I am fighting... You will study at school... And then the war will end...

How many days does this take?

What days? - Dad doesn’t understand.

Days... how long will it take for the war to end? I would draw a calendar like this... - I point to the door with sticks and a drawing of spring. - That way the war days would pass faster...

Eh, brother, this task is not easy. The entire state decides it. The fascist must be defeated! In the meantime... look, I've dug in... right next to Leningrad.

I start thinking, anxiety appears, but dad interrupts the conversation:

Wake up early tomorrow... lots to do!

However, we didn't have anything to do tomorrow.

As soon as it was light, a messenger came to us - dad urgently needed to report to the unit. Hope for treatment, school, a new life collapsed.

Now dad will put on his overcoat and go to war. Wrapped in a blanket, I'm afraid to breathe. Dad lifts me up with the blanket and puts me on my feet. I'm settling. He picks it up again. I sit down again. Dad lifts me up, I fall.

I can't walk! - I cried.

Do you know how to beat a Fritz? He starves us, but we will take it and survive! And we will not kneel! This is your victory... There is no one else and nothing to lose, you have to hold on with your teeth... Through strength - still stand... as in battle... This is an order!..

It's time for dad to go!

He comes to the door, removes the duffel bag from the nail, puts on his overcoat, looking at my picture.

Spring came! - he says. - Greenery will appear soon, good help...

Take “spring” with you! She is happy!

Dad didn't take my picture.

Everyone has their own spring. This one came to you, which means it’s yours... And mine is waiting in the tank, on the front line...

For the last time, dad hugs me to himself, strokes my hair, reminds me: “Stop... and that’s it.”

I didn't cry. As an adult, she spoke parting words:

At least the bullet didn't hit you!

Dad died in the fall of 1942 near Leningrad.

TIKHOMIROVA AND DMITRY KIRILLOVICH

“I’m Tikhomirova...” said the girl in uniform. - I came for you... Let's go to the children's home...

She threw my mother’s large scarf over my head and pulled on a warm sweater. Then she closed the door with the sticks I had drawn and the calendar of waiting for spring and wrote in large chalk: “Front.”

Taking my hand tightly, the girl hurried. Pressed close to Tikhomirova, I, looking warily into her face, admitted:

They may not accept me into the orphanage - I ate my rations two days in advance...

I didn’t hear the answer - something burst very close. Tikhomirova released my hand, and some force hit me painfully in the back and carried me onto the tram rails...

Where I am? - I barely pronounce with thick, parched lips, examining the stairs above my head.

Someone takes me along with the pillow and lifts me up. I look closely and can’t figure out who it is. A boy in a man's jacket and a hat with earflaps.

Is it winter again? - I’m scared of his warm hat and close my eyes.

Here, drink some boiling water... you'll feel better...

The boy brings a hot mug to my lips. The pain in my mouth makes me turn away.

Everything is confused - when it’s day, when it’s night. It's dark all the time and the stove smokes. That's why I sleep all day long. I wake up: a boy in a fur hat with earflaps is sitting next to me with an iron mug in his hands.

Who are you? - I whisper and don’t close my eyes. Will it disappear or not?

Me? - he asks again and thinks about the answer for a long time. - Dmitry Kirillovich I... I work at a factory... I get a work card...

The boy's forehead is covered in soot, and his nose is covered in brown specks. He doesn't look like a worker at all, and I say with disappointment:

And I thought you were a boy...

The boy shrugs and awkwardly leans over me, knocking over a mug of hot water. Confused, he asks:

Get better, huh... I'll help you get settled... You're too small after all... Maybe they'll give you an "employee"...

We live under the stairs in a tiny closet without a window. A strip of light falls through a narrow gap. We don’t have a stove, so Dmitry Kirillovich adapted an iron barrel. The pipe goes straight to the stairs. Smoke doesn't bother anyone - the house is empty.

I call Dmitry Kirillovich by his first name and patronymic, as he said. Worker. Must be respected. He leaves for work early in the morning, he is gone for days - he performs a “secret mission”. I wait for him and boil water with “rye”.

