Memoirs of eyewitnesses about the Leningrad blockade. The true story of the siege of Leningrad - a tribute to its victims
STORIES OF THE CHILDREN OF THE BELOCADE LENINGRAD
On November 22, 1941, during the blockade of Leningrad, an ice route through Lake Ladoga began to operate. Thanks to her, many children were able to go to the evacuation. Before that, some of them went through orphanages: someone's relatives died, and someone else disappeared at work for days on end.
“At the beginning of the war, we probably did not realize that our childhood, and family, and happiness would someday be destroyed. But almost immediately we felt it,” says Valentina Trofimovna Gershunina, who in 1942, nine years old, was taken from orphanage in Siberia. Listening to the stories of the grown-up blockade survivors, you understand: having managed to save their lives, they lost their childhood. These guys had to do too many "adult" things while real adults fought - at the front or at the machine tools.
Several women who had once been taken out of besieged Leningrad told us their stories. Stories of stolen childhood, loss, and life against all odds.
"We saw grass and started eating it like cows"
The story of Irina Konstantinovna Potravnova
Little Ira lost her mother, brother and gift in the war. “I had absolute pitch. I managed to study at a music school,” says Irina Konstantinovna. “They wanted to take me to the school at the conservatory without exams, they told me to come in September. And in June the war began.”
Irina Konstantinovna was born into an Orthodox family: dad was a regent in the church, and mom sang in the choir. In the late 1930s, my father began working as the chief accountant of a technological institute. They lived in two-story wooden houses on the outskirts of the city. There were three children in the family, Ira was the youngest, she was called a stump. The Pope died a year before the start of the war. And before his death, he said to his wife: "Just take care of your son." The son died first - back in March. The wooden houses burned down during the bombing, and the family went to their relatives. “Dad had an amazing library, and we could only take the most necessary things. We packed two large suitcases,” says Irina Konstantinovna. “It was a cold April. On the way, our cards were stolen."
April 5, 1942 was Easter, and Irina Konstantinovna's mother went to the market to buy at least duranda, the pulp of seeds that remained after pressing the oil. She returned with a fever and did not get up again.
So the sisters of eleven and fourteen were left alone. To get at least some cards, they had to go to the city center - otherwise no one would have believed that they were still alive. On foot - the transport did not go for a long time. And slowly - because there was no strength. Came for three days. And the cards were stolen from them again - all but one. Her girls were given away to somehow bury their mother. After the funeral, the older sister went to work: fourteen-year-old children were already considered "adults". Irina came to the orphanage, and from there - to the orphanage. “So we broke up on the street and didn’t know anything about each other for a year and a half,” she says.
Irina Konstantinovna remembers the feeling of constant hunger and weakness. Children, ordinary children who wanted to jump, run and play, could hardly move - like old women.
“Somehow, on a walk, I saw painted “classics,” she says. “I wanted to jump. I got up, but I couldn’t tear my legs off! tears are flowing. She tells me: "Don't cry, honey, then you'll jump. We were so weak."
In the Yaroslavl region, where the children were evacuated, the collective farmers were ready to give them anything - it was so painful to look at the bony, emaciated children. There just wasn't much to give. “We saw the grass and started eating it like cows. We ate everything we could,” says Irina Konstantinovna. “By the way, no one got sick with anything.” At the same time, little Ira found out that she had lost her hearing due to the bombing and stress. Forever.
Irina Konstantinovna
There was a piano at school. I ran up to him and I understand - I can’t play. The teacher came. She says: "What are you, girl?" I answer: here the piano is out of tune. She told me: "Yes, you do not understand anything!" I'm in tears. I don’t understand, I know everything, I have an absolute ear for music ...
Irina Konstantinovna
There were not enough adults, it was difficult to look after the children, and Irina, as a diligent and smart girl, was made a teacher. She took the guys to the fields - to earn workdays. “We spread flax, we had to fulfill the norm - 12 acres per person. Curly flax was easier to spread, but after fiber flax, all hands festered,” recalls Irina Konstantinovna. “Because the little hands were still weak, scratched.” So - in work, hunger, but security - she lived for more than three years.
At the age of 14, Irina was sent to rebuild Leningrad. But she had no documents, and during a medical examination, the doctors recorded that she was 11 - the girl looked so undeveloped outwardly. So already in her hometown, she almost again ended up in an orphanage. But she managed to find her sister, who by that time was studying at a technical school.
Irina Konstantinovna
I was not hired because I was allegedly 11 years old. Do you need something? I went to the dining room to wash the dishes, peel the potatoes. Then they made documents for me, went through the archives. During the year got a job
Irina Konstantinovna
Then there were eight years of work at a confectionery factory. In the post-war city, this made it possible sometimes to eat off defective, broken sweets. Irina Konstantinovna fled from there when they decided to promote her along the party line. “I had a wonderful leader, he said: “Look, you are being prepared for the head of the shop.” I say: “Help me escape.” I thought that I should mature before the party.
Irina Konstantinovna "washed away" to the Geological Institute, and then traveled a lot on expeditions to Chukotka and Yakutia. "On the road" managed to get married. She has over half a century of happy marriage behind her. "I am very satisfied with my life," says Irina Konstantinovna. Only now she never had a chance to play the piano again.
"I thought Hitler was the Serpent Gorynych"
The story of Regina Romanovna Zinovieva
“On June 22, I was in the kindergarten,” says Regina Romanovna. “We went for a walk, and I was in the first pair. And it was very honorable, they gave me a flag ... We leave proud, suddenly a woman runs, all disheveled, and shouts: " War, Hitler attacked us!" And I thought that it was the Serpent Gorynych who attacked and his fire comes from his mouth ... "
Then the five-year-old Regina was very upset that she never walked with a flag. But very soon "Serpent Gorynych" interfered in her life much more strongly. Dad went to the front as a signalman, and soon he was taken away on the "black funnel" - they took him immediately upon returning from the assignment, without even letting him change clothes. His surname was German - Hindenberg. The girl stayed with her mother, and famine began in the besieged city.
