“Nowhere in Russia is this catastrophe seen with such merciless clarity as in Petrograd ... The palaces of Petrograd are silent and empty, or absurdly partitioned off with plywood and crammed with tables and typewriters of the institutions of the new regime, which devotes all its strength to the tense struggle against hunger and interventionists. All ... the shops are closed ... The shops in Petrograd have the most miserable and neglected look. The paint has peeled off, the windows are cracked, some are completely boarded up by boards; in others, there are remnants of goods still covered in flies; some are sealed with decrees; the windows of the shop windows have faded, everything is covered with a two-year layer of dust. These are dead shops. They will never be reopened. ... All large markets in Petrograd are also closed ...

Nobody else "walks" here. People hurry past; the streets have become much deserted in comparison with what has remained in my memory since 1914 ... ... We made almost all of our long trips around the city in cars provided to us by the authorities, left over from bygone times. Car driving consists of monstrous jolts and sharp turns. The surviving cars are refueled with kerosene. They emit clouds of pale blue smoke, and as they drive off, it looks like a machine gun fire has begun. Last winter, all the wooden houses were torn down for firewood, and only the foundations stick out in the gaping holes between the stone buildings. People were worn out; all of them, in Moscow and in Petrograd, drag some bundles with them. When you walk down a side street at dusk and see only poorly dressed people hurrying along with some kind of baggage, it seems that the entire population is fleeing the city. " (H. Wells)

Palace of Culture. Gorky Stachek pl., 4 Stachek pl. Architects: Gegello A. I. Krichevsky D. L. Rail V. F. Gegello A. I. Krichevsky D. L. Rail V. F.

Residential workers' quarter of the Putilovsky plant - arch. Gegello A.I., Nikolsky A.S., Simonov G.A. Tractor st., 3-4 Tractor st.

Kirovsky department store Pl. Stachek, 9 Architects: Barutchev A.K., Gilter I.A., Meerzon I.A.

House of Soviets Narva District - Building of the Kirov District Council - arch. Trotsky N.A.

Palace of Culture. I. I. Gaza Ave. Stachek, 72 Architects: Gegello A.I., Krichevsky, Poltoratsky E.M. Year built:,

"Big House" (building of the NKVD) Liteiny pr., Architect. ON THE. Trotsky, A.I. Gegello, A.A. Ol

Frunzensky department store. Moskovsky pr., Years. - arch. E. I. Katonin, L. S. Katonin, E. M. Sokolov, K. L. Johansen, engineer. S. I. Katonin

Moscow District Council Arch. I. I. Fomin in collaboration with V. G. Daugul and B. M. Serebrovsky years

House of Culture of the Union of Leatherworkers named after Kapranova. Moskovsky pr. 97 Arch. Reisman,

Factory-kitchen gg. - architects E. I. Katonin, E. M. Sokolov, Moskovsky pr., 14

Secondary school N 374 Moskovsky district Moskovsky pr., 96.1938 - architect. SV Vasilkovsky Moskovsky prospect The building is especially interesting because it was assembled from large blocks in twenty-eight days, and after fifty-six - the school was put into operation. The building was one of the pioneers of large-block construction.

Dynamo stadium. Arch. O. L. Lyalin, J.O. Svirsky, Krestovsky Island, Dynamo Ave., 44

The first house of the Lensovet, nab. Karpovka river, 13 /, architect. E. A. Levinson, I. I. Fomin of the Leningrad City Council of the Karpovka River E. A. Levinson I. I. Fomin

Residential building - House - "Sausage" 1932 - architect. G. A. Simonov (?) The house of cheap functional housing for workers was built in 1932. It is believed. that at that time it was the longest house in St. Petersburg (then Leningrad), about 300 meters long. The house is located between Babushkina and Sedova streets, bends in an arc, therefore it received the nickname "sausage". The author of the project is not identified, but it is believed that it is arch. G. A. Simonov, who in 1928 was sent to Germany, where he studied the works of German functionalists and the famous apartment building of the architect Bruno Trout.

Housing estate of the Electrosila plant. Residential building 57 Blagodatnaya St. Architects: G. A. Simonov Blagodatnaya G. A. Simonov St.

Factory "Red banner" Factory "Red banner", Pionerskaya street, architect. E. Mendelssohn, I. A. Pretro, S. O. Ovsyannikov E. Mendelssohn A. Pretro S. O. Ovsyannikov

Distinctive features of the style: Ensemble building of streets and squares; synthesis of architecture, sculpture and painting; development of the traditions of Russian classicism; the use of architectural orders; bas-reliefs with heraldic compositions and images of workers; optimistic mood of the whole work; the use of marble, bronze, precious woods and stucco moldings in the design of public interiors.

The enemy is so close

In September 1941, the offensive of the fascist armies on Leningrad finally collapsed and fizzled out. The head of the troops, Field Marshal von Leeb, was forced to report to Hitler's headquarters that he was not able to continue the offensive with the available forces. The attempt to break into the city failed.

On November 8 in Munich, Hitler said: “Anyone who has passed from the border to Leningrad can walk another ten kilometers and enter the city. There is no doubt about that. But there is no need for that. " In the same way, in the famous fable, the fox said that "the grapes are green."

The Germans were stopped at the doorstep of a large and wealthy city. Through stereoscopic tubes and artillery panoramas, they saw palaces, temples, many houses, squares, monuments.

From the Pulkovo Heights, from the Crow Mountain, a huge city lay in front of them as if in the palm of their hand. But the hope of capturing him was dashed.

In full view of the city, German soldiers worked with shovels, dug into the swampy Leningrad land, under the drizzling rain and under the first snow they built defense lines, communication trenches, dugouts, and firing positions.

Since September 1941, an almost 900-day siege of Leningrad began. In the besieged city, 2 million 544 thousand civilians remained, including over 100 thousand refugees from the Baltic states, Karelia and the Leningrad region. Together with the residents of suburban areas, 2 million 887 thousand people turned out to be in the blockade ring. Among those who remained in blockaded Leningrad there were at least 1 million 200 thousand people of the non-self-employed population, of which about 400 thousand were children.

The communications through which the group of fascist armies was supplied stretched for hundreds of kilometers. A partisan movement flared up in its rear, and general popular resistance was ripening. And ahead of the German troops were waiting for the harsh Russian frosty winter.

The appearance of Leningrad was stern and stern in those weeks and months. He, a front-line city, learned to live under bombardments, under artillery fire. Leningrad became a fortress. The main force of the city at this tense time, the time of trials, was its inhabitants. Nikolai Tikhonov wrote about this during the blockade:

“When the enemy approached the city, he could not even imagine the full force of the hatred that the Leningrad people seethed, all the might of the resistance, all the pride of the Leningrad people for their city, all their determination to fight to the end, to fight, if necessary, not only on the outskirts of the city, but also on its streets, to fight for every house, for every lane.

From the very first days of the blockade of Leningrad, the Nazis began barbaric shelling and bombing of the city. The first shells of the enemy exploded on September 4, 1941 at the Vitebskaya-Sortirovochnaya station, the Bolshevik, Salolin, and Krasny Neftynik factories. At this time, heavy German artillery fired at the city from the areas of Strelna, Krasnoe Selo, Uritsk, Pushkin, the village of Volodarsky. The main purpose of these attacks, according to the Germans themselves, was "the destruction of residential buildings and the extermination of the inhabitants of Leningrad." Such "military" objects of the city as museums, palaces, schools, hospitals were marked on their maps. Thus, the Hermitage was designated as object No. 9, the Palace of Pioneers - No. 192, the Institute for the Protection of Mothers and Infants - No. 708.

As never before, it was discovered that this is a city of Bolsheviks, a city of fiery revolutionaries, with traditions not dying, but receiving more and more glorious continuation. The only thing on which the Leningraders focused their thoughts was to defend the city, defeat the enemy, and destroy. "

Very quickly and naturally, without astonishing or surprising anyone, hundreds of front-line signs entered the daily life of the city. In the crowd of passers-by on the streets flashed people with weapons, gas masks, with sanitary bags over their shoulders.

In October, the word "vsevobuch" - general military training - became popular. Every resident of the city, capable of holding a weapon, had to learn how to shoot accurately, to wage hand-to-hand combat. 102 military training centers were opened, most of them at large enterprises of the city.

As once for revolutionary Petrograd, for military Leningrad the figure of "a man with a gun" became characteristic. The streets were patrolled not only by the Red Army and Baltic sailors, but also by the workers who were in the ranks of the proletarian Red Guard during the revolutionary years. On the streets and squares, representatives of two generations - fathers and children - met with rifles in their hands.

Numerous posters pasted on the walls of houses called: “The enemy is at the gates! All forces to defend the hometown. " This slogan was answered by a universal, all-encompassing desire to contribute to the victory over the enemy.

In the first months of the war, hundreds of thousands of Leningraders were obsessed with one thought: "To the front!" It seemed to them that only there, on the front line, the fate of the Motherland was decided. But the military reality convinced us: it is no less important to produce weapons and ammunition, to maintain a revolutionary order in the city.

Fighting Soviet troops on the outskirts of Leningrad. July 10 - November 10, 1941

The front itself came to Leningrad ... On November 15, the city's Internal Defense Department was created. It began to carry out the leadership of the rifle and naval units of the internal defense, armed workers.

The workers' detachments were united into four brigades, formed according to the military states. In addition to rifle battalions, they included mortar, artillery battalions, and special units. The brigades united 16 thousand people - workers, employees, engineers and technicians. Several thousand more fighters were in the formations of large enterprises.

It was the reserve of the Leningrad Front - reliable, permanent, ready at the first signal to take up arms and fight the enemy.

The city lived with military interests. The newspapers primarily read the reports of the Sovinformburo. Many Leningraders at home marked the position of the front line on old school maps. Maps, which told about the course of battles on the fronts from the Barents to the Black Sea, were installed on the streets of the city. And the questions "How is it, near Moscow?" or "How is it in the south?" occupied the minds of hundreds of thousands of Leningraders with the same power as the circumstances of their own existence.

The close proximity of the front made all Leningraders military people. Some of them wore greatcoats, others did not, but in fact they were all members of one collective, one large family, one front-line brotherhood.

In the first months of the war, enterprises and organizations of the city maintained ties with those units that were formed from their workers and employees. Delegations, letters, parcels were sent to "friends". From about October 1941, all front-line soldiers became "theirs", regardless of where they were called up for military service. Districts, factories and factories, institutes and universities took patronage over divisions, regiments, battalions, warships.

On the Leningrad front, the appearance on the front line of people in civilian clothes was a common occurrence. Enterprises sent here not only delegations, but also the best specialists to repair cars, guns, radio stations.

The city worked for the front. And even when brutal bombardment or artillery fire forced people to take refuge in bomb shelters, they did not waste time. Women made warm clothes for fighters, knitted sweaters, sewed mittens and pouches.

It seems that it can be more ordinary than an ordinary tram. But even during the years of the blockade, this type of transport was praised in verses and poems. In Leningrad, they drove it to the front and from the front.

A hard worker tram carried passengers, troops and ammunition, raw materials and fuel, it replaced postal and ambulances. All this took place in full view of the enemy. It is no coincidence that the Leningraders, referring to Strelna, called the Nazis "the enemy of the tram stop." Vera Inber wrote:

Cold, the colors of steel

Harsh horizon ...

The tram goes to the outpost,

The tram goes to the front.

Plywood instead of glass

But that's okay.

And the citizens by the stream

Pour into it ...

In just twelve days in November 1941, the fascist artillery damaged 40 sections of the tram line. But each time the movement was resumed. On Stachek Avenue, the trams did not reach the Kirovsky plant a little, there was no further contact network, and the cars were attached to a "cuckoo" steam locomotive, which carried them to the front.

Here is an excerpt from the battle report:

"During the first year of the war, 2006 wagons were supplied for the transport of troops, 250 thousand soldiers were transported, 3994 wagons were provided for the transport of the wounded ..."

Just a few months ago, no one would have thought of meeting a Nazi plane or tank on the streets of Leningrad. But such meetings took place. Samples of fascist equipment destroyed or captured by Soviet soldiers were exhibited in squares and parks.

Hundreds of thousands of people, young and old, examined them. Not with a sense of fear, but with curiosity and disgust. The airplanes and tanks on display, now suitable only as scrap metal for the cupola, spoke of the fact that the Nazis could be beaten, and could be beaten successfully.

The time will come - siege weapons, with the help of which the Nazis tried to destroy the city, will also become scrap metal ...

What seemed surprising or impossible yesterday became an everyday reality during the blockade. The very existence of a big city under continuous shelling and bombing seemed incredible. Many circumstances of life were also corresponding.

In late autumn, potatoes and vegetables were left unharvested in the suburban fields, which were under the rifle and machine-gun fire of the Nazis. Members of the fire brigades were the first to notice this wealth. In winter, at night, wearing white camouflage robes, they were harvesting in the no-man's land.

When, in the spring of 1942, the Front Military Council appealed to the residents of Leningrad with an appeal to create a local production of potatoes and vegetables, the entire population of the city responded to it. 600 subsidiary plots were created, 276 thousand people became gardeners.

Every piece of land was used. On the outskirts, at the most advanced, there were fields where to plant seedlings, to take care of the crops could only be without standing up. Gardens and parks, the Summer Garden, squares near St. Isaac's and Kazan Cathedrals, on the Field of Mars, courtyards, canal slopes and unpaved sidewalks were dug up for collective and individual vegetable gardens.

This enabled the city to receive 50 thousand tons of potatoes and vegetables in the very first summer.

Political organizers of Leningrad, mainly women, came to their meeting in the frozen Philharmonic hall. Exhausted and hungry, they traveled here on foot from different parts of the city to discuss pressing issues of political work among the population.

This is also one of the characteristic features of the blockade. No matter how the situation developed, Leningraders, in spite of everything, in many cases stubbornly tried to act "as before the war." In the city and in the districts, assets and plenums were held regularly and according to a long-established order, in institutes - meetings of academic councils, everywhere - meetings for the exchange of experience.

Smolny

Smolny was the heart of the blockaded city, its headquarters. In the Leningrad city and regional party committees, intense work did not stop day or night.

Hundreds, thousands of people came to the building, covered at the beginning of the war with a large camouflage net, every day with a wide variety of matters, concerns, questions.

Smolny beat the main control center of the Leningrad industry. When the blockade broke the traditional ties of Leningrad enterprises with other regions of the country, when the shipment of manufactured products became impossible and the supply of raw materials to the city ceased, by the decision of the Council of People's Commissars, the functions of all sectoral commissariats were transferred to Smolny. Dealing with issues of production, planning, material and technical supply, the party bodies created a unique blockade economic mechanism that worked for defense.

Here, in Smolny, the main issues of the strategy and tactics of the city's defense, its economic life, labor and everyday life of Leningraders were resolved, from here the party word sounded, raising hundreds of thousands of people to labor and military exploits.

And, speaking of the nationwide epic of the blockade, we cannot but recall the names of the leaders of the defense of Leningrad, who were responsible for the fate of the city before the party and before the country.

Leningrad was the first strategic point that the armed forces of Nazi Germany were unable to capture. Never before have the fascists had to face such fierce and massive resistance. Starting the offensive, the Nazis tried to flirt with the Leningraders, dropping leaflets with the promise of all sorts of benefits, they basely flattered, tried to cheat, and then went on to threats. But in the end, they stopped throwing flyers. Because two and a half million people answered them with only cold contempt. By blocking the city, the fascist strategists were rightly counting on the rapid depletion of its vitality. But this calculation also failed. Despite the evacuation of dozens of enterprises, the call to the front of the majority of men, the lack of permanent sources of raw materials, in the first months of the blockade, military production continued to grow. The city produced small arms and ammunition, guns and tanks, the most modern rocket launchers, military equipment and supplies, and repaired combat vehicles and ships. Leningraders have shown that they are people of iron will and endurance.

Sirens are calling to the post

The military plans of the leaders of Nazi Germany provided for the complete destruction of Leningrad. In July 1941, the chief of the general staff of the fascist Wehrmacht wrote: "The Fuehrer's unshakable decision is to level Moscow and Leningrad to the ground ... The task of destroying cities must be carried out by aviation."

On the night of June 23, air raid signals sounded in the city for the first time. Anti-aircraft gunners shot down the first Junkers-88 on the approaches to the city.

The protection of the Leningrad sky was entrusted to the 2nd Air Defense Corps, which had 272 aircraft, about 900 anti-aircraft guns, more than 200 machine-gun installations, searchlight units, 3 regiments of barrage balloons. If necessary, it was supported by the air forces of the Northern Front and the Red Banner Baltic Fleet.

Neither in June nor in July did the fascist bombers manage to break through to the city. During this time, our anti-aircraft gunners and pilots destroyed hundreds of German aircraft in the air and at airfields.

But the situation sharply deteriorated when the fascist armies came close to Leningrad. Crossing the front line, an enemy bomber in two minutes could be over the city center ...

From the first days of the war in Leningrad, the air defense system was improved and strengthened, the task of which was to repel the raids and save the lives of the townspeople. They built additional bomb shelters, dug cracks in the courtyards of houses, on the streets, in parks and squares. These shelters could accommodate one and a half million people, almost everyone who, during the air raids, did not participate in the active defense of the city.

A cloaking service was created. More than 300 architects, engineers, painters, decorators, collectives of institutes - Optical, Chemical-technological, municipal services - created a new, unusual look for the city.

