Greetings to regular readers and visitors of the site! This story about besieged Leningrad is a real story told by my friend:
– We have an icon with an interesting history at home. It was presented to my great-aunt Zina by a girl she saved in besieged Leningrad.
Before the war, Zinaida lived in the Crimea. In the summer of 1940, an engineer from Leningrad, Dmitry, came to their neighbors to rest. He met Zina and soon offered her a hand and a heart. Zina, despite the fact that Dmitry was 20 years older than her, agreed. The newlyweds left for Leningrad.
Dmitry was very well provided for. He lived in a four-room apartment. There were even a servant and a cook – almost like Professor Preobrazhensky from “Heart of a Dog”. The house was attended by an intelligent audience that was in favor with the authorities. They even allowed themselves to talk about politics … In general, we lived well until the war began.
As Zina said, even after the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, many Leningraders did not think that everything would be so serious. But grief came to Zina’s family almost immediately. Dmitry’s husband was in Moscow on business. Having learned about the beginning of the war, although he had a reservation, he immediately went to the front as a volunteer and died in the very first days.
Life in besieged Leningrad
But in Leningrad it was still calm. Many neighbors, especially those with children, refused to evacuate. They were afraid that their apartments would be ransacked. Then they realized it, but it was too late. And some people even waited for the arrival of the Germans. For example, Zina recalled, the janitor said that it was a cultured nation and it would be better with them.
And the Germans kept moving forward, and it became clear that there would be no easy victory over them. People ran to savings banks trying to collect their savings. However, cash ran out quickly. Many stood in line for several hours in vain. Then the food shortage began. There were shops where you could buy delicacies, but very expensive.
Zina had some savings, but she could not afford these prices. Together with the cook and the servants, like many other Leningraders, they traveled to the surrounding villages (the Germans had not yet come close to the city) and bought food there.
Then things came into play: the peasants realized that money was depreciating, and agreed only to exchange in kind.
In those days, German planes often scattered leaflets over the city. Despite the fact that Soviet newspapers published articles describing the reliable air defense of Leningrad. And then the raids began.
The first siren, as Zinaida said, would have woken up the dead. Everyone fled to the basement, and there the walls shook from the explosions so that even ardent communists were baptized. We sat there until 12 o’clock in the morning, and then everyone went to bed.
Zina remembered the destruction of the Badayevsk warehouses for the smell of burnt sugar. And therefore, in the future, she could not stand this smell. I didn’t even eat many pastries.
How to survive?
The rates for the distribution of bread in the city were decreasing. I had to look for acquaintances through the connections of the deceased husband, through whom it was possible to exchange for food the bottles of expensive wine and cognac that were at home, as well as the remaining things.
These supplies soon ran out. The cook got a job in a factory – they gave coupons for meals there. The servant found a job in the warehouse. There she met some big boss and moved to live with him. Only once did she come to Zina out of old memory. I brought a bag of millet.
Cats and dogs disappeared in the city. People ate everything they could. It was rumored that sausages made of human flesh were sold in the market, and children often disappeared in the city. People died in thousands. Many were overtaken by death in a dream: they fell asleep and did not wake up anymore.
Request for help
Zinaida recalled that she was already indifferent to everything. In the city, dead bodies lay everywhere – in the entrances and on the streets. They were collected and carried on sleds to cemeteries like logs.
One evening Zina was walking down the street. The girl in front of her suddenly fell. Zina went up to her, and she asked for help in a whisper. Zinaida tried to help her up. And the girl suddenly grabbed her neck with a death grip. Help! Zina was terribly frightened. She somehow fought off the dying woman and walked away.
It suddenly seemed to Zina that it was death that almost took her away. Returning home, Zinaida came to her senses. She called the cook, who had already returned from the factory, and asked to go with her. They came to the place where the girl was left to lie.
Realizing the hostess’s intention, the cook began to refuse to help: they themselves have nothing to eat! But Zina, as if possessed, insisted on her own. The girl was raised to her feet and taken to her home.
Here the goner was given a piece of cake made of cake. She ate it at the moment. When the girl felt a little better, she said that her name was Ellina. She came to Leningrad to study ballet long before the siege. She could not go home from weakness, and Zina left her with her.
I must say that Zinaida, thanks to the help of Dmitry’s friends, was assigned to a military plant, although she did not work there. On coupons in the dining room, she received a bowl of soup once a day. That is how they existed. Zina and the cook brought home thin soup and divided it between three.
Then, again thanks to Dmitry’s friends, they managed to get among the evacuees. We drove in the back of a truck on the ice of Lake Ladoga. In Cherepovets, the cook died of exhaustion. She was buried in a common grave.
Ellina was left in the hospital in Cherepovets – she was dying. Zinaida also wanted to stay here, but there was neither a corner nor a job for her. She decided to move on …
Old icon
Zinaida thought Ellina was dead. But after the war, a parcel from Estonia arrived from Estonia to the Leningrad address where Zina returned. It contained an old icon and a letter from Ellina.
The girl thanked Zina for the life she had saved and asked to accept her only value – an ancient family icon. Since then, Zinaida carefully kept it, and then passed it on by inheritance.
Leningrad blockade
A story about besieged Leningrad (video). Documentary footage.
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