Once Regina was waiting for her mother, who was supposed to pick her up from kindergarten. The teacher took the two late children out into the street and went to lock the doors. A woman approached the kids and offered them candy.
“We don’t see bread, there’s sweets here! We really wanted to, but we were warned that we shouldn’t approach strangers. Fear won, and we ran away,” says Regina Romanovna. “Then the teacher came out. We wanted to show her this woman, and she was already trace is gone." Now Regina Romanovna understands that she managed to escape from the cannibal. At that time, Leningraders, mad with hunger, stole and ate children.
Mom tried to feed her daughter as best she could. Once she invited a speculator to exchange pieces of fabric for a couple of pieces of bread. The woman, looking around, asked if there were any children's toys in the house. And before the war, Regina was presented with a plush monkey, she was called Foka.
Regina Romanovna
I grabbed this monkey and shouted: "Take what you want, but I will not give this one! This is my favorite." And she really liked it. She and her mother ripped out a toy from me, and I roared ... Taking the monkey, the woman cut off more bread - more than for the fabric
Regina Romanovna
Already becoming an adult, Regina Romanovna will ask her mother: "Well, how could you take away your favorite toy from a small child?" Mom said: "Perhaps this toy saved your life."
One day, while taking her daughter to the kindergarten, her mother fell in the middle of the street - she no longer had the strength. She was taken to the hospital. So little Regina ended up in an orphanage. “There were a lot of people, we were lying in a bed two by two. They put me with a girl, she was all swollen. Her legs were all in ulcers. you will be hurt.” And she told me: “No, they don’t feel anything anyway.”
The girl did not stay long in the orphanage - her aunt took her. And then, along with other kids from the kindergarten, she was sent to the evacuation.
Regina Romanovna
When we got there, they gave us semolina porridge. Oh, it was such a delight! We licked this porridge, licked the plates from all sides, but we had not seen such food for a long time ... And then we were put on a train and sent to Siberia
Regina Romanovna
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The guys were lucky: in the Tyumen region they were met very well. The children were given a former manor house - a strong, two-story one. They stuffed mattresses with hay, gave them land for a vegetable garden and even a cow. The guys weeded the beds, fished and gathered nettles for cabbage soup. After hungry Leningrad, this life seemed calm and well-fed. But, like all Soviet children of that time, they worked not only for themselves: the girls from the older group looked after the wounded and washed bandages in the local hospital, the boys, along with their teachers, went to logging. This work was hard even for adults. And the older children in the kindergarten were only 12-13 years old.
In 1944, the authorities considered the fourteen-year-old children already old enough to go to restore the liberated Leningrad. “Our manager went to the district center - part of the way on foot, part on hitches. The frost was 50–60 degrees,” recalls Regina Romanovna. “She traveled for three days to say: the children are weak, they will not be able to work. Only seven or eight of the strongest boys were sent to Leningrad."
Regina's mother survived. By that time, she worked at a construction site and corresponded with her daughter. It remained to wait for the victory.
Regina Romanovna
The manager had a crepe de chine red dress. She tore it up and hung it up like a flag. It was so beautiful! So, no regrets. And our boys staged a salute: they spread all the pillows and threw feathers. And the teachers didn't even fight. And then the girls collected feathers, made pillows for themselves, and the boys were left without pillows. This is how we celebrated Victory Day
Regina Romanovna
The children returned to Leningrad in September 1945. In the same year, they finally received the first letter from Regina Romanovna's father. It turned out that he had been in the camp in Vorkuta for two years already. Only in 1949 did the mother and daughter receive permission to visit him, and a year later he was released.
Regina Romanovna has a rich family tree: there was a general in her family who fought in 1812, and her grandmother defended the Winter Palace in 1917 as part of the women's battalion. But nothing played such a role in her life as a German surname inherited from long-Russified ancestors. Because of her, she not only almost lost her father. Later, the girl was not taken to the Komsomol, and already an adult, Regina Romanovna herself refused to join the party, although she held a decent post. Her life has turned out happily: two marriages, two children, three grandchildren and five great-grandchildren. But she still remembers how she did not want to part with the monkey Foka.
Regina Romanovna
The elders told me: when the blockade began, the weather was fine, the sky was blue. And a cross of clouds appeared over Nevsky Prospekt. He hung for three days. It was a sign to the city: it will be incredibly hard for you, but still you will endure
Regina Romanovna
"We were called" vykovyrki"
The story of Tatyana Stepanovna Medvedeva
Mom called little Tanya the last child: the girl was the youngest child in a large family: she had a brother and six sisters. In 1941 she was 12 years old. “On June 22, it was warm, we were going to go sunbathing and swimming. And suddenly they announced that the war had begun,” says Tatyana Stepanovna. “We didn’t go anywhere, everyone cried, screamed ... And my brother immediately went to the military enlistment office, said: I will go to fight” .
Parents were already elderly, they did not have the strength to fight. They quickly died: dad - in February, mom - in March. Tanya sat at home with her nephews, who were not much different from her in age - one of them, Volodya, was only ten. The sisters were taken to defense work. Someone dug trenches, someone took care of the wounded, and one of the sisters collected dead children around the city. And relatives were afraid that Tanya would be among them. “Ray’s sister said: ‘Tanya, you won’t survive here alone.’ The nephews were taken apart by their mothers — Volodya was taken to the factory by his mother, he worked with her, — says Tatyana Stepanovna. — Raya took me to the orphanage. Road of life."