Air inspection showed high camouflage qualities. In the future, the fascist pilots were unable to detect and disable any of the 56 most critical facilities in the city. Artillery shelling, which always began suddenly, caused large casualties among the population. It is impossible without pain and anger to read the materials of the Leningrad Commission for the Investigation of the Atrocities of German-Fascist Criminals, presented by it at the Nuremberg Trials: “On September 6, 1941, a shell exploded in the street. A murdered woman lies on the panel with outstretched hands. A basket of groceries is lying nearby. The wooden fence is sloped and stained with blood. Pieces of a crushed human body, cat loops, bloody fragments of bones, pieces of brain adhered to it. On the panel is the corpse of a pregnant woman torn in half: the corpse of an almost full-term baby is visible. In the courtyard there are five corpses of girls aged 5 - 7 years. They lie in a semicircle, in the same order as they stood there to death playing with the ball. " In autumn, as a result of artillery shelling in the city, 681 people were killed and 2,269 were injured.

Leningraders lived in constant nervous tension, shelling followed one after another. From September 4 to November 30, 1941, the city was shelled 272 times for a total duration of 430 hours. Sometimes the population remained in the bomb shelters for almost a day. On September 15, 1941, the shelling lasted 18 hours 32 hours, on September 17 - 18 hours 33 minutes. During the blockade, about 150 thousand shells were fired in Leningrad.

Firepower of enemy artillery; trying to break the resistance of the defenders of the besieged city with shelling, was very significant. The artillery group of the Germans in the Uritska area, where the front line approached Leningrad most closely, at the beginning of the blockade consisted of 4 artillery regiments armed with 105 and 150 mm guns. Later, heavy guns (203 and 210 mm caliber) were transferred here, the firing range of which reached 30 - 32 km.

The actions of the German artillery did not go unpunished. The artillery of the Leningrad Front and the Baltic Fleet conducted an effective counter-battery fight against the enemy. The fight against enemy artillery during the Great Patriotic War never took place in such an acute form as in the battle of Leningrad. The 101st artillery regiment of the Reserve of the Supreme Command under the command of Lieutenant Colonel N.N. Zhdanov, heavy cannon artillery regiments of Major N.P. Witte and S.G. Gnidin, whose firing positions were located on the southern outskirts of the city, in the regions Pulkovo, Srednaya Slingshot, Avtova. General N.N.Voronov, who was in Leningrad in the fall of 1941 as a representative of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, provided great assistance in organizing counter-battery warfare on the Leningrad Front.

In the autumn and winter of 1941/42, the Soviet artillery fought this battle under extremely difficult conditions:

there was a shortage of ammunition, instrumental artillery reconnaissance means, there was no corrective aviation, the firing range of our guns at first was inferior to the German ones, therefore, until the spring of 1942, the counteraction of the enemy's artillery was defensive in nature, although the retaliatory strikes of the Soviet artillery weakened the enemy's combat power.

Almost simultaneously with the artillery shelling, the bombing of Leningrad by enemy aircraft began. The acute shortage of fighter aircraft, as well as the low speed qualities of the aircraft that carried out the air defense of Leningrad, allowed the enemy aircraft to gain temporary air superiority in the fall of 1941. On September 6, German aircraft, breaking through to Leningrad, subjected industrial enterprises and residential areas to massive bombing. On September 8, the fascist aviation was able to carry out the first massive raid on the city. At 7 o'clock in the evening, bombers dropped almost six and a half thousand incendiary bombs on the Moskovsky, Krasnogvardeisky and Smolninsky districts. There were 178 fires. The largest one is at the food warehouses named after Badaev. On the same day, towards nightfall, Hitler's bombers attacked the Krasnogvardeisky, Moskovsky and Dzerzhinsky districts. They dropped 48 high-explosive bombs, seriously damaging the Main Waterworks and destroying 12 residential buildings.

So the fascist aviation began the "air assault".

The besieged city met enemy aircraft with anti-aircraft guns and machine guns. Hundreds of balloons, raised over the city, had a psychological effect on the German pilots, who, fearing to get entangled in the cables of balloons, did not risk flying on them. In September 1941, the joint actions of our anti-aircraft artillery and aviation repelled the raids of 2,712 enemy aircraft, of which only 480 broke through to Leningrad, and 272 were shot down. In October 1941, German aircraft began to carry out raids at an altitude of 5-7 km, which exceeded the ceiling of the barrage balloons and the reach of the searchlight beam. The anti-aircraft gunners were forced to fire only by sound.

Defending Leningrad from fascist pirates, Soviet pilots covered themselves with unfading glory. On the night of November 5, 1941, junior lieutenant AT Sevastyanov, participating in repelling the raid, made a night air ram, as a result of which he shot down an enemy bomber.

All day long Leningrad listened attentively and peered into the sky. About 800 observers were on watch at the towers and special points. In constant combat readiness were 60 thousand fighters of the teams of objects and self-defense groups, as well as the main forces of the Ministry of Defense - district teams, regiments and battalions.

The beginning of the blockade was especially difficult for them. In three and a half months, enemy aircraft bombed the city 97 times. An air raid alert was announced 246 times. This period accounts for three quarters of high-explosive and almost all incendiary bombs dropped on Leningrad during the blockade.

Unfortunately, there is not a single picture in the photo chronicle showing the work of the Leningrad radars. Fascist pilots, rising from their airfields, did not even suspect that in "barbarian Russia" they were "seen", "led". But they were "seen" and "led." The then top secret radar stations - "redoubts" controlled the airspace for more than a hundred kilometers around and warned the city in time about the impending danger.

When the Nazis were preparing a devastating raid on November 6, the operators of the "redoubts" established that bombers were beginning to accumulate at enemy airfields close to the city. On the eve of the holiday, the pilots of the 125th regiment unleashed powerful blows on them and burned dozens of fascist vehicles on the ground.

At that time, more than a quarter of a million Leningraders were in the ranks of the MPVO. The hard service was carried out by emergency recovery regiments, repair and assembly battalions, road-bridge battalions, and communications units. They included specialists of various professions. Many feats were accomplished by courageous pyrotechnics - demolitionists, who were engaged in defusing unexploded aerial bombs.

If we talk about those who resisted violent air raids, then the circle of such people is immeasurably wider. All Leningraders took part in this. It is estimated, for example, that 90 percent of all incendiary bombs were extinguished by the population itself - workers, housewives, doctors, vendors, and research workers.

In mid-December, the Nazis were forced to stop air humming to Leningrad until spring. They lost most of their air force - 780 aircraft. The rest were chained to the ground by a severe frost.

The bombing brought a lot of victims and suffering to Leningrad. But the fascist aviation was not able to complete the task of destroying the city and the ships of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet.

Nevsky

"There is nothing better than Nevsky Prospect ..." This is what Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol said, and different generations of Leningrad residents were unanimous with him. The avenue remained the best for Leningraders even during the war years. Only he has changed dramatically. The crowd of passers-by, which had previously filled the sidewalks, disappeared. Huge gas tanks filled with hydrogen were moving along the Nevsky, which served to fill the airborne balloons. The step of the armed workers' detachments thundered. "Windows TASS" appeared on the shop windows covered with boards ...

Nevsky became the main avenue of the military city. Here, in the very center, the first high-explosive bombs fell during the very first air raid. The five-storey wing of house No. 119 and partly house No. 115 were destroyed.

That was the beginning. And then the whistle of shells and the howl of aerial bombs became a constant phenomenon here. The chief of staff of the Ministry of Defense of the Kuibyshev region A.N. Kubasov testified:

“... There was an incident in Gostiny Dvor. A single-toned bomb fell not into the building itself, but nearby, went under the foundation, exploded. At the moment of the explosion, a part of the building, about 30 meters, was lifted upward, and then it all collapsed. We began to take apart the flanks. After all, two hundred people were under the rubble! The sappers were given the task of finding an approach to the victims by all means. And they managed to do it. For two days we saved people ...

The shelling caused a lot of destruction in the area, and there were many casualties as a result of the shelling.

On the street Zhelyabov was so destructed that almost every house from Nevsky Prospect to DLT was hit by shells. Nevsky from the Griboyedov Canal to the Moika was all shot. About 20 houses were affected in this area ... "

Explosions thundered, clouds of smoke and yellow dust rose, bricks fell down, flew with a clink of glass ... Fascist artillerymen, on the maps of which hundreds of city objects were numbered, fired at historical monuments, museums, department stores day and night, in winter and summer, theaters.

And life went on. The bricks were removed, the windows were swept. People who lost their homes collected their belongings and moved to other apartments.

The most dangerous during shelling was the side of the avenue, where the House of Books, the Philharmonic Society, Gastronome No. 1, which Leningraders always called "Eliseevsky", and the "October" cinema are located. On the facades of houses for passers-by, inscriptions were made: “Citizens! During the shelling ... ”But even here it was quite crowded.

If the aerial bomb did not explode and went deep under the asphalt, the place of its fall was surrounded by a fence. The tram drivers here only reduced the speed of the trams so that the vibrations of the soil would not awaken the death lurking in it.

What has Nevsky Prospekt not seen in 900 days and nights of the blockade? The main street had many faces. But, covered with snowdrifts or bathed in the sun, she always shared the fate of the city.

In the first terrible winter and spring, when people died so often that there was neither the strength nor the opportunity to bury them with dignity, Nevsky became a witness of mournful processions. On sleds, just on a sheet of plywood, relatives carried the deceased, wrapped in a sheet or blanket, because there were no boards on the coffin.

Here, in the very center, at the corner of Nevsky and Sadovaya, just like in other parts of the city, they drew water from the snow with buckets and jugs. The city water supply is out of order. We were in a hurry, climbing over the snowdrifts, because the severe frost could quickly shackle the last springs.

In the spring, Nevsky saw a massive subbotnik. A lot of people freed the avenue from the ice shell, from the snow. A reporter from Leningradskaya Pravda wrote at that time in his report: “At times enemy shells flew by, but this did not frighten anyone ...” Holy truth: it was not. It was much more important to stay on the legs, which were buckling, to cope with the shovel slipping out of the hands.

You can look at the pictures of the Nevsky wartime for a long time with such a feeling: something is wrong here, something is missing here. Excuse me, but this is Anichkov Bridge ... But without Klodt's horses! Yes, this is how Anichkov Bridge looked like during the entire blockade. The world famous creations of the great sculptor were hidden deep underground.

But, passing by the granite pedestals, on which previously stood the upward-looking horses and which were now covered with splinters, the Leningrader thought: "Nothing ... There will be a holiday on our street as well."

Indeed, there were events on Nevsky that left the townspeople with a sense of triumph. So it was when mighty tanks went to the front along the avenue ... So it was when columns of "conquerors" were moving along the Nevsky. They were going to stroll along the main avenue of Leningrad as winners. They walked along it like prisoners.

At the Kazan Cathedral, a famous monument of Russian military glory, the bronze Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov blessed the Leningrad warriors for the feat. His figure is full of energy, firmness and confidence in the triumph of victory. The great commander showed the way to new armies with a marshal's baton.

People who left here for the front, forever carried in their hearts the memory of their native city and its glorious avenue, of their wonderful fellow countrymen - men, women, children, who despised death and endured incredible trials.

Seasoned front-line soldiers, brave people who came to the city, were invariably amazed at two circumstances. How much harder it is to endure shelling or bombing in a city than in a field. And - impeccable cleanliness and order on the Leningrad streets.

Returning to their units, they talked about the city, deserted, clean and uniquely beautiful, about how its women and children live and work. And there was no better agitation before the battle.

No matter how far Leningraders are from their hometown, the memory of it, the longing for it has always been in their souls. And in between battles or at a halt under the drizzling rain, one often heard: “Friend, let's play“ I’m walking along Nevsky Prospekt ... ”Nothing was required for this game. You just had to mentally walk from the Admiralty to the Moscow railway station, not missing a single important sign of the avenue.

The ashes of the city's victims pounded at the soldier's heart. The thought of them led people to attack. On tanks, on planes, they wrote in large letters: "For Leningrad!" And when, a long time later, the war comes to the borders of the Hitlerite "Reich" and the first long-range shells fall on its land, then the same two words will be written on them - "For Leningrad!"

Hunger and cold

The food supply of the troops and the population of the city turned out to be especially difficult. By the beginning of the war, Leningrad did not have large food reserves. With a highly developed food industry, the city not only met its needs for food, but also supplied them to other regions. On June 21, 1941, the Leningrad warehouses had flour, including grain intended for export, for 52 days, cereals for 89 days, meat for 38 days, animal oil for 47 days, vegetable oil for 29 days. Before the blockade began, they managed to deliver over 60 thousand tons of grain, flour and cereals to the city from the Yaroslavl and Kalinin regions, about 24 thousand tons of grain and flour from the ports of Latvia and Estonia. The siege of Leningrad did not allow the introduction of potatoes and vegetables into the city, which played an important role in the nutrition of the population.

Since the beginning of the war, the consumption of basic foodstuffs in Leningrad not only did not decrease, but even increased: many refugees accumulated in the city, and the concentration of troops took place. The introduction of the rationing system also did not lead to a decrease in food consumption. Simultaneously with the introduction of a food rationing system in 70 stores in the city, the sale of food without cards at increased prices was allowed. In canteens, dinners were served without cutting out card coupons, with the exception of meat and fish dishes. The organization of food storage also left much to be desired: grain, flour, sugar were concentrated in two or three places.

On August 30, the State Defense Committee adopted a resolution "On the transportation of goods for Leningrad", which provided for the delivery of food, weapons, ammunition and fuel to the city by water through Lake Ladoga. A decision was also made to reduce the grain norms in Leningrad. From September 2, workers and engineers and technicians received 600 g, employees - 400 g, dependents and children - 300 g of bread. On September 8, the State Defense Committee sent the RSFSR People's Commissar of Trade, D. V. Pavlov, to Leningrad as his authorized representative for food supply. The secondary accounting of foodstuffs carried out on September 10 and 11 showed that to provide the troops and the population in Leningrad there were reserves of grain, flour and rusks for 35 days, cereals and pasta - for 30 days, meat and meat products - for 33 days, fats - for 45 days. days, sugar and confectionery - not 60 days. The situation became more and more tense, and on September 11 it was necessary to reduce the rate of food distribution to Leningraders again: bread - up to 500 g for workers and engineering and technical workers, up to 300 g - for employees and children, up to 250 g - for dependents; the norms for the distribution of cereals and meat were also reduced.

Control over the distribution of food products was carried out by a specially created food commission, which was headed by the secretary of the City Party Committee A.A. Kuznetsov. After the fire at the Badayevsky warehouses, food supplies were scattered throughout the city. Commercial trade was eliminated. For baking bread, they began to use all raw materials that could be mixed with flour. Since September 6, bread has been baked with impurities of barley and oat flour, and then with impurities of bran, soy flour and cake, which sharply reduced the nutritional quality of the bread.

In research institutes and enterprises, hard work was going on to find food substitutes. Scientists have proposed using cellulose for baking bread, previously known only as a raw material for paper mills. Under the guidance of prof. V. I. Markov, a group of specialists has developed a technology for the hydrolysis of cellulose to convert it into a food product. Since the end of November, bread has been baked with the addition of food cellulose, which was produced during the years of the blockade about 16

thousand tons. Leningrad enterprises began to produce sausages, pates and jelly from intestinal raw materials, soy flour and other technical raw materials. Yet food supplies were rapidly dwindling, and the food situation of the besieged city became more and more threatening. Party Central Committee, State Defense Committee and Soviet Government

took all measures to ensure the delivery of food to besieged Leningrad. The main difficulty was that from the moment of its blockade it was possible to deliver goods to Leningrad only by water and air. But the shores of Lake Ladoga did not have large port facilities and berths. Admiral I. Isakov was in charge of equipping the port of Osinovets on the western shore of Ladoga, and General A. M. Shilov on the eastern shore.

Water transportation has begun. September 12 on the route Gostinopole - Novaya Ladoga - Osinovets. By rail, goods were delivered through Vologda - Cherepovets - Tikhvin to Volkhov, where they were transshipped to the Gostinopole water dock. The sailors of the Ladoga military flotilla and the watermen of the North-Western River Shipping Company, who carried out these transportation, understood what an enormous responsibility entrusted to them, and did everything possible in their power. Cargo transportation was complicated by a shortage of ships, constant enemy air raids, and frequent storms on Ladoga that put barges and tugboats out of action. Nevertheless, during the autumn navigation, thousands of tons of food were delivered to Leningrad, as well as a significant amount of ammunition, fuel and other cargo.

To alleviate the food situation in Leningrad, transport aircraft were allocated for the transfer of goods. The delivery of food together with the Special Air Group, created at the end of June 1941 to serve the Northern Front, was handled by the Moscow Special Purpose Aviation Group, formed from 30 Moscow civil aviation crews. From September to December 1941, through the heroic efforts of the pilots, over 6 thousand tons of cargo were delivered to the blocked city, including 4325 tons of high-calorie food products and 1660 tons of ammunition and weapons.

No matter how great were the efforts aimed at delivering food to Leningrad in the fall of 1941, they could not ensure the supply of the population of the city and the front troops even according to the established norms. Every day food resources were reduced, the population and troops began to starve, but the situation was such that the norms for the distribution of food had to be reduced even more. From October 1, 1941, workers and engineering and technical workers were given 400 grams of bread each, and the rest of the population - 200 grams per day. Famine was approaching Leningrad.

