September 08, 2015

City Under Siege


City Under Siege

For many people, the word “siege” conjures up images of medieval citadels beset by siege towers and battering rams, with trebuchets representing the pinnacle of artillery power. But as recently as 74 years ago, September 8, 1941, the Soviet city of Leningrad found itself surrounded by Nazis and their allies.

The ensuing 900-day siege cut the population of Leningrad – now St. Petersburg – by an estimated one million people. The Germans dropped over 148,000 artillery shells and bombs on the city – a long way from the trebuchets of the Middle Ages. In the fall months, incendiary bombs made quick work of the city’s grain stores; in later years, cynical rumors circulated that Stalin had ordered them burned to speed the destruction of a city he didn’t like.

A few months into the siege, ration cards became the only source of food, and getting that food – full as it was of sawdust and other fillers – took precedence over everything else, including staying out of the way of the shelling. As more and more died of hunger and shelling, death and destruction became normalized.

Already at 6 in the morning I get on my pants, hat, blazer, and overcoat, and go to take my place in line. The store won’t open until 8, and the line is long, 2-3 people across. You stand there and wait, while an enemy plane flies low and slow over the street and rains down from its guns; the people scatter, and then they get back into the line, without panic – it gives you chills… (Siege diary of Angelina Efremovna Krupnova-Shamova)

Images of the siege

As ration cards replaced money, they also became the most common target for theft. Desperate times called for desperate measures – but even those were not always sufficient. Krupnova-Shamova wrote of a “friendly” old woman who couldn’t save herself, even by stealing:

In the morning, an old lady stopped by. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘you haven’t gone to get bread yet, give me your cards, I’ll go.’ We got our cards for ten days, from the first to the tenth, and the last three were left – 250 grams, and three for 125 grams each, for three days. That old lady never did bring us that bread… But April 9 I saw her dead in the courtyard – so there’s nothing to judge her for, she was a good person…

Of all the records of the siege, none are as harrowing, as pure a distillation of that awful experience, as the famous 9-sentence diary of 11-year-old Tanya Savicheva:

December 28, 1941. Zhenya died at 12:00. 1941.

Grandma died January 25 at 3. 1942.

Leka died March 17 at 5 in the morning. 1942.

Uncle Vasya died April 13 at 2 at night. 1942.

Uncle Lyosha, May 10, 4 in the afternoon. 1942.

Mama – May 3, 7:30 in the morning. 1942.

The Savichevs have died.

Everyone has died.

Only Tanya is left.

Year after year, the Siege of Leningrad fades further and further out of living memory. Those who remember it, who survived it, are fewer and fewer. But to this day, on Nevsky Prospekt, St. Petersburg’s busiest street, passers-by can still read a sobering reminder from those times:

“Citizens! During shelling this side of the street is especially dangerous.”

Sources: Diary of Krapnova-Shamova, Diary of Tanya Savicheva; translations by Eugenia Sokolskaya

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons, vk.com, Eugenia Sokolskaya

 

Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

Life Stories: Original Fiction By Russian Authors

Life Stories: Original Fiction By Russian Authors

The Life Stories collection is a nice introduction to contemporary Russian fiction: many of the 19 authors featured here have won major Russian literary prizes and/or become bestsellers. These are life-affirming stories of love, family, hope, rebirth, mystery and imagination, masterfully translated by some of the best Russian-English translators working today. The selections reassert the power of Russian literature to affect readers of all cultures in profound and lasting ways. Best of all, 100% of the profits from the sale of this book are going to benefit Russian hospice—not-for-profit care for fellow human beings who are nearing the end of their own life stories.
Marooned in Moscow

Marooned in Moscow

This gripping autobiography plays out against the backdrop of Russia's bloody Civil War, and was one of the first Western eyewitness accounts of life in post-revolutionary Russia. Marooned in Moscow provides a fascinating account of one woman's entry into war-torn Russia in early 1920, first-person impressions of many in the top Soviet leadership, and accounts of the author's increasingly dangerous work as a journalist and spy, to say nothing of her work on behalf of prisoners, her two arrests, and her eventual ten-month-long imprisonment, including in the infamous Lubyanka prison. It is a veritable encyclopedia of life in Russia in the early 1920s.
Driving Down Russia's Spine

Driving Down Russia's Spine

The story of the epic Spine of Russia trip, intertwining fascinating subject profiles with digressions into historical and cultural themes relevant to understanding modern Russia. 
White Magic

White Magic

The thirteen tales in this volume – all written by Russian émigrés, writers who fled their native country in the early twentieth century – contain a fair dose of magic and mysticism, of terror and the supernatural. There are Petersburg revenants, grief-stricken avengers, Lithuanian vampires, flying skeletons, murders and duels, and even a ghostly Edgar Allen Poe.
Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

Stargorod: A Novel in Many Voices

Stargorod is a mid-sized provincial city that exists only in Russian metaphorical space. It has its roots in Gogol, and Ilf and Petrov, and is a place far from Moscow, but close to Russian hearts. It is a place of mystery and normality, of provincial innocence and Black Earth wisdom. Strange, inexplicable things happen in Stargorod. So do good things. And bad things. A lot like life everywhere, one might say. Only with a heavy dose of vodka, longing and mystery.
How Russia Got That Way

How Russia Got That Way

A fast-paced crash course in Russian history, from Norsemen to Navalny, that explores the ways the Kremlin uses history to achieve its ends.
The Latchkey Murders

The Latchkey Murders

Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin is back on the case in this prequel to the popular mystery Murder at the Dacha, in which a serial killer is on the loose in Khrushchev’s Moscow...
Chekhov Bilingual

Chekhov Bilingual

Some of Chekhov's most beloved stories, with English and accented Russian on facing pages throughout. 
Bears in the Caviar

Bears in the Caviar

Bears in the Caviar is a hilarious and insightful memoir by a diplomat who was “present at the creation” of US-Soviet relations. Charles Thayer headed off to Russia in 1933, calculating that if he could just learn Russian and be on the spot when the US and USSR established relations, he could make himself indispensable and start a career in the foreign service. Remarkably, he pulled it of.

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955