The children were taken to the Ivanovo region, to the city of Gus-Khrustalny. And although there were no bombings and "125 blockade grams", life did not become simple. Subsequently, Tatyana Stepanovna talked a lot with the same grown-up children of besieged Leningrad and realized that other evacuated children did not live so hungry. Probably, it's a matter of geography: after all, the front line here was much closer than in Siberia. “When the commission came, we said that there was not enough food. They answered us: we give you horse portions, and you all want to eat,” recalls Tatyana Stepanovna. She still remembers these "horse portions" of gruel, cabbage soup and porridge. As is the cold. The girls slept in twos: they lay down on one mattress, covered themselves with another. There was nothing else to hide.
Tatyana Stepanovna
The locals didn't like us. They called them "tricks". Probably because when we arrived, we began to go from house to house, asking for bread ... And it was hard for them too. There was a river there, in winter I really wanted to run on skates. The locals gave us one skate for the whole group. Not a couple of skates - one skate. Riding in turns on one leg
Tatyana Stepanovna
Remembering the siege of Leningrad, we read the stories of those who survived 900 harsh days and did not give up - they survived ...
They endured a lot: cold (everything that burns went into the furnace, even books!), hunger (the norm for issuing bread was 150 grams, they caught birds, animals!), thirst (water had to be drawn from the Neva), darkness (the lights went out, the walls of houses covered with frost), the death of relatives, friends, acquaintances ...
On January 27, 1944, the blockade of Leningrad was lifted. 72 years have passed. A lifetime... Reading about this time is both hard and painful. For today's schoolchildren, the blockade is a long history.
Let us recall how the blockade was broken with dry numbers, and then we will read the stories-memories of those terrible days.
January 15 - In the Pulkovo Heights area, the 42nd Army cut the Krasnoe Selo - Pushkin road to the enemies.
January 17 - Fierce battles began for Voronya Gora - the highest point in the Leningrad region. The 2nd shock army continues fighting in the Ropshinsky direction.
January 20 - In the Ropsha area, the advanced units of the 42nd Army and the 2nd Shock Army united and completely surrounded the enemy grouping.
January 21 - The enemy grouping is destroyed. The troops of the Volkhov Front liberated the city of Mga.
On the evening of January 27, in honor of the complete liberation of Leningrad from the blockade, a solemn artillery salute from 324 guns thundered on the banks of the Neva.
Sometimes you will hear the comparison: "Just like in a blockade." No, not like a blockade. And God forbid anyone else to experience what the adults and children of Leningrad experienced: a piece of bread baked during the siege - an ordinary daily ration - almost weightless ...
But the inhabitants of the city, doomed to starvation, did not have anger. A common grief, a common misfortune rallied everyone. And in the most difficult conditions, people remained people.
Evgenia Vasilievna Osipova-Tsibulskaya, a resident of besieged Leningrad, recalls this. In those terrible years, she lost her entire family, was left alone, but did not disappear - she survived. Survived thanks to those who helped the little girl stay alive...
The passport to Zhenya Osipova was issued after the war, in the 48th year. She graduated from school in the 51st, entered the journalism department of the philological faculty at Leningrad University, worked as a correspondent on Sakhalin, in Leningrad newspapers, a librarian, and a lecturer. She spoke to schoolchildren and told them about what she experienced during the war.
The stories of Evgenia Vasilievna will not leave you indifferent.
E.V. Cybulska
From stories about the blockade
"MIR" CRASHED
I hold flowers in my hand. From the threshold I shout:
Mom, look! Lilies of the valley in the dew! - And I stop at the door, closing my eyes.
The whole room is in brilliant bouquets. Sunbeams jump on the walls, ceiling, floor. In the dazzling light, Mom kneels and collects the pieces of the broken mirror.
This mirror - from floor to ceiling, in a beautiful frame - we called "peace". It reflected the world outside. In autumn - flying golden leaves from maples and lindens, in winter - swirling snowflakes, in spring - singing birds at our feeder, and in summer - sunlight and blooming lilacs tumble from the front garden into the open window. And always playing in the yard girls and boys.
What if there is no "peace"? I say bitterly:
It's a pity ... "Mir" crashed!
Daughter! War! - Mom answers and hides her tear-stained face in a towel.
Molotov’s speech is broadcast on the radio: “Our cause is just ... the enemy will be defeated ... victory will be ours!”
IVAN TSAREVICH
At the front, my elder brother Ivan composed a military fairy tale for me and signed it "Ivan Tsarevich". In each "triangle" came its continuation. But the last letter I could not understand. One sentence is written in large letters: “I’m doing well, only my legs have dulled ...”
Mom, - I pestered, - knives can become dull, but how about legs?
Mom went to the neighbors.
Calm down, Andreevna! - they consoled. - For reasons of military censorship, it is impossible to tell Ivan that in the army with rations it is a bit tight. Here is the code I wrote...
I did not know what a “code” was, and urgently sent a message to the front: “Ivan Tsarevich! What's with the feet joke? I don't know such a story."
Another letter came in response. I re-read it several times: “Gangrene ... amputated ... agony ... personnel ... wounded ...”
What is "gangrene" and "amputated"? These words are not in the dictionary of the school textbook. But I still caught the main thing: my Ivan Tsarevich remained only in a fairy tale:
He did not drive the waves of the sea,
The stars did not touch the gold ones,
He protected the child
Rocked the cradle...
STAY BOY!
Well, winter was in the 42nd! Fierce, snowy, long! And all gray. Gray-haired houses frowned, trees frozen from the cold turned gray, bushes and roads were wrapped in gray snowdrifts. The air is also gray and evil - there is nothing to breathe ...
The new year began with losses. On the first of January grandfather Andrey passed away. A week later, two sisters died on the same day - Verochka and Tamarochka. The brother died a few days later in the firebox of a round stove, basking on warm bricks. Mom found out about it only in the morning when she threw lit paper there.