In early November 1941, a mortal danger loomed over besieged Leningrad. With the loss of Tikhvin, a real threat arose of creating a second blockade ring, and, consequently, a complete cessation of the supply of food and fuel. On November 9, 1941 in Leningrad itself there was flour for 7 days, cereals - for 8 days, fats - for 14 days; most of the reserves were located behind Lake Ladoga, which by this time had not yet frozen. This circumstance forced the leadership of the city's defense for the fourth time to reduce the norms for the distribution of food to the population. Since November 13, workers have received 300 grams, and the rest of the population - 150 grams of bread. A week later, in order not to stop giving out bread altogether, the Military Council of the Leningrad Front was forced to make a decision to reduce the already hungry norms. From November 20, Leningraders began to receive the lowest bread ration for the entire period of the blockade - 250 g for a work card and 125 g for an employee, child and dependent. If we take into account that only one third of the population received work cards in November-December 1941, then the scantiness of these norms will become obvious. Now only 510 tons of flour were consumed daily to supply the inhabitants of Leningrad. There was no hope for an increase in food supplies thanks to the newly commissioned Ladoga Ice Road in the near future; due to the extremely difficult working conditions, the highway in the early days was hardly able to meet the city's daily food needs. “While the blockade lasts, one cannot count on an improvement in food supplies,” wrote Leningradskaya Pravda in those days; - We are forced to reduce the norms for the distribution of food in order to hold out until the enemy is driven back, until the blockade ring is broken. This is difficult. Yes, it is difficult, but there is no other way out. And everyone should understand this ... "

A scanty piece of surrogate bread has since that time become the main means of maintaining life. Leningraders made several croutons from this piece of bread, which they distributed throughout the day. One or two of these crackers and a mug of hot water - this is what breakfast, lunch and dinner of the population of the besieged city mainly consisted of on the days of a hungry winter. The population received other products, which were relied on on the cards, irregularly and incompletely, and sometimes did not receive them at all due to their absence in the city. The workers of the defense enterprises were given an additional several hundred grammes a month: grams of soy kefir, protein yeast, casein glue, fruit syrup, seaweed and acorn coffee.

The food supply for the soldiers of the Leningrad Front and the sailors of the Baltic Fleet also deteriorated every day. Soldiers, sailors and officers, although to a lesser extent than the workers of Leningrad, also suffered from hunger. Beginning from September 9, 1941, the front troops several times reduced the daily food ration. At the end of November, units of the first line were given 300 g of bread and 100 g of rusks, in units of combat support 150 g of bread and 75 g of rusks. Flour soup in the morning and in the evening, flour porridge for lunch complemented the bread distribution. Despite these hungry norms, the soldiers of the 54th Army and the sailors of the Baltic allocated part of their rations in favor of the Leningraders. At the end of 1941, the Military Council of the front decided to transfer to the population of the city more than 300 tons of food from the stocks located in Kronstadt, in forts and islands.

Intensive work continued in the city to find food substitutes. After appropriate processing, technical fat was used for food, soy milk completely replaced natural, cutlets and pates were made from protein yeast. At the request of a number of Leningrad enterprises, scientists from the Physicotechnical Institute studied the possibility of obtaining edible oil from various paint and varnish products and waste. Processing of raw materials according to the technology developed at the institute gave positive results; Similar installations for the production of oil, although not entirely of high quality, but precious for Leningraders, were created at a number of enterprises in the city. They learned to extract edible fats from technical soaps. Employees of the Research Institute of Fats prepared special emulsions for the needs of the baking industry, which allowed bakeries to save up to 100 tons of vegetable oil monthly. The institute also organized the production of fish oil.

The problem of fuel supply proved to be no less difficult. On the eve of the war, Leningrad consumed 1,700 wagons of fuel per day, mainly imported. With the establishment of the blockade, the city lost not only long-distance fuel, but also most of the local fuel, since the largest peat enterprises and logging of the Leningrad region were located on the territory occupied by the enemy. Meanwhile, there was no particular decrease in the need for fuel, since front costs were added. As of September 1, 1941, there were oil products in Leningrad for 18 - 20 days, coal - for 75 - 80 days. In October 1941, city organizations had only a half-month supply of fuel. Vsevolozhsky and Pargolovsky became the main areas for the preparation of peat and firewood, where in October 1941 thousands of Leningraders, mainly women and teenagers, were sent. Hungry and inexperienced loggers, without warm overalls and shoes, procured and sent to Leningrad up to 200 wagons of peat and firewood per day, but this could not save

industry and urban economy from fuel hunger.

The generation of electricity has also sharply decreased, which now began to come only from city power plants, since the Volkhovskaya, Svirskaya, Dubrovskaya and Rauhialskaya hydroelectric power plants, which previously provided the city with the bulk of the electricity, found themselves behind the blockade ring. In October 1941, Leningrad received three times less electricity than in June 1941, so the most stringent measures were taken to save it. Since November 1941, only a limited number of party, Soviet and military organizations and institutions were allowed to use electric lighting.

The situation with supplies of raw materials for industrial enterprises in Leningrad was more favorable. Thanks to the measures taken under the mobilization plan, the city had the main raw materials that ensured the release of defense products. Nevertheless, the establishment of the blockade affected the supply of production with strategic raw materials and necessary materials, forced to look for substitutes and get out of the difficult situation through the use of internal resources. If, before the blockade, the preparation of molding sands at metallurgical plants was carried out on imported Lyubertsy and Lukhovitsky sands, which were brought in 11 thousand cars in 1940, then as a result of geological surveys, quartz sands were discovered within the city, which provided the entire foundry industry during the blockade ... In the ammunition industry, a mixture of saltpeter and sawdust was used to produce explosives.

In the suburbs, under enemy fire, the Leningraders were extracting un-dug potatoes and vegetables from under the snow. On the territory of the Badayevsky warehouses, the population collected frozen soil saturated with sugar as a result of the fire. Famine taught Leningraders to get 22 “blockade” dishes from the parts of textile machines made of leather ("races"). To dull hunger torment and at least slightly support their strength, people ate castor oil, petroleum jelly, glycerin, wood glue, hunted dogs, cats and birds. Severe hunger was aggravated by the onset of severe cold weather, an almost complete lack of fuel and electricity. In December 1941, there was not enough fuel even to support the work of the most important defense enterprises, power plants, and hospitals. The daily power generation from September to December 1941 decreased by almost 7 times. “There is almost no electricity in the city. Today our plant has also stopped, "- wrote the director of the" Sevkabel "plant AK Kozlovsky on December 11, 1941 in his diary. In order to cut electricity costs, city transport had to be stopped in December. Now Leningraders traveled to and from work on foot. Exhausting transitions exhausted the last forces. Coming home from work, people did not even have the opportunity to warm up, as the central heating system turned out to be frozen due to the lack of heating. “There comes apathy, lethargy, desire not to move, drowsiness, no strength, - we read in one of the blockade diaries. “But you have to move, work, think, there is no way to stay at home because of the cold, darkness in the evenings in winter, you have to work - you forget in work”. In the winter of 1942, water supply and sewerage systems were out of order in most of the houses. January 25, 1942 The main waterworks did not receive electricity, which threatened to leave the enterprises without water. Military sailors came to the rescue, who in the most difficult conditions mounted 4 diesel engines of the emergency station. The bakery industry found itself in a difficult situation. The workers of the bakeries were aware of the great responsibility that lay on them, and gave all their strength to make the work of the enterprises uninterrupted. But finding themselves without fuel, electricity and water, the collectives of the bakeries were powerless to overcome the difficulties that had arisen. Helping bakeries

workers from other enterprises, Komsomol members came. On one of the December days in 1941, when the lack of water threatened to disrupt the baking of bread at one of the bakeries, 2,000 hungry and weak Komsomol girls in a 30-degree frost scooped water from the Neva and delivered it along a chain to the bakery. In the morning, the Komsomol members were delivering bread on sleds to bakeries. Workers, engineers, technicians worked tirelessly to restore the water supply. As a result of their heroic labor, the water pipes were unfrozen and the factories received water.

All of the above sharply increased the mortality rate among the population of blockaded Leningrad. The main cause of death was the so-called alimentary dystrophy, i.e. starvation. The first patients with exhaustion appeared in hospitals at the beginning of November 1941, and by the end of the month more than 11 thousand people died of hunger. In December 1941, almost 53 thousand civilians died, which exceeded the annual mortality rate in Leningrad in 1940.

Meanwhile, in December 1941, the work of the Ladoga Ice Route was far from justifying the hopes placed on it. Due to the difficult conditions of its operation, the transportation plan was not fulfilled; in the city on January 1, 1942, only 980 tons of flour remained, which did not provide even two days of supplying the population with bread. But the situation of the population was so difficult that the Military Council of the Leningrad Front, counting on an improvement in the supply of food along the Ladoga highway in the near future, was forced to increase the bread ration. From December 25, 1941. the population of Leningrad began to receive 350 g of bread for a work card and 200 g for an employee, child and dependent.

Everything for the front

In the difficult situation in the autumn of 1941, the main task of the workers of the besieged city was to supply the front with weapons, ammunition, equipment and uniforms. Despite the evacuation of a number of enterprises, the capacity of the Leningrad industry remained significant. In September 1941, the city's enterprises produced over a thousand 76-mm cannons, over two thousand mortars, hundreds of anti-tank guns and machine guns.

The blockade violated the traditional production ties of the city's industry with factories and factories in other regions of the country, which caused the need for intra-city cooperation and the transfer of enterprises to the production of a strictly limited range of products. For example, 60 factories took part in the joint production of regimental guns, 40 enterprises took part in the manufacture of rocket launchers, and so on. Kapustin and M.V. Basov. The production of products for the front was hampered by constant artillery shelling and bombing. Enterprises located in the southern part of the city, just a few kilometers from the front line, found themselves in a particularly difficult situation. 28 factories and plants were relocated to relatively quiet areas of the city. Some workshops of the Kirovsky plant were located in the production premises of a number of enterprises. For the uninterrupted supply of the front with ammunition and weapons, backup enterprises were created.

Light industry enterprises supplied the troops of the Leningrad Front with warm uniforms and underwear. Sewing, fur, shoe factories and a number of other Leningrad enterprises produced overcoats, short fur coats, felt boots, earflaps, camouflage gowns, etc. At the call of the workers of the factory - "Proletarian victory" in Leningrad began collecting warm clothes for front-line soldiers. Before the onset of winter cold, the working people of Leningrad made and collected over 400 thousand warm clothes for Soviet soldiers. The front's need for winter uniforms and other warm things was satisfied.

Prominent metallurgical scientists, academicians A. A. Baikov, M. A. Pavlov and others, looked for ways to reduce the melting time, developed a method for obtaining new alloys, and advised factories on the production and processing of cast iron, steel and non-ferrous metals.

Siege students

The harsh conditions of the blockade did not completely disrupt the normal rhythm of life in the city-front. In September - October 1941, students from 40 universities began their studies. All the activities of the higher school of Leningrad were aimed at solving the problems that the war and the defense of the city put forward. Scientists revised and redesigned curricula and course programs in accordance with the newly introduced reduced learning curve; Particular attention was paid to improving the quality of knowledge, providing training for all students and teaching staff in military affairs, chemical and fire protection. The primary role was assigned to those courses and disciplines that were of practical importance in wartime conditions. The overtaking theme found its expression in the students' theses. Most of the students combined their studies with work in factories and factories, in production workshops, in the construction of defensive fortifications, in workers' detachments, hospitals, teams of the Defense Ministry, etc. In all institutes, training sessions were structured in such a way that they made it possible to alternate defense and academic work ... Teachers provided all possible assistance to students in their independent work, widely practicing the system of monthly assignments, tests, consultations, passing tests and examinations for teaching the entire academic year.

The largest Leningrad universities - the University, the Polytechnic Institute, the Institute of Railway Engineers, and the Mining Institute - did not stop their activities during the first winter of the blockade. Classes were held in an unusual setting: tables were placed around the temporary stove, at which students and teachers were located. Due to the lack of electricity, all educational work had to be carried out only in daylight or in the light of a smokehouse. In the harsh conditions of the famine blockade, Leningrad scholars viewed the education of students as their duty to the Motherland. Exhausted, they still came to their faculties, gave lectures, conducted laboratory studies, and supervised graduate students' graduation projects. In university lecture halls, the windows of which were filled with plywood, the greatest scientists read their lectures. In the 1941/42 academic year in universities

besieged Leningrad employed about a thousand) teachers, among them over 500 professors and associate professors. In January - February 1942, when a terrible famine, lack of fuel and electricity threatened to paralyze the life of Leningrad, a number of city institutes held a regular examination session, as well as state exams and the defense of diploma projects. Despite the strict requirements for the examinees, most of the students received good and excellent marks. As a result of extraordinary efforts, Leningrad universities trained and graduated 2,500 young specialists in the first winter of blockade.

As a result of the departure of thousands of young men and women to the front and to production, the contingent of students at the Leningrad higher school has significantly decreased. At the largest universities in the city (University, Polytechnic, Gorny, etc.), the number of students has decreased by more than 2 times in comparison with the pre-war period. Nevertheless, in the fall of 1941, the Leningrad institutes provided the city with an additional hundreds of engineers, technologists, doctors, and teachers. Electrotechnical Institute named after V. I. Ulyanov (Lenin) carried out an early graduation of radio and telephone specialists. First Medical Institute named after Acad. I.P. Pavlova trained more than 500 doctors, which the hospitals and hospitals of the besieged city needed so much.

Water

In January 1942, water also became a jewel in the city ...

Beginning with the very first, September bombing, the Nazis unleashed special attacks on the Main Waterworks, which in the city was called "Object No. 1". More than once they managed to partially destroy tanks and pumping equipment. But any damage at the station and on the highways was immediately repaired. The city could not live without water.

During the first blockade winter, the water supply system failed not because of bombing and shelling, and not simply, as they sometimes say, “froze”. The only source of energy for the machines of the waterworks was the turbine of the 5th hydroelectric power station. On January 24, they could no longer bring fuel - peat: there was no transport, no forces. The turbine stopped, immediately the lights went out, the machines of the water station froze.

The water that stopped in the many kilometers of highways began to freeze. She tore pipes, earth, asphalt, and from under the snow springs made their way in many places. Water was scooped up in mugs, ladles, poured into buckets and cans. This went on for several days ...

To be left without water meant to be left without bread. On alarm, the workers of the regional party committees were raised and sent to the frozen bakeries.

In the Frunzensky District, water began to be supplied to the plant from the swimming pool with the help of fire pumps. In Petrogradskoye, bakery workers formed a living conveyor, along which buckets were passed from hand to hand for several hours.

The bread on January 25, though late in the evening, was delivered to bakeries. Then, in a short time, the bakeries were equipped with 17 electrical block stations, 3 reservoirs, 5 pumping stations, 4 artesian wells. Two factories were supplied with water by warships stationed on the Neva.

All this water was used to bake bread. As for food, drink, household needs, everyone got along as best they could. People collected its remains on the streets, made paths to ice holes on rivers and canals, dragging sledges with buckets behind them.

It was necessary to survive this catastrophe, it was necessary to cope with it ... And the townspeople waited for the moment when in the spring the Neva, soft, ideal drinking water, for which Leningrad is so famous, flowed from the taps again.

Fire

Fire was one of the most terrible elements of the war.

The Hitlerite command, according to the canons of military science, rightly, considered the surrounded city as a huge accumulation of wood and other combustible materials. Therefore, in just four months (September - December 1941), the Nazis, along with thousands of high-explosive bombs and artillery shells, dropped about 100 thousand incendiary bombs on it.

During this time, more than 600 large fires broke out in the city. Remained in the blockade chronicle "days of fire", for example, September 8, when the fire broke out simultaneously in 178 places. You cannot erase from your memory the largest fires - at the Badayevsky warehouses, at the Gosnardom, at the Krasny Neftyanik oil depot, at the hospital on Suvorovsky Prospect, at the Printing House printing house ... The noble names of those whom Nikolai Tikhonov called “fighters” remained in the annals. fiery front ”, - Leningrad firefighters, who defended production, residential buildings, bases and warehouses without sparing their lives.

But for all that, the fire in besieged Leningrad was not an all-consuming element. Even before the blockade began, researchers at the State Institute of Applied Chemistry proposed a recipe for "coating" that protects wood from incendiary bombs. It was very simple: for three parts of superphosphate, one part of water. Tests have shown the high efficiency of such a mixture.

From the Nevsky Chemical Plant, thousands of tons of "fire-fighting superphosphate" were delivered to all parts of the city by water, on barges. Hundreds of thousands of people were armed with flywheel brushes - workers and academics, schoolchildren and pensioners, soldiers of the Ministry of Defense and Housewives, doctors, art critics, librarians, journalists. In a month, 19 million square meters were covered with fire retardant. For every inhabitant of a huge city, from babies to very old people, there was a few square meters of wood protected from fire.

"Plaster" regularly served the defense of the city. And during massive air raids. And in the first terrible winter, when the fires that had arisen sometimes there was no one and nothing to put out. And during the fierce shelling of 1943.

I saw Leningrad fires that caused considerable damage and deprived thousands of people of their homes. But the fire was not destined to become an element here.

International (Moscow) Avenue

In the blocked city, all roads led to the front.

Each of the avenues, radially diverging from the Admiralty needle, inevitably then rested against checkpoints, front-line warehouses and minefields, and then into the front line dug by craters - into dugouts and trenches.

