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How do you know a real Petersburger?
Just ask him or her something about the Blockade of Leningrad. You should not think it something from ancient history. Each one of us locals retains this grief and it is seen in the eyes.
As you probably know, the Leningrad blockade lasted for 900 days. For 2,5 years Leningrad was completely cut off from the country fighting its own battle. WWII broke out for Russia on June, 22 1941. By the time fascist Germany invaded Russia it had the entire Europe with almost 3 mln people under control. Leningrad played a specific part in the plans of the Third Reich – the downfall of it meant a gateway to the Urals with their rich mineral & human resources. The Nazi didn’t spare an effort to take hold of the city. It was planned to be levelled to the ground. Fortunately the Luga battle delayed the blockade by 3 months, which allowed some time for evacuation & building up defence lines. The siege started on September, 8 1941 & was lifted on January, 29 1944. These two days are special Petersburgian tragic dates while the May, 9, the Victory day is the all-Russian celebration. So the fast connection - railway to Moscow was cut off in October. The iron ring was complete.
An ice-road was laid across the Ladoga Lake which got frozen in the winter time. This road came down to history as the "road of life". It was the only way between Leningrad & the mainland. For over 5 months heavy trucks were bringing food-supplies to the city, day & night they kept on evacuating women & kids to safety. The road never stopped to be used even when the ice got so thin that the drivers would keep the door open to jump out in case of emergency, which happened so often. Then in the summer 1942 they tried to transport supplies in barges & steamers under fire cover – the southern bank of the Ladoga Lake was under Nazi control.
The winter came cold & merciless. It was unusually cold when the temperatures went down to -40˚C. First the plumbing gave out & people had to go to rivers to dig in ice for water. Then electricity gave out. It was still provided to factories & government institutions but not to apartments. Public transport stopped & people had to walk miles to get to work. Many would just stay there.
Yet the worst thing was starvation. The ration of allowance was diminished several times during the first four months of blockade down to 250 grams of bread a day. It wasn’t even real bread but something like sawdust, carpenter’s glue & cellulose, anything eatable was used in this bread. The grain-storage were bombed & gutted out by fire during the first Nazi air-raids. This ration of 250 grams provided 466 calories while 3000 is a bare minimum to survive.
Bombing & shelling was continuous especially by the end of the siege, like 18 hrs on record. The orders of Hitler ran as follows: "There’s no point of Russia as SPb, it should be levelled to the ground." The document was signed by Hitler & was later used at the Nϋremberg trial of the Nazi criminals in 1945. It was supplemented with a list of properties for destruction from a city plan covered with a grid. Every historic building was a subject to complete annihilation.
Most of the equipment & skilled workers had been evacuated to the rear of Russia – to the Urals, to Siberia which served good for the post-war industrial development of these parts though. All of the remaining industries were turned to produce war equipment – shells, hand grenades, rifles, detonators for antitank mines. The work was mainly done by women & teenagers. The Kirov works played a special role for it provided quantities of machinery for the navy – masses of guns as well as engines & tanks.
Out of 3mln pre-war population about 1 mln people have been evacuated to the rear before the iron ring closed. 600 000 starved to death & 100 000 were killed in bombing & shelling according to the official statistics which might be underrated.
Apart from the enormous human loss there was a great material damage. 300 buildings levelled to the ground, 7 000 seriously damaged, practically all glass-windows gone, there was snow inside every historical building. This amounts to 40% of the living fund. Fortunately the old archives were in a safe place so we had all the data to start restoration. Historic centre was restored from old drawings, watercolours & blueprints to the original design. Thus the historical atmosphere of SPb was not upset.
Tags: know how, people
13.08.2011
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