In desperation, she broke the stove with an ax to get her brother out of there. The bricks did not give in, crumbled, the iron bent, and my mother pounded on the stove to the right and left, turning it into ruins. I raked a chipped brick.
The next day my mother could not get out of bed. I had to take care of the household, involuntarily become a “boy”. The whole house is my concern: chips, potbelly stove, water, shop.
From my brother, not only his affairs, but also clothes passed to me. Gathering in line, I put on his coat, hat with earflaps, felt boots. I've always been cold. I stopped undressing for the night, but in the early morning I was already ready to go for food. Waited in line for a long time. In order not to freeze, she pounded her legs and rubbed her face with mittens.
Women encouraged me
Hold on, little one! Look what a "tail" is stretching behind you ...
Once in a bakery, a woman standing behind me said to me:
Boy! Is mom alive?
At home lies...
Take care of her! Don't eat appendages on the way, bring everything to your mother!
And my mother is not a dystrophic! - I said. She even got better.
Why is she lying then? Tell him: let him get up, otherwise he will weaken.
Wait, wait! - another woman grabbed me by the sleeve, whose face was not visible at all, it was hidden in a scarf. - Doesn't she have dropsy?
I don't know... - I drawled in bewilderment. Her face is shiny and her legs are thick.
Having redeemed the bread, I hurried home. Falling into the snow, she climbed through the snowdrifts on all fours and dragged her mother's bread ration, with all the extras. Frozen, in hoarfrost, the bread hit the table with a brick. We have to wait until it thaws. Falling asleep, I leaned against the wall.
And at night, as if someone pushed me in the side. She opened her eyes - it was dark, she listened - quietly. She lit the oil lamp, poured water, lowered a piece of bread into it.
Mom didn’t want to swallow for anything and mooed loudly.
Mother! I begged her. - Eat some bread... and speak in words...
But my mother's huge glassy eyes were already staring indifferently at the ceiling.
It happened early in the morning. Simultaneously: mother's death and fire. The school I used to go to burned down.
"DRAW THE FOOD!"
Let's build our own fortress and live in it! - suggests sister. - War will never find us in the fortress.
We dragged all our clothes onto the bed, lowered the blankets all the way to the floor. The walls and floor were covered with pillows. The "fortress" turned out to be warm and quiet. Now, as soon as the "air raid" was announced on the radio, we climbed into our shelter and waited for the "all clear" there.
My sister doesn't understand war at all. She believes that the Nazis only drop bombs on our house, and asks to go to another where there is no war. From hunger, the little sister loses her memory. She does not remember what sugar, porridge, milk are ... Swinging like a dummy, she is waiting for her mother with gifts. Mom died before our eyes. Has she forgotten that too?
I found paper, pencils, leftover paints in my father's drawer. I lay everything out on the table. I warm my hands and get to work. I draw a picture "Little Red Riding Hood met a wolf in the forest."
Fascist! says the sister angrily. - Ate grandma! Don't choke, cannibal! Draw, - my sister gives me a task, - some food ...
I draw pies that look like rolls. My sister licks the paper, and then quickly eats my drawing and asks:
Draw more and more...
I draw all sorts of things on a sheet with a simple pencil, and my sister immediately destroys everything, stuffing it into her mouth. And I, turning away, swallow the remains of a notebook sheet.
My sister divides my drawings into two piles. One - "edible" - hides in the "fortress", the other - "harmful" - in the "potbelly stove", pronouncing strictly:
So that there were no fascists!
WHAT IS A HOSPITAL?
Unbearably cold. We don't heat a broken stove. And there is nothing to kindle the “potbelly stove” - the chips ran out. Sheds have long been dismantled for firewood. They broke the porch of our house, two steps remained. Stools, shelves, whatnot were burned. The kitchen table, where food for the day used to be stored, has been preserved. Now it is empty. And we don't sit at the table anymore. We chew our pieces without hot water. Sister sucks a cotton blanket day and night. From weakness, she cannot get out of the “fortress”, she does not recognize me, she calls me “mother”.
I went to look for the boss. They were a young girl. In a fur hat, in a short coat, in men's mittens and felt boots not for growth. She looked like a bunny. Here he will take it now and jump into the snow.
What's up girl? her tiny voice calls out. - You're all trembling!
Save my little sister, I ask, help her!
The "Bunny" is silent for a long time, leafing through the notebook, and then asks:
Do you want to go to the hospital? Can be determined!
I helplessly look at the "bunny", I'm afraid to refuse or agree. I don't know what "hospital" is...
Two places ... - the girl says and writes something in a notebook. - I'll come for you... Give me the address...
There were no two places in the hospital. They took my sister as the weakest. Next turn is mine...
COME MAY!
I was left alone.
A day passes, and I put a stick on the door with a pencil. I'm waiting for May. With warmth, streams, herbs. This is my hope. The sticks "passed" March, "moved" to April, but spring still does not come. Snow falls in large flakes, tightly covering the ground.
I don't want more white! I scream in an empty house. I scream to hear my voice. There is no one in the rooms. All neighbors are dead.
Burying my face in the pillow, I whine like a dog:
When will everything be green?
I try to get up and look out the window. Icicles are crying on the roof, their tears flow directly onto the windowsill.
Like a door slammed!
Which door? There are no doors, they were burned when the house was empty. Only two doors remain. Katyusha Minaeva - she needs a door, it says: "Digs trenches." And mine. She is in a dark corridor, no one can see her. This is where I keep my calendar. I put the sticks at the very bottom, because I can't reach the real calendar. I can only look at him. And next to the calendar hangs on a carnation a portrait of the one whom I look forward to with such impatience. She drew with colored pencils. I saw her like this. All in blue, joyful, smiling!
Spring! The face is like that of the sun, only blue, in orange-red colors. Eyes - two small suns, similar to blue lakes, from which blue and yellow rays come. On the head is a wreath of grass and bright flowers. Braids are green branches, and between them are blue rays. These are streams ... I am waiting for spring, as the dearest person.