In fascist artillery panoramas and sights, these highways seemed almost defenseless. Although in reality everything was not so. The avenues bristled with bumps, covered with pillboxes, looked at the enemy with embrasures of firing positions. They were ready for battle at any moment.

One of the most tense highways was the straight as an arrow International (now Moskovsky) Avenue - the way to the key junction of the Leningrad Front, to the Pulkovo Heights.

A resident of the avenue, heading to the bakery in the morning, ran into soldiers leaving for the front, heard the hum of automobile engines and the whistle of shells rushing over the city. He happened to see a lot in those years. The evacuation of residents from the outskirts, the fire of the Badayevsky warehouses and the construction of barricades, the ranks of the people's militia and the heroic work of the MPVO units, sleighs with the dead at the Novodevichy cemetery. And the first rockets of the festive fireworks.

There was not a single building on Mezhdunarodny Prospekt that had not been hit by enemy artillery. On some days, not only in winter, covered with snow, but also in summer, it seemed harsh and deserted. But life has never stopped here. The fates of thousands of people were associated with this avenue - a toiler. And the city frontline highway operated smoothly, helping the front with people, ammunition, weapons, equipment, food.

The first checkpoints were already in the area of ​​Zastavskaya Street. Further, the strip of the 42nd Army began. Here, dilapidated, but operating workshops "Electrosila", the main observation post of artillery-counter-battery operators, pillboxes and vegetable gardens were adjacent.

Here, in the passages between the barricades, trams gave way to tanks, and ambulances coming from the front line met with trucks that were carrying shells to the front.

In the winter of 1944, along the Mezhdunarodny Prospect, they moved to the areas of concentration of troops, which were to deliver one of the main blows in the defeat of the Nazi armies.

Winter 1941/42

The life of besieged Leningrad in the winter of 1941 '42 defies description. Almost all baths and laundries did not work, there were no shoes, no clothes, or household goods in the shops. The premises were lit with the help of smokers and a torch, and heated by temporary stoves, from which not only the walls and ceilings were smoked, but also the faces of people. There were long lines for water at the standpipes and ice-holes. The tests made the inhabitants of the besieged city old, even the young looked old. On these winter days, emaciated Leningraders, leaning on sticks, saving every movement, moved along the streets littered with snowdrifts. Having slipped, a person was often unable to get up. A "foot ambulance" came to the rescue - soldiers of the Ministry of Defense, Red Cross warriors, Komsomol members, who delivered those who were picked up on the streets to food and heating points. The improvement of the living conditions of Leningraders was largely facilitated by the sanitary and household commissions created in February 1942 at each house administration by the decision of the City Party Committee. In March 1942, there were 2,559 sanitary and household commissions in Leningrad, 624 boilers, 123 home baths and 610 home laundries.

The conditions of the blockade winter made it difficult to provide medical assistance to the population. In December 1941, in almost all hospitals and hospitals, the lights were turned off, which led to a halt in the operation of operating rooms, physiotherapy, X-ray, dressing and other rooms. The temperature in hospital rooms also dropped to 2-7 degrees, laundries stopped washing clothes, hand washing could not provide even the most necessary needs of medical institutions.

With a huge morbidity, help in inpatient medical institutions was one of the most important means of saving the population of the besieged city. The great need for hospitalization is evidenced by the fact that even in 1943, when the consequences of the hungry winter were largely eliminated, a quarter of the city's population passed through the hospitals. In the winter of 1941/42, despite the energetic measures taken to increase the number of beds in hospitals, there was no way to meet the needs for hospitalization. This problem was solved only in the second half of 1942.

The hospitalized patients were in cold, almost unheated, semi-lighted wards. The work of the hospital medical staff proceeded in very difficult conditions. The surgeons worked in operating rooms heated by "stoves" and illuminated by kerosene lanterns. Medical personnel continued to selflessly provide assistance to the sick and wounded, even during enemy air raids and artillery attacks on the city. In cold and semi-dark offices, doctors were receiving outpatients.

Spring

She was expected with bated breath and hope - the first blockade spring, the spring of 1942.

The city lay under the ice shell, under the snow, which had not been removed all winter. The courtyards of houses were littered with rubbish, ash, sewage.

The first citywide Sunday to clean up the city took place on March 8, International Women's Day. Before it began, the city and district committees of the party had doubts: whether exhausted, exhausted people would go out to hard work. Leningraders went out on Sunday. Tens of thousands of people - female workers and housewives, office workers, saleswomen, party workers - chopped down a one and a half meter thick ice layer, carried snow blocks on plywood and iron sheets, threw them into rivers and canals.

Enemy shells flew over the city, explosions were heard. But the people continued to do the hardest work with a growing sense of glee. Spring came. We survived!

Two thousand-strong Sundays held in the first half of March pursued a purpose not only sanitary. It was necessary to clear the paths to start up the tram.

Tram rails were broken in hundreds of places, and 90 percent of the contact network was destroyed by shelling. All this with great labor was restored, debugged and started up.

entrance. On April 15, the main holiday of the blockade spring came - 300 passenger tram cars entered the streets of the city. The passengers kissed and hugged the counselors. There was an uninterrupted, stretching for many kilometers all-Leningrad meeting.

It was warm. People gathered in courtyards, in a lull, in the spring heat. It seemed that it would take a long time to warm up after the last winter.

Kill a man; Modern vandals

The basis of the policy of Hitlerite Germany was genocide - the destruction of entire peoples and races. Hitler said: “We are obliged to exterminate the population - this is part of our mission to protect the German population. We will have to develop a technique for exterminating the population ... I have the right to destroy millions of people of the lower race who multiply like worms. "

The Barbarossa Plan was supplemented by the Ost Master Plan, which provided for the extermination of millions of Slavs. Created and appropriate equipment and technology for destruction - the method of conducting "mass actions", concentration camps, gas chambers, "gas chambers" and "high-performance" crematoria. In the general staff of the fascist Wehrmacht and in the economic headquarters "Ost" many sighs were heard then about the "large size of the biological mass of the Slavs" and "the difficulties of its technological processing."

In strict accordance with this policy, a plan was developed for the complete destruction of Leningrad and its population. On October 7, General Jodl, on behalf of the Chief of Staff of the Supreme High Command of the Armed Forces of Nazi Germany, signed the decree that later became widely known:

“The Fuehrer again decided that the surrender of Leningrad, and later of Moscow, should not be accepted even if it had been proposed by the enemy ...

Great dangers from epidemics are to be expected. Therefore, no German soldier should enter these cities. Whoever leaves the city against our lines must be driven back by fire ...

It is unacceptable to risk the life of a German soldier to save Russian cities from fire, just as it is impossible to feed their population at the expense of the German homeland ... "

Now it is difficult to imagine that there could be a plan for the destruction of a major center of world history and culture, that the Nazis were going to wipe the multimillion city from the face of the earth and in its place "in Teutonic" draw a line with a plow.

But such a plan existed. Its implementation was entrusted to the 16th and 18th German armies. The planes received bomb loads at the front-line airfields, new batches of shells were brought to dozens of heavy batteries, and steel loaded with explosives fell on the city.

The Nazis dreamed of seeing Leningrad as the ruins of the Pulkovo Observatory. They prepared for all of us the fate that befell this Leningrad teacher together with her student ...

In the language of gunners, the Nazis fired not for suppression, but for destruction. From September 4, 1941 to January 22, 1944, they fired over 150 thousand large-caliber shells through the city. Siege artillery inflicted great damage to Leningrad.

During the years of the blockade, the rupture of fascist shells could occur at any time, anywhere - in a factory or factory, on the street, in a residential building, in a hospital or school, in a museum, theater, bakery. And among the victims of the shelling could be any person - a fighter of the Ministry of Defense, a worker at the machine, a child, a driver who came from the front, a woman returning home from a store. In total, 17 thousand Leningraders died from shelling and bombing in Leningrad and almost 44 thousand were injured.

A photograph of the hole and an artillery shell over the head of the Atlantean supporting the side of the Hermitage during the war went around the peaceful press as evidence of the vandalism of the Nazis. But when it was published, it was not yet possible to even remotely take into account all the damage that the fascists brought to world culture, destroying monuments of art and architecture in Leningrad and its suburbs.

Only in 1945 was the list of monstrous losses published by the Extraordinary State Commission for the Establishment and Investigation of the Atrocities of the Nazi invaders and their accomplices.

Hitler's barbarians destroyed and damaged by bombs and shells 187 historical buildings built by Zemtsov, Rastrelli, Starov, Quarenghi, Zakharov, Stasov and other outstanding architects. The Elaginsky Palace burned down. The Winter Palace (high-explosive bomb and 10 shells), the Hermitage (10 shells), the Russian Museum (9 bombs and 21 shells) were seriously damaged .. Only in the Hermitage 151 museum exhibits were destroyed and 27,376 damaged.

The Nazis turned the famous suburbs of Leningrad with their wonderful palaces into masterpieces of park art into a terrible desert. Here everything was plundered, plundered and spoiled. What the enemy did not manage to burn or detonate, he mined during the retreat.

Hitler's bandits deliberately fired on children's institutions, hospitals and hospitals. All of them were marked on special diagrams on their batteries. For each "object" there were target designations and recommendations for the choice of shells: high-explosive fragmentation, high-explosive incendiary ...

Here are some examples. "Object number 736" - a school in Baburin lane. "Object number 192" - the Palace of Pioneers. "Object number 69" - the hospital named after Erisman. "Object number 96" - The first psychiatric hospital.

And here is a typical entry in the journal of the 768th fascist artillery division: “6. 3.1942. From 9.15 to 9.32 the division carries out a fire raid with 5O shells at military hospitals in St. Petersburg. "

The enemy completely destroyed 22 schools and 393 damaged, destroyed or damaged 195 children's institutions, inflicted heavy damage on 482 hospitals, hospitals, clinics.

In 1943, when the Nazis could not even count on the seizure of Leningrad, because the balance of forces at the front had already developed far from their favor, Hitler demanded that siege artillery fire "not so much for defenses as residential areas." It was the revenge of the petty politician and the greatest executioner to the unruly Leningraders.

Hundreds of thousands of people lost their homes, roofs over their heads, native walls, property. In the city, 205 stone and 1849 wooden houses were completely destroyed, 6403 stone and 740 wooden houses were seriously damaged. 1073 houses died from fires. These numbers are so great that it is not easy to realize their essence. Leningrad lost 5 million square meters of living space - more than a quarter of the entire pre-war fund. Behind these figures is the grief of the people and the nationwide hatred of the fascists.

The time will come, all this will fall on the scales of history, retribution will come. The Court of Nations will meet in Nuremberg. And the same Jodl, who signed the directive on the destruction of Leningrad, will answer. He will refer to the fact that the German army would not have been able to provide food and supplies to the Leningraders, for it itself was poorly supplied. He will complain about the explosions in Kharkov and Kiev, about the "insidiousness" of the Russians, which could have been expected in Leningrad.

This verbiage of the executioner and the murderer will be included in hundreds of volumes telling about vandalism and atrocities of fascism. And there will be a fair sentence to the geeks sitting in the dock - a noose.

Children

In articles and documents of the wartime, where it is a question of the defenders of Leningrad, along with soldiers, workers, women, children are almost always mentioned.

Today it may seem unusual, incredible, but it is a fact: the youngest Leningraders carried their heavy burden in the mortal struggle against fascism.

Let's turn to the evidence of those years. Alexander Fadeev wrote in his travel notes "In the days of the blockade":

“Children of school age can be proud that they defended Leningrad together with their fathers, mothers, older brothers and sisters.

The great work of protecting and rescuing the city, serving and rescuing the family fell to the lot of Leningrad boys and girls. They put out tens of thousands of lighters dropped from planes, they put out more than one fire in the city, they were on watch on frosty nights on the towers, they carried water from an ice hole on the Neva, stood in lines for bread ... And they were equal in that duel of nobility, when the elders tried to quietly give their share to the younger, and the younger did the same in relation to the elders. And it is difficult to understand who died more in this duel. "

When the blockade ring was closed, in addition to the adult population, 400 thousand children remained in Leningrad - from babies to schoolchildren and adolescents. Naturally, they wanted to save them in the first place, they tried to hide them from shelling, from bombing. Comprehensive care for children, even in those conditions, was a characteristic feature of Leningraders. And she gave special strength to adults, raised them to work and to fight, because children could only be saved by defending the city.

They had a special, war-scorched, siege childhood. They grew up in conditions of hunger and cold, under the whistle and explosions of shells and bombs. It was its own world, with special difficulties and joys, with its own scale of values.

Open today the monograph "Children of the Blockade Draw". Shurik Ignatiev, three and a half years old, on May 23, 1942, in a kindergarten, covered his sheet of paper with random pencil scribbles with a small oval in the center. "What have you drawn!" - asked the teacher. He replied: “This is a war, that's all, and in the middle there is a loaf. I don't know anything else. "

They were just as much of the blockade as the adults. " And they died the same way.

Existence in a besieged city was unthinkable without hard, daily work. Children were also workers. They contrived to distribute their forces in such a way that they were enough not only for family, but also for public affairs. The pioneers carried mail to their homes. When the bugle sounded in the courtyard, it was necessary to go down for the letter. They sawed wood and carried water to the families of the Red Army soldiers. They repaired the linen for the wounded and performed in front of them in hospitals.

The city could not save children from malnutrition, from exhaustion, but nevertheless everything that was possible was done for them. In the midst of the most terrible first winter, the Executive Committee of the Leningrad City Council and the City Party Committee organized New Year trees for them. For the younger ones - at the place of residence, for the older ones - in three theaters of the city.

Here is the program of the holiday: “Artistic part. Meeting with soldiers and commanders. Dances and games at the Christmas tree. Dinner".

Everything was done, except for dancing and games. The emaciated children did not have enough strength for them. They didn’t laugh, didn’t play pranks, didn’t wait for dinner. It consisted of yeast soup with a slice of bread, cutlets from cereals or from meal and jelly. The children ate slowly and with concentration, not losing a crumb. They knew the price of bread.

The same hatred of fascism is grieving in a child's soul. Little Leningrader Zhenya Terentyev wrote on August 8, 1942 in the Smena newspaper:

“Before the war, we lived well and happily.

The Nazis prevented us. During the shelling, enemy shells destroyed our house. I heard the groans of my comrades and friends from under its rubble. When they were dug up in a pile of stones and boards, they were already dead. I hate fascist bastards! I want to avenge my dead comrades ... "

Despite the harsh situation in the front-line city, the Leningrad City Party Committee and the City Council of Working People's Deputies decided to continue the education of children. At the end of October 1941, 60 thousand schoolchildren in grades 1-4 began their studies in the bomb shelters of schools and households, and from November 3, in 103 schools in Leningrad, more than 30 thousand students in grades 1-4 sat down at their desks.

In the conditions of besieged Leningrad, it was necessary to link education with the defense of the city, teach students to overcome difficulties and hardships that arose at every step and grew every day. And the Leningrad school coped with this difficult task with flying colors. Classes were held in an unusual setting. Often during the lesson, a siren howl was heard, announcing the next bombing or shelling. The students quickly and orderly descended into the bomb shelter, where the classes continued. The teachers had two lesson plans for the day, one for normal work and the other in case of shelling or bombing. The training took place according to an abbreviated curriculum, which included only the main subjects. Each teacher strove to conduct classes with students as accessible, interesting and meaningful as possible. “I am preparing for lessons in a new way,” wrote KV Polzikova, a history teacher at School 239 in her diary in the fall of 1941, “Nothing superfluous, a mean, clear story. Children find it difficult to prepare homework; then you need to help them in the classroom. We don't keep any notes in notebooks: it's hard. But the story must be interesting. Oh, how it should be! Children have so much hard at heart, so much anxiety that they will not listen to dull speech. And you can't show them how difficult it is for you either. "

They continued their studies at school, fought incendiary bombs, and provided assistance to the families of military personnel. Although in December 1941 it was allowed to temporarily stop teaching, teachers and students from 39 Leningrad schools decided to continue their studies. Learning in the harsh winter conditions was a feat. Teachers and students themselves procured fuel, sledged water, and kept the school clean. The schools became unusually quiet, the children stopped running and making noise during recess, their pale and emaciated faces spoke of severe suffering. The lesson lasted 20-25 minutes: neither the teachers nor the schoolchildren could stand it any longer. No records were kept, as not only were the skinny little hands of children freezing in the unheated classrooms, but also the ink was freezing. Talking about this unforgettable time, the 7th grade pupils of the 148th school wrote in their collective diary: “The temperature is 2-3 degrees below zero. A dull winter light shyly shines through a single small glass in a single window. Pupils huddle up to the open door of the stove, shiver from the cold, which in a sharp frosty stream bursts from under the cracks of the doors, runs all over the body. A persistent and angry wind drives the smoke back from the street through a primitive chimney straight into the room ... The eyes are watery, it is hard to read, and it is absolutely impossible to write. We sit in coats, galoshes, gloves and even headdresses ... ”Students who continued to study in the harsh winter of 1941/42 were respectfully called“ winterers ”.