And when Dmitry Kirillovich comes under the stairs, we have a real holiday. He puts his delicacies on the table: pieces of duranda with purple potato sprouts, shakes out bread crumbs from his pockets. The potatoes are cut into round slices and glued to the walls of a hot iron barrel. The smell becomes exactly like in the sand pits when we baked potatoes over a fire.

One day a boy mysteriously asks me:

You... how is it... without me? Will you live?

I shrink into a ball, sensing something is wrong, and set aside the mug of bread porridge. Dmitry Kirillovich also pushes the fool aside, rakes the crumbs into a pile and says decisively:

I'm going to war, little sister!

I already know how they go to war. I swallow potatoes salted with tears. Dmitry Kirillovich consoles:

Soon our people will go on the offensive... and I will go...

He bowed his head, his hat slid down, revealing his gray hair.

Old man! - I screamed.

I turned white one night... I didn’t notice how... - and Dmitry Kirillovich began to tell:

We didn’t leave the workshop for two days... Everyone was on duty... Bombs were flying... Many wounded... The foreman was killed... my dad... I returned home on the third day in the morning... And in the black snow, my - six, swollen and burnt... The house burned down before my eyes... - He spoke incoherently and abruptly, was silent for a long time, choosing his words, and ended the story with a confession:

You saved me...

I corrected him:

You're confused! It was you who saved me!

There are different types of salvation... Now my salvation is the front! I'll go take revenge on the bastards! I would have gone into reconnaissance a long time ago... but there was my dad’s machine standing by... The other day a replacement arrived...

Can I come with you? - I said barely audibly.

Hang in there! - he demanded sternly. - The best thing to do is go to school, where they feed you. You won't get lost! I heard: there is such a...

"GENERAL" CLASS

I stood in front of a large table, behind which sat a woman dressed in a man's jacket. She studied the thick book for several minutes, slowly flipping through the pages. Having found the one she needed, she buried her face in it and ran a nervous finger along the columns:

Andrey... January...

Fedor... January...

Anatoly... January...

Tamara... January...

Vera... January...

The woman took a breath.

Olga... March, 31st... I didn’t receive cards for April...

This is my mother...” I explained, but the woman, not listening to me, continued:

Evgeniya... April...

That’s it... - the woman summed up and slammed the book. - The Osipovs died at the beginning of 1942!

In order not to fall over, I grabbed the table on which the ominous book lay. Tears flowed down my cheeks.

I am alive! Do you see? I am breathing! - I screamed in despair in a hoarse voice. - Touch me!

The woman looked at me indifferently, addressing me as if to a ghost, and repeated monotonously:

Died... Everyone died! That's what it says in the book!

I need a card for May! Without her, I will die too!

The woman said coldly:

Show your documents!

Documentation! Yes, I have never held them in my hands.

Suddenly another woman, dressed in military style, appeared in front of me and asked rudely:

What are you drinking?

I started the new explanation with tears.

So what?! - the woman abruptly interrupted. - Are you the only one? Tears won't help! If you decide to study, go to school! In life you need to look for a masculine character. But you can’t be weak! This is a pit!.. And we’ll give you a card! So what if without documents... You yourself are a document!

But I calmed down only when I held in my hands brand new multi-colored sheets of paper, which with their coupons guaranteed me the minimum - salvation.

Well, where is this school that Dmitry Kirillovich spoke about?

But you won't be accepted into school!

Why won't they accept it? - my heart skips a beat.

We need some herbs! - explains the boy in a black sweater and black leggings. - Two kilograms of herbs... quinoa, nettles... pine needles... Then they will supply you with allowance!

I have a card... - I say, considering the food card the most important.

A girl with long braids comes up to me and takes my hand:

Let's go to! I have some extra grass. They'll sign you up, and tomorrow you'll pick it up yourself. Fresh!

We are heading towards the school.

What class will you need to go to? - the girl starts the conversation.

On the third... - I answer after thinking.

While you go, like everyone else, to the “common” one.

Literature

Tsibulskaya E.V. From stories about the blockade / Iskorka. - 1991. - No. 1.