Footsteps were heard outside the door. Yes, steps! They are approaching my door. Isn't spring knocking with its heels? They say she goes with a ring. No, it rings and crackles on the floor of broken glass. Why does it ring like that?
Finally, the door opens wide, and I see the long-awaited guest in an overcoat and boots. The face is joyful, the hands are gentle, affectionate.
How I've been waiting for you!
Spinning with happiness, I plunged into the spring blue under the children's lullaby that my mother sang to us:
Come, oh May!
We are children
We are waiting for you soon!
Come, oh May!
I didn't recognize my father.
ORDER: STOP!
In the evening, a fire burned in a broken stove. Dad put his bowler hat on the cart and heated the water. A bath was being prepared for me in a barrel.
Now we're going to bathe! Dirt something! It's like you haven't washed in ages! - and put me in thick steam. From the barrel, I watch how dad lays out black squares of crackers on the tablecloth, pours a pile of sugar, puts cans. Duffel bag hung on a carnation next to my "spring".
After washing, I sit at the table in my father's clean shirt and swallow black pasta with butter. Hardly anyone had such joy. And yet I ask anxiously:
Dad, are you going to war again?
I'll go! he says. - Here I will put things in order on the "Baltic" and go to my "horse".
The horse, I know, is a tank. What about Baltika? Password?
Dad laughs. Sitting down next to me, he watches me swallow food.
- "Baltika" - you, my dear ... - he whispers. - I'll take you to the hospital tomorrow. They'll treat you there... from there they'll send you to an orphanage... not for long, while I'm fighting... You'll go to school... And then the war will end...
How many days do you need for this?
What days? Dad doesn't understand.
Days ... how long will the war end? I would draw such a calendar ... - I point to the door with sticks and a drawing of spring. - So the days of war would pass faster ...
Hey brother, this is not an easy task. The whole state decides it. The fascist must be defeated! In the meantime ... look, dug in ... near Leningrad itself.
I think, anxiety appears, but dad interrupts the conversation:
Get up early tomorrow ... a lot of work!
However, we didn't have anything to do tomorrow.
A little light a messenger came to us - dad urgently needs to come to the unit. Hope for treatment, school, a new life collapsed.
Now dad will put on an overcoat and go to war. Wrapped in a blanket, I'm afraid to breathe. Dad picks me up along with the blanket and puts me on my feet. I'm settling down He picks up again. I sit down again. Dad picks up, I fall.
I can't walk! I cried.
Do you know how to beat a Fritz? He starves us, and we will take it and stand! And we won't kneel! Here is your victory... There is no one else and nothing to lose, you yourself must hold on with your teeth... Through force, you still stand... as in battle... This is an order!..
It's time for dad to leave!
He comes to the door, removes the duffel bag from the carnation, puts on his overcoat, examining my picture.
Spring came! he says. - Soon there will be greenery, a good help ...
Take spring with you! She is happy!
Dad didn't take my picture.
Everyone has their own spring. This one came to you, so it's yours... And mine is waiting in the tank, on the front lines...
For the last time, dad presses me to him, strokes my hair, reminds me: "Stop ... and that's it."
I didn't cry. As an adult, she said parting words:
If only the bullet didn't hit you!
Dad died in the autumn of 1942 near Leningrad.
TIKHOMIROVA AND DMITRY KIRILLOVICH
I'm Tikhomirova... - said the girl in the uniform. - I came for you ... Let's go to the orphanage to the guys ...
She threw a large mother's scarf over my head, pulled on a warm sweater. Then she closed the door with sticks drawn by me and a calendar for waiting for spring and wrote in large chalk: “Front”.
Taking my hand firmly, she hurried on. Pressing close to Tikhomirova, I, cautiously looking into her face, confessed:
They may not accept me in an orphanage - I ate a ration two days in advance ...
I did not hear the answer - something burst very close. Tikhomirova released my hand, and some kind of force hit me painfully in the back and carried me onto the tram rails ...
Where I am? - I can barely speak with thick parched lips, examining the stairs above my head.
Someone takes me along with a pillow and lifts me up. I look and I can't figure out who it is. A boy in a man's jacket, in a hat with earflaps.
Winter again? - I get scared of his warm hat and close my eyes.
Here, drink some boiling water... it will make you feel better...
The boy brings a hot mug to my lips. Because of the pain in my mouth, I turn away.
Everything is mixed up - when it's day, when it's night. It's dark all the time and the stove smokes. That's why I sleep all day long. I wake up: a boy in an earflap is sitting next to me with an iron mug in his hands.
Who are you? I whisper and don't close my eyes. Disappear or not?
Am I? he asks and thinks over the answer for a long time. - Dmitry Kirillovich, I ... I work at a factory ... I receive a work card ...
The boy's entire forehead is covered in soot, and his nose is dotted with brown. He does not look like a worker at all, and I say disappointedly:
I thought you were a boy...
The boy shrugs, leans awkwardly over me, knocking over a mug of hot water. Confused, he asks:
Get better, but... I'll help you get settled... It hurts, you're still small... Maybe they'll give you an "employee"...
We live under the stairs in a tiny closet with no window. A streak of light falls through a narrow slit. We do not have a stove, so Dmitry Kirillovich adapted an iron barrel. The pipe goes straight to the stairs. Smoke does not bother anyone - the house is empty.
I call Dmitry Kirillovich by his first name and patronymic, as he said. Worker. You have to respect. He leaves for work early in the morning, he is absent for days - he performs a "secret task". I wait for him and boil water with "rye".
And when Dmitry Kirillovich comes under the stairs, we have a real holiday. He puts his delicacies on the table: pieces of duranda, with purple potato sprouts, shakes bread crumbs out of his pockets. He cuts potatoes into round slices and glues them to the walls of a hot iron barrel. The smell becomes exactly like in the sand pits when we baked potatoes on the fire.