In the conditions of an almost complete lack of food in Leningrad, party and Soviet organizations did everything possible to make life easier for schoolchildren. For the meager bread ration, the children received soup at school without cutting coupons from the ration card. With the beginning of the operation of the Ladoga Ice Route, tens of thousands of schoolchildren were evacuated from the city. Came in 1942. In schools where classes did not stop, vacations were announced. And on the unforgettable January days, when the entire adult population of the city was starving, New Year's trees with gifts and a hearty dinner were organized for children in schools, theaters, concert halls. It was a real big holiday for the little Leningraders. One of the students wrote about this New Year tree: “January 6th. There was a Christmas tree today, and what a great one! True, I hardly listened to the plays: I kept thinking about dinner. The dinner was wonderful. Everyone ate noodle soup, porridge, bread and jelly greedily and were very happy. This tree will remain in my memory for a long time. " One Leningrad teacher very rightly remarked that “you have to be a Leningrad citizen in order to appreciate all the care for children that both the party and the government showed at that time, you had to be a teacher in order to understand what the tree gave the children.”

The main feat of the young residents of the city was study. 39 Leningrad schools worked without interruption even in the most difficult winter days. It was incredibly difficult due to frost and hunger. Here is what was written in the report of one of these schools - the 251st Oktyabrsky district:

“Out of 220 pupils who came to school on November 3, 55 systematically continued their studies. This is one fourth.

The lack of nutrition affected everyone. In December - January, 11 boys died. The rest of the boys lay and could not attend school. Only the girls remained, but even those could hardly walk. "

But the study went on, and the pioneer work went on. Including collecting gifts - cigarettes, soap, pencils, notebooks - for the soldiers of the Leningrad Front.

And in the spring, the schoolchildren began their "garden life".

In the spring of 1942, thousands of children and adolescents came to the deserted, depopulated workshops of enterprises. At the age of 12 - 15 they became machine operators and assemblers, fired assault rifles and machine guns, artillery and rockets. Wooden stands were made for them so that they could work behind machines and assembly benches.

When, on the eve of breaking the blockade, delegations from front-line units began to arrive at the factories, seasoned soldiers swallowed tears, looking at the posters above the workplaces of boys and girls. It was written there by their hands: "I will not leave until I fulfill the norm!"

Hundreds of young Leningraders were awarded orders, thousands - medals "For the Defense of Leningrad". Throughout the many months' epic of the heroic defense of the city, they went through as worthy companions of adults. There were no events, campaigns and cases in which they did not participate. Clearing attics, fighting lighters, putting out fires, clearing debris, clearing snow from the city, caring for the wounded, growing vegetables and potatoes, producing weapons and ammunition — children's hands were everywhere.

Leningrad boys and girls met on an equal footing, with a sense of accomplishment, with their peers - the "sons of the regiments" who received awards on the battlefields.

Bread. The norm of life.

Bread is a noun ... There is no price for an ordinary piece of it for those who survived the blockade. He was for many days the only source of human life. There were then norms for meat, cereals, sugar. But the cards often could not be stocked, because the city did not have stocks of these products. There was only bread ...

Bread ration (day in grams) in besieged Leningrad

When the first complete food accounting was made on September 11, 1941, it turned out that Leningrad had flour reserves, if we take into account the existing norms for the issuance of bread, for 35 days. Meanwhile, the prospects for the delivery of food to the city, the breakthrough of the blockade were

unclear. I had to go to reduce the issue rates. They decreased five times and on November 20 reached their minimum: workers were given 250 grams of bread a day, employees, dependents and children - 125 grams each. This norm - “one hundred and twenty-five blockade grams with fire and blood in half - continued to operate until December 25, when the bread ration was increased by 100 grams for the workers, and for everyone else by 75 grams.

Hunger drove the blockade out into the cold early. People silently, in the strictest order, which was maintained by itself, waited for the moment when the door of the bakery would open and a precious piece of bread would fall on the scales.

Until the end of November 1941, more than 11 thousand people died of hunger in Leningrad. These were his first victims. Then the winter months took over the cruel baton. In January and February, thousands of men and women, children and the elderly were killed every day.

Few died in their frozen apartments. The fierce spirit of resistance that called for action was stronger than the emaciated flesh. The worker was sharpening the part on the machine, but suddenly he collapsed as if knocked down. A passer-by was walking down the street, falling face down into the prickly snow. Initially, such cases were mistaken for fainting. But it was not a faint. Hunger dystrophy stopped the heart.

Even burying the dead was a huge problem. In January 1942, the bureau of the Leningrad City Party Committee adopted a special resolution "On earthworks for the Funeral Business Trust."

The fight against starvation was fought with great ferocity and full exertion, although the possibilities were small. Indeed, even in that piece of bread that the Leningrad citizen received, 40 percent were substitutes, surrogates.

Death by hunger continued to mow down people. It was not stopped by the increase in food norms in December, January and February. It turned out to be too terrible what the Leningraders had already experienced. By the spring, there were many people in the city who suffered from elementary dystrophy of the third degree and whom nothing could save.

Dystrophy, hunger exhaustion of various degrees became companions of Leningraders for a long time. Ordinary work, any simple movement then required enormous moral stress, considerable effort.

At enterprises, one after another, hospitals were opened, where especially weakened people were supported with a stronger diet than the general norms, where they were given the opportunity to rest and heal.

In February, food ration cards began to be fully stocked. This made a huge difference.

On April 21, 1942, the Military Council of the Leningrad Front adopted a special action plan for the final elimination of dystrophy. The city at that time was provided with a stock of basic food products for 60 - 120 days. Strenuous preparations continued for the summer transportation of foodstuffs across Ladoga.

15 diet canteens were opened. Leningrad doctors, together with the employees of the "Glavrestoran", have developed and implemented a massive three meals a day, the so-called rationed, food.

Death by starvation in early summer was completely driven out of the city. And the people in the blockade were convinced that hunger would never return.

Let's not forget ...

At first, Leningraders registered the death of their relatives and friends in the registry offices, where one could observe long sad lines. But with the onset of winter and a sharp increase in mortality, people weakened by hunger were unable to bury the dead and did not always register their death. The burial of the deceased in hospitals and hospitals was temporarily allowed according to compiled lists with subsequent registration in the registry office. Therefore, it was not possible to keep any accurate account of those who died from hunger in those conditions.

Numerous funeral processions, if you could call them that, stretched along the streets littered with snowdrifts, accompanied by the roar of shelling and the howling of sirens. The deceased was wrapped in sheets, placed on a children's sleigh and taken to the cemetery. This cannot be forgotten. Mortality had become so widespread that they did not have time to bury the dead. Thousands of unburied corpses lay in houses and on the streets. The residents were not even able to send them to the morgues. From November 194i, the MPVO fighters began to collect corpses in the streets, and later, together with the Red Cross warriors, began to bypass apartments for this purpose.

The winter of 1941/42 was very harsh in Leningrad. Outside there were 30-degree frosts. The frost-bound earth did not succumb to the shovel. The approaches to the cemeteries were littered with corpses wrapped in sheets. The dead began to be buried in mass graves, which were torn off by excavators and with the help of explosives. During the days of the first blockade

During the winter, about 4 thousand soldiers of the Ministry of Defense Forces, demolition men, workers of factories and plants were engaged in the burial of those who died of hunger every day. During the first year of the blockade, 662 mass graves with a total length of 20 thousand linear meters were unearthed at the Leningrad cemeteries. m. The MPVO teams coped with this work with great difficulty; since they themselves suffered significant losses. A lot of corpses remained unburied or in trenches not covered with earth. In memory of the victims of the famine winter of 1941/42, an unquenchable sacred fire is now burning at the Piskarevskoye cemetery. But in those days, the cemetery looked different. A blockade participant who visited Piskarevka in January 1942 described what he observed then: “The closer we got to Piskarevka, the more corpses were lying on both sides of the road. Having already driven outside the city, where there were small one-story houses, gardens, vegetable gardens are visible, in the distance I saw some unusually high shapeless heaps. I drove closer. I made sure that on both sides of the road there were huge heaps of the dead, and they were piled up so that the two cars could not disperse along the road. The car goes in one direction, it has nowhere to turn back. It was impossible to move in two directions. "

Ladoga

The city was completely blocked from land. The only way by which the supply of Leningrad could be carried out, after the land routes to the city were cut (except for air routes), was Lake Ladoga, more precisely - the southern part of the lake. The Central Committee of the Communist Party and the Soviet government well understood the importance of communications for Leningrad in the current situation, therefore, the path through Lake Ladoga was constantly the subject of their special attention and care. On August 30, 1941, the State Defense Committee adopted its first resolution on this issue No. 604 - “On the transportation of goods for Leningrad; where specific measures were outlined for organizing water transportation on Lake Ladoga. In particular, the commissariats of the naval and river fleets were asked to allocate 75 lake barges with a carrying capacity of a thousand tons each and 25 tugboats, ensuring daily supervision of 12 barges with cargo from the Lodeynoye Pole pier to Leningrad. For the transportation of fuel, it was proposed to allocate one tanker and 5 liquid barges. In case of need, it was proposed to immediately prepare the unloading front in the area of ​​the Ladozhskoe Lake station. To carry out this resolution, the Military Council of the Leningrad Front immediately took measures; primarily of an organizational nature. The management of all water transportation from September 3 was assigned to the Ladoga military flotilla. The deputy commander of the flotilla, Captain 1-ro rank N. Yu. Avraamov, was appointed as the chief of transportation. The North-Western River Shipping Company (NWRP) was subordinate to the Ladoga Flotilla in terms of the implementation of the GKO decree. On September 9, A. A. Zhdanov spoke at a meeting of the leading workers of the Regional Committee and the City Committee of the Party, the Ladoga Flotilla and the North-Western River Shipping Company. He said that the future fate of Leningrad depends on the naval sailors and the water workers of the NWRSP, and demanded that the construction of berths on the western shore of Lake Ladoga be launched in a fighting manner. And this construction began in a hurry in Osinovets.

The transportation was carried out in the most difficult conditions: there was not enough transport and handling facilities, there were few berths on the western shore of the lake. Frequent fierce storms and systematic bombing strikes by the enemy, who were trying to cut off communication with Leningrad, made transportation very difficult. However, the Soviet people overcame all difficulties and in the autumn navigation of 1941 delivered 60 thousand tons of cargo to Leningrad, mainly food. Compared to the needs of the front and the city, this was not much, but it made it possible for some time, albeit at extremely reduced rates, to supply the troops and the population with food.

In the fall of 1941, water transportation was the first stage of the struggle for the Ladoga communications, which was waged during the entire period of the blockade of Leningrad.

Cargo delivery routes to blocked Leningrad.

By November 1941, the city had been under blockade for the third month already. The available food supplies were almost completely depleted. Suffice it to say that on November 16, the troops of the Leningrad Front were provided with flour only for 10 days, cereals, pasta and sugar for 7 days, meat, fish, canned meat and fish for 19 days. The severity of the situation was aggravated by the fact that the water transport was interrupted by the early start of the freeze-up (although some ships made their way until December 7, 1941) and communication with Leningrad could only be maintained by aircraft. However, organized air; transportation to solve the problem of supplying the city in that situation could not. In addition, the Hitlerite command, seeking to unite with the Finns on the river. Svir and thereby completely blockade Leningrad and strangle it with starvation, in October - November 1941 launched an offensive, and on November 8, fascist troops captured Tikhvin.

The salvation of Leningrad consisted in the construction of a winter road, which could only be built on the ice of Lake Ladoga. The Nazis were sure that nothing would come of it and, gloatingly, wrote that "it is impossible to supply a million people and an army on the ice of Lake Ladoga." But what seemed impossible for the fascists was accomplished by the Soviet people. The ice road was built, and this was of decisive vital importance for the city and the front.

The ice road was a well-organized motorway that provided drivers with confident driving at high speed. The track was serviced by 350 traffic controllers, whose task was to disperse - cars, indicate the direction of movement, monitor the safety of ice and other duties. This work required dedication and courage, as it had to be carried out in severe frosts, freezing winds, blizzards, shelling and enemy air raids. At first, 20 control posts were set up, and then they were increased to 45 and even to 79 (one person for every 300 - 400 m). In addition, lighthouse lights with blue glass were exhibited - first at every 450 - 500 m, and then - at 150 - 200 m.To help this service, the entire route was equipped with tragus, direction signs, the location of gas stations, points of water intake and technical assistance , nutritional and heating points, maps-schemes at intersections and turns and other road signs. In addition to this, a dispatch service was organized on the road, provided with a telephone connection. Dispatch points located on both banks of the Plisselburgskaya Bay planned the work of vehicles, sent them to certain areas, kept records of the work of vehicles and transported goods. At each warehouse there were special end dispatchers who monitored the loading, kept records of goods and gave signals about the required number of vehicles. In addition, on the ice track itself, there were district or line dispatchers who directed vehicles to certain warehouses. Line dispatchers also served as traffic inspectors. All these measures provided a good opportunity to regulate the flow of vehicles on the road and quite reliably ensured the normal movement of cars along their routes.

The ice road had a well-organized maintenance of cars on the track. In the beginning, each autobatalion allocated a plying technical assistance to provide assistance to its vehicles. But then the entire route was divided into sections, each of which was assigned to a certain repair battalion. The battalions deployed in their areas of the technical assistance missions served all passing vehicles. The points of technical assistance were located on the highway at a distance of 3 - 5 km one from the other, had clearly visible inscriptions, and at night they were illuminated by light bulbs or road flashing lights. In addition, special evacuation vehicles continuously moved along the highway with the task of towing stopped vehicles.

The Leningrad auto repair plants No. 1 and 2 provided great assistance to the Ladoga road, which established the method of aggregate repair of cars. The branches created by them on both banks of Ladoga have repaired more than 53OO machines during the operation of the ice road.

Workers of the ice road in any weather, day and night, carried out difficult road service, cleared paths and laid new ones, prepared various equipment and, at the risk of their lives, laid wooden bridges through the cracks. Only 3,200 km of roads were cleared of snow, of which about 1,550 km were cleared by hand and 1,650 km with the help of road equipment. If we bear in mind the length of the ice road of 30 km, it turns out that it has been cleared of snow more than a hundred times. In addition, more than 32 thousand square meters were cleared of ice hummocks. m of track, about 21 thousand wooden tragus were prepared and placed, and much more. The military road had a reliable defense. Ground protection of the route was carried out by a specially formed separate rifle regiment (then the 384th rifle regiment) under the command of Colonel A., Korolev. The main forces of the regiment were concentrated on the ice of Lake Ladoga, 8 - 12 km from the coast occupied by the enemy. The regiment created two defensive zones, on which pillboxes, snow-ice trenches were built, machine-gun points were installed. The anti-aircraft fringe of the Ladoga ice route was carried out by anti-aircraft weapons and fighter aircraft. Railway stations and bases on the shores of Lake Ladoga were covered by special separate anti-aircraft artillery units. Directly on the ice of the lake, on both sides of the road, in a checkerboard pattern with an interval of 3 km, batteries of small-caliber anti-aircraft artillery were installed. Anti-aircraft machine guns were positioned in pairs at intervals of 1 - 1.5 km. On January 1, 1942, there were 14 37-mm guns and 40 machine-gun installations on the ice track.

For the entire existence of the road, 361 109 tons of various cargoes were delivered to Leningrad along it, of which 262 419 tons of food. This not only improved the supply of the heroic Leningraders, but also made it possible to create a certain stock of food, which by the time the ice road was completed was 66,930 tons. In addition to food, 8357 tons of fodder, 31,910 tons of ammunition, 34,717 tons were brought to Leningrad along the Ladoga road. fuels and lubricants, 22,818 coal and 888 tons of other cargo. The ice road was also used for various operational transfers.

The muses were not silent

"Who said that we should give up songs in the war!" The polemical fervor of these famous words is joking. As you know, the song played a big role during the Great Patriotic War. Then were born "Dugout", "Dark Night" and many other songs, consonant with the soul of the people.

And not only the song ... Life has shown that in the harsh military conditions the need of people for a cheerful operetta, for an opera or ballet performance, for a symphony concert has not disappeared.

Music began to sound for the Leningrad soldiers in June 1941. Orchestras and ensembles, the best singers performed on the squares, in the halls, at the mobilization points. And the music remained with the front-line soldiers until the Victory. Many performers, orchestra members began their military routes, sometimes so unusual that they could hardly have taken place in peacetime. For example, the quartet shown here is playing for the garrison of Lavansari Island. Music helped people fight, inspired them, warmed their hearts. Under the conditions of the blockade, the main concert hall of the city, the Great Philharmonic Hall, continued to work. In the first months of the war alone, until the end of 1941, 19 thousand Leningraders visited it.

The city's illustrious theaters were evacuated. But one of them stayed. He has a special place in the history of the besieged city. This is the Musical Comedy Theater.

The work of the theater was interrupted for a short time only in the most difficult months and was always resumed. The team changed venues, and the words "Is there an extra ticket" then sounded in Izmailovsky Garden, on Rakov Street, near the walls of the Pushkin Academic Drama Theater ...

During the 900 days of the siege, the artists performed 919 performances. They were visited by 1 million 208 thousand 7 people! In addition, the troupe gave 1862 chef concerts during this time. The actors of the wonderful team withstood a huge load.

They survived everything that the war brought to Leningrad. At the signal of the air raid, the action on the stage was interrupted, and the actors, right in theatrical costumes and in makeup, took their places as fighters of the Defense Ministry. In winter, they performed in a frozen hall, warming themselves in fur coats backstage. It was at their performances that people stood up and thanked the actors in silence. In the first winter of siege, there was often no energy for applause ...

Hundreds of Leningrad actors entered the front-line brigades. They performed in front of infantrymen, artillerymen, tankmen, pilots, sailors, partisans. A forest clearing, a car body, a ship deck and even ... an armored train platform served as a stage platform. It was hard work for the artists, but rewarding, because it gave the fighters a charge of cheerfulness and optimism.