One day a boy mysteriously asks me:
You... how is it... without me? Will you live?
I shrink into a ball, anticipating something was wrong, put aside a mug of porridge. Dmitry Kirillovich also pushes the duranda aside, rakes the crumbs into a heap, and says decisively:
I'm going to war, little sister!
How they go to war, I already know. I swallow potatoes salted with tears. Dmitry Kirillovich consoles:
Soon ours will go on the offensive ... and I will go ...
He tilted his head, his cap slipped off, revealing his gray hair.
Old man! I screamed.
I turned white in one night ... I didn’t notice how ... - and Dmitry Kirillovich began to tell:
They didn’t leave the workshop for two days ... Everyone was on duty ... Bombs were flying ... Many wounded ... The master was killed ... my dad ... He returned home on the third day in the morning ... And on my black snow - six, swollen and burned ... The house burned down before my eyes ... - He spoke incoherently and abruptly, was silent for a long time, choosing his words, and ended the story with a confession:
You saved me...
I corrected it:
You messed up! It was you who saved me!
Salvation is different ... Now my salvation is the front! I'm going to take revenge on the bastards! I would have gone into reconnaissance a long time ago ... yes, daddy was standing at the machine ... The other day a replacement came ...
Can I come with you? I barely heard.
Hold on here! he demanded sternly. - The most correct thing is to go to a school where they feed. You won't get lost! Heard there is...
"GENERAL" CLASS
I was standing in front of a large table, at which sat a woman dressed in a man's jacket. For a few minutes she studied the thick book, turning the pages slowly. Having found the right one, she buried herself in it and ran a nervous finger over the graphs:
Andrew... January...
Fedor... January...
Anatoly... January...
Tamara... January...
Faith... January...
The woman took a breath.
Olga ... March, 31st ... I did not receive cards for April ...
This is my mother ... - I explained, but the woman, not listening to me, continued:
Evgeniya... April...
Everything ... - the woman summed up and slammed the book shut. - The Osipovs died at the beginning of 1942!
In order not to collapse, I grabbed the table on which the ominous book lay. Tears flowed down my cheeks.
I am alive! See? I am breathing! I screamed in despair in a hoarse voice. - Touch me!
The woman looked at me indifferently, addressing me as if to a ghost, repeating in a monotone:
Died... Everyone died! That's what it says in the book!
I need a card for May! Without her, I would die!
The woman spoke coldly.
Submit your documents!
Documentation! Yes, I have never held them in my hands.
Suddenly, another woman appeared in front of me, dressed in a military style, and asked rudely:
What are you rumbling?
I began my new explanation with tears.
So what?! the woman interrupted sharply. - You're the only one, right? Tears won't help! Once you decide to study - go to school! In life, you need to look for a masculine character. And you can't be weak! It's a hole!.. And we'll give you a card! So what, what without documents ... You yourself are a document!
But I calmed down only when I held brand new multi-colored sheets in my hands, which guaranteed me with their coupons a minimum - salvation.
Well, where is this school that Dmitry Kirillovich spoke about?
You won't be accepted to school!
Why won't they accept? - my heart beats.
Need weed! - explains the boy in a black sweater and black pants. - Grass two kilograms ... swans, nettles ... pine needles ... Then they will put on allowance!
I'm with a card ... - I say, considering the ration card the most important.
A girl with long braids comes up to me, takes my hand:
Let's go to! I have extra grass. You will be recorded, and tomorrow you will pick yourself up. Fresh!
We are heading towards the school.
What class would you like to go to? the girl starts talking.
In the third ... - I answer, thinking.
While you will walk, like everyone else, in the "common".
Literature
Tsibulskaya E.V. From stories about the blockade / Iskorka. - 1991. - No. 1.
The year 1942 turned out to be doubly tragic for Leningrad. In addition to the famine that claims hundreds of lives every day, an invasion of rats was added. Eyewitnesses recall that rodents moved around the city in huge colonies. When they crossed the road, even the trams were forced to stop, according to Day.Az, citing F4B.
The siege survivor Kira Loginova recalled that "... a crowd of rats in long ranks, led by their leaders, moved along the Shlisselburg tract (now Obukhov Defense Avenue) straight to the mill, where they ground flour for the whole city. They shot at rats, they tried to crush them with tanks, but nothing worked: they climbed onto the tanks and safely rode on them further. It was an organized enemy, smart and cruel ... "
All types of weapons, bombing and fire of fires were powerless to destroy the "fifth column" that ate the blockade fighters who were dying of hunger. The gray creatures ate even the crumbs of food that remained in the city. In addition, because of the hordes of rats in the city, there was a threat of epidemics. But no "human" methods of rodent control helped. And cats - the main rat enemies - have not been in the city for a long time. They were eaten.
A bit sad but honest
At first, those around condemned the "cat-eaters".
“I eat according to the second category, so I have the right,” one of them justified himself in the fall of 1941.
Then excuses were no longer required: a cat dinner was often the only way to save a life.
"December 3, 1941. Today we ate a fried cat. Very tasty," a 10-year-old boy wrote in his diary.
"We ate the neighbor's cat with the whole communal apartment at the beginning of the blockade," says Zoya Kornilyeva.
"It got to the point in our family that my uncle demanded that Maxim's cat be eaten almost every day. When we left home, my mother and I locked Maxim with a key in a small room. We also had a parrot, Jacques. In good times, our Zhakonya he sang and talked. And then, from hunger, he was all peeled off and quieted down. A few sunflower seeds, which we traded for my father's gun, soon ran out, and our Jacques was doomed. Maxim the cat also barely wandered - the wool came out in tufts, the claws were not removed, he even stopped meowing begging for food. One day, Max managed to get into Jaconne's cage. Otherwise, there would have been a drama. But this is what we saw when we returned home! The bird and the cat were sleeping in a cold room, huddled together. Uncle was so affected that he stop eating the cat...
“We had a cat Vaska. A favorite in the family. In the winter of 1941, his mother took him somewhere. She said that they would feed him fish there, we can’t ... In the evening, my mother cooked something like cutlets. Then I was surprised where we got meat from? I didn’t understand anything ... Only later ... It turns out that thanks to Vaska we survived that winter ... "
“The glass in the house flew out during the bombing, the furniture was stopped for a long time. Mom slept on the windowsill - fortunately they were wide, like a bench, - hiding with an umbrella from rain and wind. Once someone, having learned that my mother was pregnant with me, gave her a herring - she so wanted salty... At home, my mother put the gift in a secluded corner, hoping to eat it after work. But when she returned in the evening, she found a tail from a herring and greasy stains on the floor - the rats feasted. It was a tragedy that only those who survived the blockade would understand " - says an employee of the temple of St. Seraphim of Sarovsky Valentin Osipova.
Cat means victory
Nevertheless, some townspeople, despite the severe hunger, took pity on their favorites. In the spring of 1942, half-dead from hunger, an old woman took her cat outside for a walk. People approached her, thanked her for saving him.
One former blockade survivor recalled that in March 1942 she suddenly saw a skinny cat on a city street. Several old women stood around her and made the sign of the cross, and an emaciated, skeleton-like policeman made sure that no one caught the animal.
In April 1942, a 12-year-old girl, passing by the Barricade cinema, saw a crowd of people at the window of one of the houses. They marveled at the extraordinary sight: on the windowsill brightly lit by the sun lay a tabby cat with three kittens. “When I saw her, I realized that we survived,” this woman recalled many years later.
furry special forces
As soon as the blockade was broken in 1943, a decree was issued signed by the chairman of the Leningrad City Council on the need to "discharge smoky cats from the Yaroslavl region and deliver them to Leningrad." The Yaroslavl people could not fail to fulfill the strategic order and caught the required number of smoky cats, which were then considered the best rat-catchers.
Four wagons of cats arrived in a dilapidated city. Some of the cats were released right there at the station, some were distributed to residents. Snapped up instantly, and many did not have enough.
L. Panteleev wrote in the blockade diary in January 1944: "A kitten in Leningrad costs 500 rubles." A kilogram of bread was then sold by hand for 50 rubles. The watchman's salary was 120 rubles.
For a cat they gave the most expensive thing we had - bread. I myself left a little of my rations, so that later I could give this bread for a kitten to a woman whose cat had lambed, - recalled Zoya Kornilyeva.
The cats that arrived in the dilapidated city, at the cost of heavy losses on their part, managed to drive the rats away from the food warehouses.
Cats not only caught rodents, but also fought. There is a legend about a red cat, which took root in the anti-aircraft battery near Leningrad. The soldiers nicknamed him "the hearer", as the cat accurately predicted the approach of enemy aircraft with his meow. Moreover, the animal did not react to Soviet aircraft. They even put the cat on allowance and assigned one private to look after him.
Cat mobilization
Another "batch" of cats was brought from Siberia to fight rodents in the cellars of the Hermitage and other Leningrad palaces and museums. Interestingly, many cats were domestic - the inhabitants of Omsk, Irkutsk, Tyumen themselves brought them to collection points to help the people of Leningrad. In total, 5 thousand cats were sent to Leningrad, which coped with their task with honor - they cleared the city of rodents, saving the remnants of food for people, and the people themselves from the epidemic.
The descendants of those Siberian cats still live in the Hermitage. They are well taken care of, they are fed, treated, but most importantly, they are respected for conscientious work and help. A few years ago, a special Hermitage Cat Friends Foundation was even created in the museum.
Today, more than fifty cats serve in the Hermitage. Everyone has a special passport with a photo. All of them successfully protect museum exhibits from rodents. Cats are recognized in the face, from the back and even from the tail by all museum staff.
"He who remembers the past thinks about the future" - folk wisdom
It is not easy to meet with the military past, but it is also impossible to forget about it. About how many wartime events related to our native city, village, we know inexcusably little, or nothing at all. But the attitude to the past is considered an indicator of the moral health of society, its cultural level. Assessing the present and our actions, we put the past side by side and construct the future.
Separate episodes of their memoirs, collected into a single whole, are a story about the exploits and courage of people who did not allow the enemy to defeat Leningrad.
From here you can find out the life of besieged Leningrad, how hard it was for people at that time.
“The most terrible days were when the bombing of Leningrad began. In July, there was still nothing, but on September 8, the Badaev warehouses caught fire. It was the strongest impression for all Leningraders, because these were food warehouses. Fire and glow stood over the city for several days, streams of sugar molasses flowed. The city was deprived of its provisions." (Anna Noevna Soskina)
“When the blue lights went out, we had to walk from memory. When the night is bright, you are guided by the roofs of houses, and when it is dark, it is worse. The cars didn’t move, you stumble upon people who didn’t have a firefly badge on their chests ”(from the diary of O.P. Solovieva)
People had nothing to eat, they were starving. For them, almost everything had to be eaten ...
“During the blockade, we ate peat, it was sold on the market, it was called black cottage cheese. Peat was dipped in salt and washed down with warm water. Plant roots were still preserved in the peat. It was a very difficult year. A lot of people died." (Mirenko L.I.)
“Once dad brought us a cat, and it didn’t occur to us to refuse it ... I believe that everyone should know the truth. After all, Leningraders ate not only cats and dogs, but everything that was more or less edible. On cards, instead of soup with cereals, they received yeast soup, ate the grass that they could eat. If there was nothing to eat, we just sucked salt and drank water and it seemed that we were full ”(Volkova L.A.)