On the front line, in the most tense sectors of the front, newsreels were working. Young Roman Carmen shot many blockade scenes. All this immediately appeared on the screen. And cinema was very popular everywhere. Even if the façade of the theater was covered with debris ...

Artists performed the same feat as all the inhabitants of the city. Sculptors from N. Tomsky's brigade worked on large campaign stands. The artists V. Serov, V. Pakulin came to the easels and sketchbooks ...

Leningrad Symphony

The creation of the Seventh "Leningrad" Symphony by Dmitry Dmitrievich Shostakovich became a major event in the musical life of not only Leningrad, but also the country, the whole world.

The composer, a young professor at the Conservatory, began writing it in the early days of the war. A soldier of the "artistic division", a member of the volunteer fire brigade, he remained the greatest artist, philosopher, capable of the broadest comprehension of events.

On September 5, D. D. Shostakovich spoke on the radio: “An hour ago I finished the score of the second part of my new large symphonic work ... I am informing about this so that the people in Leningrad who are listening to me know that life in our city is going on normally. ... "

D. D. Shostakovich rehearsed the symphony in Novosibirsk with the symphony orchestra, which was directed by E. A. Mravinsky. On March 5, her first performance took place in Kuibyshev, on March 29 - in Moscow. Eat. Yaroslavsky wrote in Pravda: "The Seventh Symphony of Dmitry Shostakovich is an expression of the growing and inevitable victory of the Soviet people over Nazi Germany, a symphony of the triumphant truth of the Soviet people over all the reactionary forces of the world." On August 9, the first performance of the Seventh Symphony took place in Leningrad. Conducted by K. I. Eliasberg. So that the Nazis did not interfere with the concert, the news of which would then spread throughout the world, the Leningrad counter-batteries were ordered to engage the enemy in an artillery duel and divert his forces. And in the area of ​​the Great Hall of the Philharmonic then not a single enemy shell fell.

Feather and bayonet

The press occupied an important place in the spiritual life of Leningraders during the war years. Each issue of the newspapers "Leningradskaya Pravda", "On Guard of the Motherland", "Smena" was eagerly awaited at the front and in the city. Summaries of the Sovinformburo, articles and correspondence about the life of Leningrad and the country, international information, notifications about the issuance of food - everything contained a newspaper page.

Many years later, Pravda wrote: “During the Great Patriotic War, in the days of the heavy siege, Leningradskaya Pravda was invariably together with the heroic defenders of the city both in the trenches of the guards regiments and in the workers' shops, tirelessly forging the weapon of victory. With fiery Bolshevik words, the newspaper called for steadfastness in the struggle against the enemy, inspiring Leningraders to heroic deeds in labor and on the battlefield. "

Through the heroic efforts of a few editorial staff and printing houses, it was possible to ensure the publication of central and Leningrad newspapers even in the most difficult days of the winter of 1941/42. Only once, on January 25, 1942, the Leningradskaya Pravda newspaper was not published. The number had already been dialed and typeset, but it could not be printed - there was no electricity in the city that day. Due to the lack of transport on the harsh winter days of 1941/42, the exhausted workers of the Pravda printing house harnessed to sledges and delivered matrices to them from the airfield. In the premises of the printing house the temperature reached 10 - 15 degrees below zero, hands froze to the metal, but Pravda continued to come out. The premises of the editorial office of Leningradskaya Pravda ”was destroyed and the employees were forced to move to the unheated basement of the printing house, deprived of ventilation and daylight, to continue their work. There was not enough paper. Newspapers were printed on paper of a narrow format and often of different colors, their circulation was significantly reduced. Since December 1941, Leningradskaya Pravda began to appear in only two pages, but this did not diminish its political level, they began to write shorter, even more substantive. The courageous, close-knit collective of "Leningradskaya Pravda", without lowering its exactingness towards itself, without making allowances for "special conditions", constantly carried the party word to the masses of soldiers and townspeople.

It is impossible to list all the major campaigns carried out by the newspaper. Among them - the formation of the people's militia, the construction of defensive structures, military training, the transfer of advanced labor methods and combat experience ...

"Leningradskaya Pravda" spread not only in the city and in the units of the front. It was delivered by plane to the partisans, to the enemy rear, to the occupied territory.

Leningraders have always been characterized by a love for the printed word, for the book. At the beginning of the war, there was a particularly strong craving for the book as a powerful source of knowledge. Life then posed many problems and questions for people. It was possible to find the answer to them even by turning to the treasures of the Leningrad book depositories.

Many of the city's libraries continued to operate throughout the blockade. The doors of the M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin State Public Library were not closed for a day.

In the first winter of the siege, the reading rooms were freezing cold. Hundreds of Leningraders sat in coats and hats, turning over the pages of books, magazines, atlases and making extracts from them. They were engineers and workers, doctors and nurses, officers and soldiers, teachers and students, scientists, writers, journalists, architects.

The spring of 1942 caused a phenomenon in the city that was called "hunger for books". In order to better satisfy the demand of buyers, the city's trade department was forced to organize so-called book "breakdowns" on the streets. Russian and foreign classics and works of contemporary writers quickly dispersed. Leningraders again proved that they are "the most reading people".

Radio

The radio acquired an extraordinary power of sound in the winter of 1941/42. It helped Leningraders to endure incredible hardships, to realize that they were not alone in their struggle. Articles of central and local newspapers were read on the radio, the delivery and distribution of which were hampered by the conditions of the blockade. On the radio, the city's population learned about the long-awaited increase in food rations. The workers of the Leningrad Radio Committee prepared programs in the most difficult conditions, but they knew how necessary it is for the Leningrad people to hear words of support and encouragement. How much work and effort did it take to organize transmissions from Moscow when the direct wire connection with the capital was interrupted and the radio broadcasting equipment was badly damaged. In February 1942, many of the readers and announcers were no longer able to work, and radio artists I. Gorin and K. Mironov conducted daily broadcasts at the microphone. The workers of the Leningrad radio did not leave their combat post for a single hour, continuing to work in the frozen rooms by the light of candles they had made. In the harsh days of siege, programs for the Leningrad radio were prepared by journalists and writers: Vs. Vishnevsky, N. Tikhonov, O. Berggolts, V. Ardamatsky, J. Babushkin, M. Blumberg, L. Magrachev, G. Makogonenko, A. Pazi, M. Frolov, V. Khodorenko and others.

Due to the lack of electricity, the radio literally whispered, the regional substations often worked, and then the radio went silent. But even here the radio workers found a way out by organizing a repetition of broadcasts for the connected districts of the city. Through the icy silence, a voice was again heard from the crippled loudspeakers, attracting the attention of the Leningraders. The voice of the unconquered Leningrad still sounded on the air, refuting the false statements of the fascists that the city had fallen.

Operation Spark

The position of Leningrad at the beginning of 1943. improved compared to the first war winter, but the city was still under siege. The lack of land communication with the country did not make it possible to fully satisfy the urgent needs of the troops and the population, artillery shelling and bombing from the air continued.

The Supreme Command decided to carry out an operation to break the blockade of Leningrad and thereby seriously improve the situation in the city. A fundamental change in the course of the Second World War, which began in connection with the victories of the Red Army in the Battle of Stalingrad, was of decisive importance for the successful implementation of this operation. The enemy pulled strategic reserves to the south and was unable to reinforce his troops in the northwest.

At the beginning of December 1942, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command approved the plan of an operation to break the blockade, encrypted under the code name "Iskra". The idea of ​​the operation was to defeat the enemy grouping in the area of ​​the Shlisselburg-Sinyavinsky ledge by counter strikes of two fronts - Leningradsky (commander - General L.A. Govorov) and Volkhovsky (commander - General K.A. Meretskov), to unite south of Lake Ladoga and thereby break through the blockade of Leningrad.

To carry out this task, two shock groups were created. The strike group of the Leningrad Front consisted of the troops of the 67th Army under the command of General M.P. Dukhanov.

She was supposed to cross the Neva, break through the enemy's defenses in the Moskovskaya Dubrovka - Shlisselburg sector, defeat the enemy defending here, and join up with the troops of the Volkhov Front.

The shock grouping of the Volkhov Front was the 2nd Shock Army under the command of General V.Z. Romanovsky. The 2nd Shock Army, with the assistance of part of the forces of the 8th Army, was to advance in the Gaitolovo-Lipki sector, defeat the enemy in the eastern part of the Shlisselburg-Sinyavinsky salient and join up with units of the 67th Army of the Leningrad Front.

Break of the blockade of Leningrad. January 1943

The actions to break the blockade provided for the participation of the artillery of the Baltic Fleet. For this purpose, a special grouping of naval artillery was created (there were about 100 large-caliber guns) consisting of batteries of railway artillery, stationary batteries, guns of the scientific-test naval artillery range and artillery of the Detachment of ships of the r. Not you.

Air support for the operation was entrusted to the 13th Air Army of the Leningrad Front, the 14th Air Army of the Volkhov Front and the aviation of the Baltic Fleet. In total, about 900 combat aircraft were involved in the operation to break the blockade.

Representatives of the Supreme Command Headquarters Marshals K.E. Voroshilov and G.K. Zhukov were instructed to coordinate the actions of the fronts and the fleet.

The Soviet troops faced a very difficult task. The German command, considering the Shlisselburg-Sinyavinsky ledge (where the distance between the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts was only 12-16 km) as the most vulnerable section of the blockade ring, greatly strengthened it in a year and a half. Along the left bank of the Neva there were two or three lines of trenches, connected by communication passages with numerous pillboxes. The front line of the defense was covered with a dense network of barbed wire, minefields and other obstacles. Each kilometer of the front was shot through by 10 - 12 artillery guns, 12 easel, 20 - 22 light machine guns, 75 machine guns. All the villages located in the area of ​​the Shlisselburg-Sinyavinsky ledge were turned by the enemy into strong strongholds, interconnected by trenches.

Therefore, the Soviet offensive was preceded by a long and comprehensive preparation. A thorough reconnaissance of the enemy's forces and fire resources was carried out, guns and mortars, ammunition and food, medicines, etc. were concentrated in the area of ​​upcoming battles.

In the offensive zone of the 67th Army, 1,873 guns and mortars of 76 mm and larger caliber were concentrated, which amounted to an average density of 144 guns and mortars per kilometer of the front in the breakthrough area. This was twice the density of our artillery in the counteroffensive at Stalingrad. The artillery density was even higher in the offensive zone of the troops of the Volkhov Front, where in the direction of the main attack it reached up to 180 guns and mortars per 1 km of the front.

Due to the fact that the bulk of the troops of the Leningrad Front was on the defensive for a long time and did not have sufficient experience in conducting offensive battles, the command attached exceptional importance to training troops in offensive actions in the forest and methods of storming enemy strongholds and nodes of resistance in a snowy winter.

For this, on a terrain similar in relief to the area of ​​upcoming military operations, training fields were specially equipped - townships that reproduced the fortifications and basic elements of the defense, and engineering barriers of the enemy. In these towns, exercises were held for various military units.

The troops of the 67th Army, which were to cross the Neva, persistently trained to quickly overcome the ice field and steep icy ascents across the Neva. The Neva in the area of ​​the Ovcino Colony and the lake in the rear of the army was chosen as a real body of water.

An important circumstance was the secrecy of the preparation of the operation, which ensured its operational surprise for the enemy. And although the Nazis learned about the impending offensive a few days before the start of the operation, they could no longer do anything to disrupt it.

On a frosty morning on January 12, at 0930 hours, volleys of more than 4.5 thousand guns and mortars hit the enemy positions. This began the artillery preparation of the offensive in the breakthrough zones.

67th and 2nd shock armies.

The inhabitants of the city heard a mighty rumble coming from somewhere in the southwest. They had enough experience with artillery shelling to understand: they hear the sound of a large artillery barrage. "Started!" - passed from mouth to mouth. What was dreamed of for three years, which was awaited with great impatience, came true. After all, the beginning of winter in the besieged city was common - shelling, casualties, direct hits on trams. Counter-battery men saved the city from destruction, but the shelling could be completely removed only by finally defeating the Nazis. Silence seemed to have settled at the front during these months. The summaries were published, too, quite ordinary. But this silence was deceiving. Everyone guessed that the offensive could begin at any moment.

Started!

An unprecedented case in the history of war: a mighty offensive was carried out from within - from the territory of a huge city enclosed by siege, which experienced indescribable hardships! ..

The Nazis could not recover from the powerful blow of the Soviet artillery. "I still cannot forget the impressions of the destructive fire of Russian cannons," a captured German soldier said during interrogation.

At 1150 hours a general attack began. Strike groups from both sides rushed towards each other. From the west, breaking through the enemy's defenses in the area from Moskovskaya Dubrovka to Shlisselburg, the 67th Army of the Leningrad Front marched towards the Volkhovites.

From the bridgehead in the Moscow Dubrovka area, the regiments of the 45th Guards Rifle Division under the command of General A.A. Krasnov went on the offensive. To the left of it were units of the 268th Infantry Division of Colonel S.N.Borshchev. The main blow in the direction of the village. Maryino was attacked by the 136th Infantry Division under the command of General N.P. Simonyak, its fighters went on the attack to the sounds of the "Internationale", which was performed by a brass band. The 86th Infantry Division under the command of V.A. Trubashchev attacked Shlisselburg.

The entire Neva from Moskovskaya Dubrovka to Shlisselburg was filled with attackers. The first to go out on the ice of the river were the assault groups, in which there were many Baltic sailors, and the barrage groups.

The offensive was so swift that after 15-20 minutes. after the start of the attack, the first echelons took possession of the German trench, which ran along the left bank of the Neva.

On January 12, 1943, simultaneously with the troops of the Leningrad Front, the troops of the Volkhov Front began an offensive. Particularly intense were the battles for the three most fortified strongholds of the German fascist troops - vil. Lipki, Workers' village No. 8 and the Kruglaya grove, where the most elite units of the enemy were concentrated, who were ordered to hold these strong points at any cost.

On the very first day of the fighting, both strike groups broke through the main defensive lines of the enemy and created conditions for the destruction of the garrisons of enemy centers of resistance and for the further successful development of the offensive.

The Hitlerite command, trying to hold the Shlisselburg-Sinyavsky ledge and prevent the connection of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts, hastily brought in more and more forces into battle, pulled up reserves from other sectors of the front. The Soviet command, in order to build on the achieved success and inflict a decisive defeat on the enemy, also brought in new forces into battle.

During January 15-17, the troops of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts, overcoming the resistance and fierce counterattacks of the enemy, inflicting heavy losses on him, moved forward. The battles that unfolded these days were very fierce. They were especially stubborn in Shlisselburg itself, where units of the 86th Infantry Division of the 67th Army broke into on 15 January. The tanks moved along the ice of the Neva, the width of which in that place is 600 meters, with a swift rush approached the city and were the first to enter it. The Shlisselburg garrison had an order to hold out until the last soldier. The battles in the city were fought for every street, every house. Fierce battles were fought near Workers' settlements Nos. 1 and 5, on the line where the troops of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts were supposed to join.

Despite the fact that the Nazis fought with bitterness, they could not withstand the onslaught of the advancing Red Army troops.

And now - January 18th. The last tension of the battle. Ahead is a narrow-gauge embankment, swept by the snow, pitted by enemy fortifications. Here, on its line, there were workers' settlements No. 1 and No. 5. They have been gone for a long time, instead of them there are strongholds of the Germans. From the east, the forward battalions of the divisions of the Volkhov Front are approaching them. From the west - the regiments and brigades of Leningrad.

At 0930 hours, units of the 123rd Infantry Division of the Leningrad Front linked up with units of the 372nd Division of the Volkhov Front on the eastern outskirts of Workers' Village No. 1.

At noon in Workers' Village No. 5, units of the 136th Infantry Division and the 61st Tank Brigade of the Leningrad Front joined the battalion of Captain Demidov of the 18th Infantry Division of the Volkhov Front, which was led into battle by the deputy commander of the sick commander, her Colonel N.G. Lyashenko. By the end of the day, there were meetings and other formations and units of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts.

The 136th Infantry Division of General N.P. Simonyak, and, in particular, the 269th Regiment of Colonel A.I. Sherstnev were the first who at the beginning of the offensive managed to force the Neva with exceptional success and almost without losses, and storm (near the village . Maryino) left bank. Ahead of the regiment and then the battalion of F. Sobakin marched.

On the same day, January 18, after stubborn street fighting, Shlisselburg was completely cleared of enemy troops. By the end of the day, the southern coast of Lake Ladoga was liberated, and through the created corridor 8-11 km wide, Leningrad received a land connection with the country.

BLOCKADE HAS BEEN BROKEN!

What every Leningrader dreamed of, having borne the brunt of the blockade on his shoulders, has come to pass. What the whole Soviet country was waiting for, with tension following the life and struggle of the besieged city, happened. The feelings and thoughts of Leningraders were clearly expressed by the writer O. Berggolts in a speech on the radio of Leningrad on the night of January 19: “The blockade has been broken. We have been waiting for this day for a long time. We have always believed that it will be. We were sure of this in the darkest months of Leningrad - in January and February last year. Our relatives and friends who died in those days, those who are not with us in these solemn moments, dying, stubbornly whispered: "We will win."

They gave their lives for honor, for life, for the victory of Leningrad. And we ourselves, stony with grief, are not even able to relieve our souls with tears, burying them in the frozen ground without any honors, in mass graves, instead of a farewell word we swore to them: “The blockade will be broken. We will win". We were blackened and swollen from hunger, collapsed from weakness on the streets torn apart by the enemy, and only the belief that the day of liberation would come supported us. And each of us, looking death in the face, worked in the name of defense, in the name of the life of our city, and everyone knew that the day of reckoning would come, that our army would break through the painful blockade ”.

All this week before the breakthrough of the blockade, Leningrad lived the same way as all these 16 months. That night there were two big concerts, where they performed Scriabin and Tchaikovsky. In the theater of the House of the Red Army were Simonov's "Russian people". At the Theater of Musical Comedy, the play "The Sea Is Spread Wide" was performed.

As a result of the successful operation, the operational-strategic situation for the Soviet troops near Leningrad improved. The restoration of land communications made it possible to continuously replenish the troops of the Leningrad Front and the Baltic Fleet with human reserves and military equipment. Conditions were created for close interaction of two fronts - Leningrad and Volkhov.

As a result of seven days of fierce fighting, the troops of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts defeated up to seven fascist infantry divisions. The enemy lost more than 13 thousand soldiers and officers only in killed. Our troops destroyed more than 250 guns and 300 mortars, destroyed about 800 fortifications and shot down at least 100 enemy aircraft. They captured large trophies - up to 400 guns and mortars, 500 machine guns, up to 60 thousand shells and mines, 23 different warehouses and a large number of other types of weapons and equipment. Among the trophies was a new German Tiger tank.

A major defeat of German troops near Leningrad in January 1943 led to the fact that the Nazis' calculations to strangle the hero-city with a hunger blockade and capture it finally failed.

Operation "Neva-2"

In the early gloomy morning of January 14, 1944, the inhabitants of the city heard a mighty rumble coming from somewhere in the southwest. They had enough experience with artillery shelling to understand: they hear the sound of a large artillery barrage. "Started!" - passed from mouth to mouth.

At this time, a fiery tornado was raging on the positions of the fascist troops. They were bombarded with volleys of 14 thousand guns and mortars, several Katyusha regiments, two brigades of heavy missiles, and more than 1200 aircraft.

Operation "Neva-2" began, which was to end with the defeat of the fascist armies and the complete liberation of Leningrad from the enemy blockade. What they dreamed of for three years, what they were waiting for with great impatience. After all, the beginning of winter in the besieged city was usual - shelling, casualties, direct hits on trams. ...

Silence seemed to have settled at the front during these months. The summaries were published, too, quite ordinary. But this silence was deceiving. Everyone guessed that the offensive could begin at any moment.

Started!

Operation Neva-2 began to be developed at the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command and at the headquarters of the Leningrad Front in the summer of 1943, and on December 8 it was already discussed in sufficient detail at a meeting of the front commanders in Moscow.

It was taken into account that the strategic initiative completely passed to the Soviet troops, that the military potential of Leningrad increased significantly, and the capabilities of the fascist troops decreased. According to intelligence, the 18th German army, opposing the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts, had half the infantry, three times less artillery and mortars, and six times less tanks and self-propelled artillery mounts.

The invaders, who continued the barbaric shelling of the city, already felt extremely unreliable at its walls. The command of the 18th German Army, knowing full well that the balance of power was not in its favor, turned to Berlin with a proposal to withdraw its troops from the city and, by reducing the front line, organize a dense defense. However, the Hitlerite headquarters ordered to defend the "Severny Val" to the last bullet and the last soldier. Operation Neva-2 provided for a deep penetration of enemy defensive zones. The task was posed before the two fronts: by simultaneous strikes on the flanks of the German army southwest of Leningrad and in the Novgorod region, to break the resistance of the fascist troops and, developing the offensive, to complete the defeat of their main forces. A complete surprise for the fascist command was the fact that our troops delivered the first blow from the Oranienbaum bridgehead, a narrow strip of land near the coast of the bay. Here, on the very first day of battles, great success was achieved: the 43rd Rifle Corps advanced several kilometers and occupied the Hotels ...

Hundreds of kilometers from the Oranienbaum "patch" on the same day, assault detachments and tanks of the 59th Army launched an offensive. North of Novgorod, the 6th and 14th Rifle Corps overcame the fierce enemy resistance, occupied the first line of trenches and began to stubbornly push their way into the depths of the defense.

To the south, on the left flank of the army, a group of our units at night penetrated the enemy positions along the ice of Lake Ilmen and attacked them without artillery preparation. The blow was overwhelming for the German soldiers, who fled in panic. The group captured several strongpoints and broke through the enemy's first line of defense.

On January 15, the 42nd Army moved to storm the enemy positions. The famous 30th Guards Corps of Hero of the Soviet Union N.P.Simonyak was advancing in the main direction. At 0920 hours in the morning, land artillery and ships of the Baltic Fleet launched a mighty blow on the enemy's leading edge. A signal to attack was given from special rocket launchers, which contained 15 - 20 missiles.

The guardsmen attacked swiftly and energetically. In two days they broke into the first line of the fascist defense. The fighting went on both day and night, the crack in the "iron ring" widened with every hour.

The battle, in which all types of troops took part, unfolded over a vast area. The snow-covered fields for hundreds and hundreds of kilometers were covered with the smoke of ruptures. The roar of tank engines shook the air. Our troops were building up the force of the blow, introducing the second echelons into battle.

But the way forward was not easy. Fearing to be gripped by the troops of the two armies, the enemy command began hastily to withdraw manpower and equipment from the Uritsko-Strelna region. The fascist troops still stubbornly defended themselves, hoping to stop the advancing in the area of ​​Krasnoe Selo, which they had turned into a fortress.

By the end of the second day of the offensive, the guards occupied the southern part of the Krasnoselsky camp. Ahead were the key enemy positions - Pavlovskaya Sloboda, Krasnoe Selo, Duderhof, Voronya Gora, which were a kind of gateway to the operational space for our troops.

Dozens of kilometers have already been covered, but the fierce battles did not subside. Two guards regiments stormed the Nut, as Crow Mountain was coded. With the support of a tank regiment, they managed to capture it. The Nazis lost the highest point in the area, lost the ability to adjust the fire of their long-range batteries, which fired at Leningrad and the advancing troops.

; The guardsmen had not slept for the third day. The adversary, who was desperately resisting, was not dozing either.

The battles for Krasnoe Selo and Duderhof continued uninterruptedly for 23 hours. It was a powerful knot of resistance, which the command of the German 18th Army ordered its soldiers to defend at any cost.

On the night of January 18, the 191st Guards regiment broke through to the outskirts of Krasnoe Selo, and its right-flank battalion bypassed the city. The Nazis, pulling up their reserves, rushed to the counter. She had to be beaten off. At 10 o'clock in the morning, the offensive of the assault groups and tanks resumed.

To keep the city, the Nazis blew up the dam between the Duderhof heights, and the water rushed into the lowland, flooding the approaches to Krasnoe Selo. But this did not stop our assault teams. The soldiers rushed into the water and climbed to the opposite slope.

The first units of the guards broke through to the station and occupied the station buildings, leaving many enemy corpses on the tracks. By evening, having completely mastered the station, they began to move towards the ruins of a paper mill. The attackers were covered by direct-fire guns and mortars.

Meanwhile, tanks were moving towards the eastern outskirts of the Big Camp. At five o'clock in the afternoon, they received the order to enter the breakthrough. At night, the tanks crossed the Dudergofka. At dawn, the enemy's defenses were crumpled, communications cut. An operational space opened up ahead. Without getting involved in local battles, a mobile tank group, consisting of two brigades and two self-propelled artillery regiments with reinforcement units, rushed into the breakthrough. From the side of the Oranienbaum bridgehead, the troops of the 2nd Shock Army, breaking the enemy's resistance, also advanced towards Ropsha. Deep snow, lack of roads, well-shot terrain - all this created incredible difficulties for the attackers. With a fight, I had to take literally every meter. At 11 o'clock in the evening on January 19, a meeting of the advanced units of the 42nd Army and the 2nd Shock Army took place near the Russian-Vysotsky. In the frosty air, the words of the password and response sounded: - "Leningrad"! - "Victory"! .. The next day in the Ropsha region joined the main forces of the two armies. With the Peterhof-Strelna grouping, the enemy was

finished.

The joy of victory

On January 27, the city experienced an unprecedented celebration. The headquarters of the Supreme Command allowed the first artillery salute to be made in Leningrad. The military council of the front congratulated the troops and workers of the city on the historic victory.

The order of the front commander said:

“Courageous and staunch Leningraders! Together with the troops of the Leningrad Front, you defended our hometown. With your heroic labor and steel endurance, overcoming all the difficulties and torments of the blockade, you forged the weapon of victory over the enemy, giving all your strength to the cause of victory. On behalf of the troops of the Leningrad Front, I congratulate you on the momentous day of the great victory at Leningrad. "

At 8 o'clock in the evening over the Neva, over the embankments, avenues and streets filled with jubilant people, colored fountains of festive fireworks shot up. 324 guns fired 24 salvoes in honor of the victors.

Every volley, every burst of rockets in the dark sky was greeted by a thousand-voiced "hurray." Hearts were filled with great joy. In those minutes, even those who had not shed tears during the entire blockade were crying.

The winter-spring offensive operation of the Soviet troops in 1944 ended the battle for Leningrad.

This battle has always been in the center of attention of the Central Committee of the Party, the Headquarters of the Supreme Command and its working body, the General Staff.

Twice Hero of the Soviet Union, Marshal of the Soviet Union A.M. Vasilevsky, who in 1942-1945 was chief of the General Staff and a member of the Supreme Command Headquarters, named it among the six major battles of the Great Patriotic War, when the enemy “suffered decisive defeats, which in the aggregate, they created a radical turning point in the entire Second World War, changed its course in favor of the states and peoples of the anti-Hitler coalition. "

It is impossible to break Leningrad!

The three-year struggle for Leningrad was of tremendous political significance, for it was for the cradle of the Great October Revolution, for the outpost of the Soviet state in the North-West, for the city where Vladimir Ilyich Lenin announced to the whole world about the accomplished proletarian revolution, about the beginning of the construction of socialism.

Leningrad was of great economic importance as the second largest city in the USSR, “a large industrial center, an important transport hub. It was a key point of defense in the North-West of our country, as well as a naval base of the Baltic Fleet.

Hitler's strategists, developing plans of conquest, always viewed Leningrad as the primary target of aggression. Not without reason, they considered its capture an indispensable condition for the successful course of the entire military campaign.

Even in an atmosphere of major defeats, having lost the strategic initiative, apparently having no opportunity to defend their positions, the Nazis stubbornly held the blockade.

The directive of the commander of the 18th Army G. Lindemann, which he issued in December 1943, on the eve of the defeat of Hitler's troops at the city walls, is extremely indicative: “Leningrad was a symbol and bearer of Russian and European politics. As the source of the Bolshevik revolution, as the city of Lenin, it was the second capital of the Soviets. His release will always be one of the most important goals of the Bolsheviks. For the Soviet regime, the liberation of Leningrad would be tantamount to defending Moscow, fighting for Stalingrad ...

In cooperation with the naval forces and the Finns, the 18th Army is blocking the Soviets' access to the Baltic Sea. In this way, it contributes to the isolation of the Soviet Union from the countries of the West. The 18th Army provides maritime communication in the Baltic, which is necessary for the transport of Swedish ore. The pacified basin of the Baltic Sea is invaluable in the training of personnel for the German navy, and above all for submarines. Thanks to the 18th Army, the struggle and resistance of Finland is possible. "

This testimony of the enemy clearly shows what great strategic plans the Nazis associated with the besieged Leningrad, the city at whose walls they were ultimately completely smashed.

A total of five front-line formations took part in the battles that lasted three years - the Northern (later Leningrad), Northwestern, Volkhov, Karelian and 2nd Baltic fronts, the Baltic Fleet, the Ladoga and Onega flotillas, and a large partisan army.

The success of the defense of Leningrad was the result of the military alliance of the soldiers and workers of the city. The resilience of the Leningrad Front, its capabilities for conducting combat operations were determined by the work of Leningrad enterprises, the labor of hundreds of thousands of city workers.

Incredible tests fell to their lot. It was not by chance that Leningrad was called the city-front. There was no rear in the generally accepted sense of the word. The front line here ran through every avenue, every workshop, every house. And despite the pangs of hunger and cold, the fierce shelling and bombing, Leningraders produced a huge amount of weapons and ammunition for the front.

Their unparalleled courage, resilience and courage literally shook the peoples of the world. People in our country and abroad drew spiritual strength from their feat. In a mortal battle with a cruel enemy, overcoming the grave difficulties of the blockade, the Leningraders survived. They have experienced everything that only war can bring, they have overcome everything - and won.

The soul and organizer of the heroic defense of the city of Lenin was our glorious Communist Party. The communists inspired all defenders of the cradle of the Great October Revolution to overcome the hardships of war.

Decades have passed since the great battle for Leningrad. Not a single drop of blood shed on the Leningrad soil was wasted. The defenders of the city, who changed their tunics for work overalls, their children and grandchildren were able, in an unprecedentedly short time, not only to heal the wounds inflicted on Leningrad by the war, but also to make it even more beautiful, to multiply its industrial power.

Centuries will pass. The city on the Neva will remain beautiful. And the feat of millions of soldiers and townspeople who wrote unfading pages in the chronicle of the Great Patriotic War will never be erased in the grateful memory of mankind.

Bibliography:

"Unconquered Leningrad" - A.R.Dzeniskevich, V.M.Kovalchuk, G.L. Sobolev and others.

1. "On the Smoky Trail" - P.N. Luknitsky (USSR, 1970)
2. "Veteran" (4th edition) - N.A. Vatagin (L., 1990)
3. "Contrary to fate" - I.E. Monastyrsky (L., 1990)
4. "Leningrad. Blockade. Feat." - Y. Galperin, I. Lisochkin and others (L., 1984)
5. "900 heroic days" (Moscow - Leningrad, 1966)
6. "Defense of Leningrad" (L., 1968)
7. "Leningraders during the siege" - A. V. Karasev (M., 1970)
8. "Leningrad is a hero city" - F.I.Sirota (L., 1980)
9. "Veteran" (5th edition) - N.A. Vatagin (L., 1990)

Date of publication or update 14.11.2017

In the Petrine "Journal" for 1703 it was written: "... on the 16th day of May ... the fortress was founded and named St. Petersburg."

On the verge of the 18th century. In Russia, an all-Russian market already existed, craft enterprises, state and merchant manufactories arose, an active stratum of merchants and industrialists appeared.

Representatives of the emerging bourgeoisie and, of course, Peter I himself believed that the young power needed a port city, which would serve as an outlet to Europe for marketing its products. Petersburg became such a city. The new capital of the Russian state, which grew up on the swampy shores of the Neva, which even a pump of km 65-50-125 that was operating around the clock could not drain, became, moreover, a symbol of the abrupt Peter's reforms that turned Russia on the path of progressive development.

This marvelous, cold city, unprecedented in boyar Russia, became the embodiment of an eventful era in the history of our country, an expression of its statehood and spiritual culture.

Later here, in the center of reactionary Russian absolutism, many generations of revolutionaries fought for the freedom of the people; here Russian science and great Russian literature were born.

There is no person in the world who would not associate with the name of Leningrad the idea of ​​the city that initiated the revolutionary transformation of the world. Here, under the leadership of V. I. Lenin, in the fire of three Russian revolutions, the cadres of the Bolsheviks were forged, who led the Great October Socialist Revolution, which created the first state of workers and peasants in history.

After October, in the civil war, in times of economic devastation, in the difficult years of restoration and reconstruction of the national economy, the workers of Leningrad set an example of a courageous struggle for Soviet power. They went ahead in mastering the production of new industrial products, helped the Party in the socialist restructuring of agriculture, and laid the foundation for socialist competition for the early fulfillment of the five-year plans. It is known how highly VI Lenin praised the workers in St. Petersburg: “St. Petersburg is not Russia. St. Petersburg workers are a small part of the workers of Russia. But they are one of the best, most advanced, most conscious, most revolutionary, most firm ... detachments of the working class and all the working people of Russia "(V. I. Lenin. Poln. Sobr. Soch., Vol. 36, p. 361) ...

During the Great Patriotic War, Leningraders showed an example of the greatest perseverance and courage. In the conditions of a 900-day blockade, incredible hardships and dangers, they prepared weapons and ammunition, fought on the front lines near the walls of their native city, protected its historical monuments from bombs and fires.

Modern Leningrad is the second largest city in the USSR in terms of population (as of January 15, 1970 - 3950 thousand people). Such figures testify to his outstanding role in the country. Here more than 5% of all specialists working in the Soviet Union with higher education, over 8% of engineers, about 8% of scientific workers.

Leningrad is a center of highly qualified industry and a major transport hub that combines all types of modern transport (rail, sea, river, road, air and pipeline).

After the war, significant changes took place in the economic and geographical position of Leningrad.

Until 1940, the city of Lenin was the only Soviet port on the Baltic. After the Baltic Soviet republics, the Karelian Isthmus, and in 1945 the Kaliningrad region became part of the USSR, a kind of "division of labor" was established between the Leningrad and new Soviet ports on the Baltic Sea. In addition, extensive economic ties arose between Leningrad and the Lithuanian SSR, the Latvian SSR, and especially the Estonian SSR. On the other hand, after the war, trade relations of the Leningrad port with foreign countries and mainly with the fraternal socialist countries increased sharply.

The economic and geographical position of Leningrad also changed in relation to the regions of the European North of the country. So, throughout the Soviet period, the giant city switched to using domestic raw materials and fuel, based mainly on the resources of the European North. The power supply of the city of Lenin underwent a radical reconstruction in connection with the construction of hydroelectric power stations on the Svir, Volkhov and Vuoksa, thermal power plants on peat, the creation of gas pipelines, etc.

The development of the resources of the European North required the development and improvement of transport (completion and reconstruction of the Murmansk railway, the construction of the Pechora highway, the reconstruction of the Volgo-Balt, etc.).

Together with the strengthening of Leningrad's ties within the European North, the city's contacts with other regions of the USSR grew and became more complicated. According to data for 1959, Leningrad imported up to 70% of raw materials from other regions and exported 2/3 of its industrial products.

The specialization of the Leningrad industry is wide and diverse, and it is characterized by high quality of manufactured products, increased reliability, and technical perfection of products. Such giants of mechanical engineering as the Kirovsky plant and the Izhora plant (in Kolpino near Leningrad), the Nevsky machine-building plant named after V.I. Lenin, the Electrosila plants named after the XXII Congress of the CPSU are world famous.

Post-war Leningrad is one of the most important centers of technical progress in the country. Here are concentrated not only the largest industrial enterprises, but also numerous higher educational institutions, research and design institutes.

The main industrial products of Leningrad are mechanical engineering products (power engineering, electrical engineering, radio engineering, shipbuilding, instrument making).

Power engineering is one of the main industries in Leningrad. The city's enterprises produce powerful steam, hydraulic and gas turbines, turbine current generators, current generators, icebreakers, refrigerators, oil tankers, fishing and timber vessels, equipment for television, radio broadcasting, communications and cinema, means of complex automation and mechanization of production, equipment for knitwear, footwear and other industries.

An important feature of the Leningrad engineering industry is the prevalence of complex skilled industries and its relatively low metal consumption.

The chemical industry of Leningrad is represented by the production of rubber products, tires, plastics, artificial and synthetic fibers, fertilizers, and pharmaceuticals. Most of the light industry of the entire European North is concentrated in Leningrad. Like other large industrial centers, Leningrad is distinguished by a high proportion of people working in industry and construction (about 55% of those employed in social production).

The cultural functions of Leningrad are also complex and varied. The city of Lenin is still one of the main spiritual centers of our country. Here, in the field of education, art and science, more than 15% of the amateur population of the city is employed.

Although Leningrad, unlike Moscow and the centers of the Union republics, does not play the role of a capital city, its influence on the whole country is so great that it can be compared to cities of the capital type.

Leningrad is the largest city in the North and, by all accounts, one of the most beautiful cities in the world. His beauty is solemn, strict and at the same time lyrical. If the severity and solemnity of Leningrad can be explained by the "regular" layout of its wide and straight streets and avenues, the grandeur and harmony of architectural ensembles, the mighty and smooth view of the city of the Neva, then the note of lyricism to its landscapes is conveyed by ancient gardens, parks and squares with statues and pavilions , nestled in greenery, small rivers and canals, streaking the city in all directions.

The blockade of Leningrad by fascist German troops, which lasted for 872 days, changed the northern capital beyond recognition. Buildings on Nevsky Prospect were destroyed, tanks were driving around the city and anti-aircraft guns were stationed. A photo chronicle of the blockade years gives a good idea of ​​the conditions in which a Leningrader had to live and fight, and a comparison of blockade photographs with modern ones - about how radically Leningrad-Petersburg has changed over the past 70 years.

ligovsky Avenue

The photo shows the intersection of Nevsky Prospekt with Ligovsky, which was Ligovskaya Street during the siege. The duty officer finds the victims of the first shelling of the city by fascist artillery on the street. This was in September 1941. Soon, dead bodies on the streets will become commonplace for Leningraders, and special funeral brigades will be created to clean them up.

Victims of shelling at the corner of Ligovsky and Nevsky Prospekt. Collage: AiF / Yana Khvatova

Cinema "Khudozhestvenny"

Currently, the cinema is located in the same place as during the years of the siege - on Nevsky, 67. Since the 30s, "Khudozhestvenny" has become one of the most popular cinemas in Leningrad. The halls were filled even during the years of the siege. The cinema did not work until the first blockade winter, when the electricity supply was cut off. In the spring of 1942, the screening of films resumed. In late autumn 1941, a poster for the American film The Three Musketeers, directed by Alan Duane, hung on the walls of the cinema. Fruit was sold next to the cinema; now there is a clothing store on this place.

During the blockade, the movie theater was showing the film "The Three Musketeers". Collage: AiF / Yana Khvatova

Malaya Sadovaya

In the corner building at the intersection of Nevsky Prospekt and Malaya Sadovaya Street, during the years of the blockade, there was a hairdresser's, which worked throughout the blockade. The hairdressers took water for work from Fontanka and heated it on spirit lamps. The hairdressing salon worked here until 2006, then the Zenit-Arena store appeared in its place. Opposite the building is the Eliseev merchants' shop. During the years of the siege, there was a theater hall in which performances took place. Life in Leningrad went on against the background of death. While the store was preparing another performance, firefighters washed the blood of the dead from Nevsky Prospekt, and the funeral brigades loaded the dead people into the car.

Firefighters washed the blood of the murdered from the streets. Collage: AiF / Yana Khvatova

The funeral team loads the remains of the shelling victims into a car. Collage: AiF / Yana Khvatova

Nevsky Prospect

During the blockade, Nevsky Prospekt was the "Prospect of October 25", and only on January 13, 1944 it was returned to its historical name. During the first blockade winter, people took water from the sewerage system on Nevsky. Now, instead of tanks heading for the front line, cars are driving along the Nevsky Prospect. At the place where the women were taken to bury the deceased child, there is now an underground passage. The building of the Gostiny Dvor was badly damaged by the bombing, and already in 1945, work began on its restoration.

The tank goes to the front line. Collage: AiF / Yana Khvatova

People took water from the sewerage system on Nevsky Prospekt. Collage: AiF / Yana Khvatova

The blockade women are being taken to bury the deceased child. Collage: AiF / Yana Khvatova

Griboyedov Canal

The House of Books on the Griboyedov Canal continued to operate throughout the blockade. But the building next door, which now houses the Nevsky Prospekt metro station, was badly damaged. In November 1941, a bomb destroyed the central part of the building. During the siege, there were government offices, cafes, jewelry stores and the Small Philharmonic Hall. A year after the damage, the blockage in the building was covered with large plywood panels depicting the facade.

Engelhardt's house was heavily damaged by shelling. Collage: AiF / Yana Khvatova

The artist paints a destroyed building on Nevsky. Collage: AiF / Yana Khvatova

Nevsky, 14

Inscriptions with the text “Citizens! During shelling, this side of the street is the most dangerous. ”With the besieged Leningrad, they were inflicted on the northern and northeastern parts of the streets, since the shelling came from the Pulkovo Heights and from the side of Strelna. The inscription on Nevsky, 14, was made by the soldiers of the Local Air Defense in the summer of 1943. Currently, the inscription is accompanied by a marble plaque. In total, six such inscriptions have survived in St. Petersburg.

Now the inscription on the building is accompanied by a memorial plaque. Collage: AiF / Yana Khvatova

Palace Square

During the blockade, Palace Square was called Uritsky Square. The blockade winters were very harsh. In the photo, Leningraders are removing snow and crushed ice from the square. In those years, the area was covered with asphalt, not paving stones. Under the Arch of the General Staff building there was an inscription warning of shelling as on Nevsky Prospekt. On July 8, 1945, the winners, the soldiers and officers of the Leningrad Guards Corps, solemnly marched through the arch.

Leningraders are clearing snow on the Palace Square. Collage: AiF / Yana Khvatova

Gorokhovaya street

Gorokhovaya Street was called Dzerzhinsky Street. There was a water pump on the street where residents of the besieged city went to fetch water. In the photo, workers are repairing a trolleybus overhead wire in 1943, when electricity returned to Leningrad and there were no problems with public transport.

Workers are repairing a contact wire on Gorokhovaya Street. Collage: AiF / Yana Khvatova

Saint Isaac's Cathedral

St. Isaac's Cathedral was badly damaged by shelling. Traces of the bombing are still visible on some of the columns of the cathedral. On St. Isaac's Square in front of the cathedral during the years of the siege, cabbage beds were laid out. Now this area is covered with a lawn. On the other side of the cathedral, where the Alexander Garden is now located, was a battery of anti-aircraft guns. Then this place was called the workers' garden by him. Gorky.

From the side of the Alexander Garden, an anti-aircraft battery was stationed near the cathedral. Collage: AiF / Yana Khvatova

Cabbage was grown on the square in front of St. Isaac's Cathedral. Collage: AiF / Yana Khvatova

In order not to die of hunger, the Leningraders laid out beds in front of St. Isaac's Cathedral. Collage: AiF / Yana Khvatova

Bronze Horseman

During the years of the blockade, cultural monuments suffered enormous damage. This especially affected the monuments in the suburbs of Leningrad. The most valuable monuments were camouflaged, which helped save them from destruction. For example, the Bronze Horseman monument was sheathed with logs and boards, the monument was covered with sandbags and earth. They also did the same with the monument to Lenin at the Finland Station.

Monuments during the blockade were masked with boards and sandbags. Collage: AiF / Yana Khvatova

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Slide 2

According to the architects of those years, the party and the government set before him the task of turning the city of Lenin into an exemplary socialist city. A lengthy work began on the General Plan for the Development of Leningrad. Much attention was paid to the planning of territories and their development.

L.A. Ilyin - chief architect of post-revolutionary Petrograd - Leningrad (1924-1938) "

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The first General Plan for the development of Leningrad was developed in 1935. According to this document, it was assumed that the city would grow in a southerly direction. Over time, the new construction was supposed to cover vast territories in the south of Leningrad, where it was planned to create a city-wide center with its main highway, the Moscow highway. It was also planned to build the main administrative building there - the House of Soviets. In 1936, the plan was going to be approved, but for a number of reasons this did not happen. However, the implementation of its provisions was in full swing. The result was the development of the city along Moskovsky Avenue and Stachek Avenue (the same movement to the south). True, the territory of the Moscow region around the House of Soviets never became a new center. In the post-war General Plan, this role was still assigned to the historical part of the city. However, the document of 1948, like the previous one, was not yet in the full sense of the General Plan, since it did not have the status of a law.

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According to the General Plan, the city center was supposed to be transferred to its southern part behind the Obvodny Canal, to non-flooded areas. It was planned to continue from the old built-up area of ​​the city and build up three "rays" as front entrances to Leningrad, modern avenues - Moskovsky, Stachek, Obukhovsky defense. These rays had to be crossed by a giant arc highway (modern Leninsky Prospect - Tipanova St. - Glory Avenue - Ivanovskaya St. - Volodarsky Bridge - Narodnaya St.) In parallel with this arc from the Neva to the Neva Bay, it was decided to dig a canal. At the intersection of the avenues - beams with an arc and a channel, it was decided to create spacious areas. The heart of the new socialist Leningrad should be a huge square (present-day Moskovskaya Square) at the intersection of Mezhdunarodnaya (Moskovsky) Avenue with the arc highway. The construction of the city's government office - the House of the Leningrad Council (House of the Soviets) - began on it.

Slide 7

The huge building of the House of Soviets, built in 1936-1941 by a group of architects under the leadership of N.A.Trotsky, is fully proportional to the largest square of the city - Moskovskaya, in the center of which it is located. The central seven-story part of the building looks like a 14-column portico completed by a sculptural group on the theme of socialist construction (sculptor N.V. Tomsky) and the coat of arms of the USSR (sculptor I.V. Krestovsky). Side five-story wings, located symmetrically, are also accentuated by porticoes, and on the eastern facade of the House of Soviets there is a semi-rotunda of the conference room. The finishing of the building, which was completed after 1945, used granite, marble and precious woods. During the Great Patriotic War, this building housed a defense center and an observation post for the command of the artillery of the Leningrad Front, and at the beginning of the operation to lift the blockade of Leningrad in January 1944, it was occupied by the command of the Leningrad Front itself. After the war, various scientific institutes worked in the House of Soviets. In front of the House of Soviets, in the center of Moscow Square, there is a monument to V.I.Lenin, made by architect V.A.Kamensky and sculptor M.K. Anikushin. In addition to this monument and the House of Soviets itself, the ensemble of Moscow Square includes multi-storey residential buildings built in the second half of the 20th century. Leningrad House of Soviets, perspective of 1939

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1936 - the beginning of the construction of the House of Soviets. 1941 - the House of Soviets is fully built. 1941 - (September) creation of a defense unit and an observation post for the artillery command of the Leningrad Front. 1944 - the command of the Leningrad Front was located in the House of Soviets. 1945 - completion of the finishing of the building of the House of Soviets. 1970 - a monument to V.I.Lenin was erected in front of the building (as it was foreseen according to the 1936 project), sculptor M.K. V.A. Kamensky. 2006 - for the arrival of the G8 summit, the building was equipped with searchlights and additional lanterns. 2006 - fountains with color music were installed on the square in front of the Palace. History of the House of Soviets

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The project of transferring the city center of Leningrad, which resulted in the construction of the House of Soviets on Moscow Square, is widely known. But few people know that within the framework of this project, two more houses were built on Moskovsky Prospekt near Moskovskaya Square (Moskovsky Prospect, 206 and 208).

The construction of the houses was entrusted to the architects A.I. Gegello and S.V. Vasilkovsky. Although Gegello simultaneously took part in the competition for the House of Soviets, the project of a residential building was developed very quickly. The construction was completed in 1939.

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The grandiose five-story hotel building on Zanevsky Prospect was built in 1930 in the constructivist style characteristic of that era.

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Malokhtinsky pr., 86. Arch. G. Simonov

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IVANOVSKAYA STREET, between ave. Obukhovskoy Defense and Moscow. line Oct. f. d., part of the Center. arc line. Named in the 1890s. by fam. homeowner. In the 1910s. I. u. passed from the Neva to the present. st. Babushkina. Building I. u. associated with the development in the 1930s. ter. former the village of Shchemilovka (architects I. I. Fomin, E. A. Levinson, S. I. Evdokimov). In 1936-51, a part of the street was built up from the square in front of the Volodarsky bridge to the street. Sedov (architect Evdokimov and others), in 1956-58 - from the street. Sedova to st. Kibalchich. Formation of I. at. completed in the 1960s. On I. at. - department store "Nevsky" (house 6).

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Volodarsky Most Years of foundation of the bridge: 1932 - 1936 Total length of the bridge: 325.24 meters Length of the central drawbridge: 43.6 meters The Volodarsky bridge, located between Ivanovskaya and Narodnaya streets, was named after the famous revolutionary leader M. M. Volodarsky. The engineer of the building is G.P. Perederia, Architect A. Nikolsky

The bridge has not survived to this day, a new one was erected in its place .. On the left bank of the Neva, on both sides of the entrance to the bridge, two squares have survived .. On one of them - the building of the district council, on the other - a monument

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Obukhovskoy Oborona pr., 163 Architects: Levinson E. A. Fomin I. I. Gedike G. E. Year of construction: 1936-1939 Style: Stalinist neoclassicism

Volodarsky District Council

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V. Volodarsky was the commissioner for the press, propaganda and agitation of Petrograd and the Northern region, as well as the editor of the "Krasnaya Gazeta". In 1918, on the way to a rally, he was killed by right-wing Socialist-Revolutionaries (the monument was erected not far from the place of death). Buried on the Champ de Mars. Sculptors M.G. Manizer, L.V. Blese-Manizer, architect V.A. Vitman. The monument was opened in 1925.

Slide 19

The monument to Kirov on Kirov Square was erected in 1938. The history of its installation goes back to 1935, when, on the initiative of the workers of Leningrad, it was decided to erect a Monument to Sergei Mironovich Kirov, on the square near the Kirov City Council. Then the All-Union competition for the project of the monument was announced. more than 100 works in December 1936 were selected by the project architect N.A. Trotsky. and the sculptor Tomsky N.V. By the way, Trotsky previously designed the building of the Kirov City Council, in front of which the monument was erected. The height of the monument is more than 15 meters, 8 of which are a pedestal

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On May 3, 1925, a monument to G.V. Plekhanov was unveiled in front of the Technological Institute - one of the first to appear in Leningrad after the revolution, in accordance with Lenin's plan of monumental propaganda. The sculptor is I. Ya. Gintsburg. M. Kharlamov arch. J. Geveritz On the front side of the pedestal there is a relief inscription: “G. V. Plekhanov. 1856-1918 ". The monument is a two-figure composition: Plekhanov is shown at the pulpit, at the foot of it is a sculptural image of a printer-worker with a banner in his hands. A theorist and a number of practitioners!

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Renaming streets

Dvortsovaya pl. - Uritsky square Nevsky prospect - 25 October avenue Sadovaya st. - 3rd July street Liteiny pr. - Volodarskogo pr. Nadezhdinskaya st. - Mayakovskogo st., Nikolaevskaya st. - Marata street Znamenskaya square - Vosstaniya sq. Kazanskaya st. - Plekhanova street Bolshaya Morskaya street - Herzen street Bolshaya Konyushennaya street - Zhelyabova street Malaya Konyushennaya street - Sofya Perovskaya street Ekaterinisky - Griboyedov canal Determine what caused the renaming of streets in the post-revolutionary period?

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