“Children of besieged Leningrad is the most acute concept. I saw not only deadly hunger and cold, but death every day. The constant feeling of hunger fettered all thoughts. At seven or eight years old, I looked like a little old woman, wrapped in several scarves, sweaters and coats ... and I myself was part of this rags ”(Yulia Vladislavovna Polkhovskaya)
From the memoirs, we see how difficult it was for people to live in the winter: “In winter, they burned everything they could: books, chairs, cabinets, tables. It was terrible to look at the communal apartments: there was no water, the toilets did not work, there was dirt all around. For water they went to the Neva, where a hole was made, and they scooped up water in a mug, in a glass. All this was carried on a sled: you tie a bucket, and bring home no more than two liters, since it was far away and did not have enough strength. It was cold and hungry, but they did not lose heart. Often people gathered and listened to the information bureau messages from the front on the radio, which was installed on the square. (Boikova N.N.)
But, despite such hard times, there were still pleasant moments for the inhabitants of the city.
“Even during the war, Leningrad preserved its spiritual life. I remember in the summer of 1941, in the building of the Academy of Arts, an exhibition of diploma works of former students who became soldiers of the Red Army - they were released from the front to defend their diplomas. Radio throughout the blockade was the personification of life. For a long time only it connected us with the mainland. Around the clock, a metronome pounded from the black plate of the loudspeaker: slowly - at rest and quickly - during bombing and shelling. The spirit of the townspeople was supported by the speeches of Akhmatova, Bergholz, Simonov, Tikhonov, Vishnevsky, 98-year-old Dzhambul, journalist Magrachev.
Libraries, theaters, cinemas, and printing houses have started working with the arrival of heat. And what was the cost of the blockade football, which was broadcast on the radio! In early August, Shostakovich's 7th symphony about the resilience of Leningraders and faith in Victory sounded from the large hall of the Leningrad Philharmonic. (Chaplinskaya K.N.)
“Everything possible and impossible was done to distract us from thoughts about food. Suddenly the gramophone started up, and the apartment was filled with the sounds of pre-war romances. “Now it’s winter, but the same spruces, covered with dusk, are standing ...” - Isabella Yuryeva sang. However, this quickly bothered my brother, he began to fidget and ask for food. Then my mother read us my favorite Andersen fairy tales. Or remembered something funny, pre-war ... "(G. Glukhova)
“On December 31, 1941, in besieged Leningrad, my grandfather arranged a New Year tree. He was a cheerful and good-natured inventor. There were no real Christmas trees, and he decided to paint a Christmas tree on the wall. He asked me for watercolors, climbed onto a chair and depicted a tall, branching beauty right on the wallpaper. (A.V. Molchanov)
“Of course, from the time of the war there were memories and joyful ones. This is January 18, 1943 and January 27, 1944 - the days of the breakthrough and lifting of the blockade, these are salutes in honor of the liberation of our cities and, of course, the Victory Salute! They stand in the eyes, and it was not more beautiful and joyful on any of the anniversaries!” (Troitskaya T.S.)
The people heroically managed to endure these 900 days. “Hunger, cold, lack of water, light, constant bombing, shelling did not break us” (Yadykina N.N.)
“It was joyful to realize that our wonderful unique Leningrad is again living, working, loving, raising children, teaching them in schools, universities, honoring the memory of those who defended it.” (Kalenichenko L.A.)
Many people who experienced those days expressed their thoughts in their poems.
Ninel Vayvod
I remember the blockade
I remember the blockade, as now,
Although I tried to forget everything.
But it does not depend on us:
She lived in her soul.
I remember hunger, terrible fear,
When life faded in the eyes
And people are like mannequins
They walk with difficulty, holding on to the walls.
Everything is still in front of my eyes:
Someone is pulling a sled with the dead
Here is a can of water from the Neva
Carries the blockade a little alive.
Who quickly forgot
He did not see the blockade.
So, by hearsay, from the movie ...
He's not a blocker anyway.
But if he was small
And he also lived in Leningrad,
Oh, the blockade is real,
All this horror has seen,
Lost relatives and friends.
I sing the hymn to the blockade
I don't get tired of writing poetry
They need to dedicate poems -
Blockade from Leningrad.
Working on this topic, we visited the Museum of the Leningrad Siege of Novosibirsk, located at st. Belinsky, 1 (MOU secondary school No. 202).
During the blockade from Leningrad, mainly in 1941-1942, 50 factories, enterprises and organizations and many tens of thousands of evacuated Leningraders were evacuated to Novosibirsk.
The society decided to leave a memory in Novosibirsk about the glorious page of its history by organizing in the city a museum of Leningrad blockade survivors and creating a memorial column with the perpetuation of all factories, enterprises and organizations evacuated from Leningrad to Novosibirsk and contributed to the cause of the Victory of the Soviet people.
The creation of the Museum of the Leningrad Siege in Novosibirsk began in 1993 and continues to this day. Its creators were a group of activists of the “Blokadnik” society, of which, first of all, it should be mentioned: Vasilyeva D.S., Vasilyeva M.M., Kishchenko E.M., Evdokimova L.N. and etc.
The museum presents: original documents related to the defense of the besieged city and samples of military equipment of its defenders, passes for walking around the city at night, samples of food cards, evacuation certificates, samples of besieged bread, military maps, schemes, photographs of survivors of the blockade, books, views old and restored St. Petersburg and much more. (Appendix page 29)
The museum is sometimes visited by up to 300 people a month, mostly young people - students, schoolchildren, cadets of the SKK. But there are also quite a few middle-aged and elderly people, as well as Leningrad blockade survivors living in Novosibirsk. They say: "This is our second home." The museum is also visited by guests from St. Petersburg, as well as from abroad - the USA, Bulgaria, Germany, etc.
The memories we read in books and poems are very important. But you perceive them much more emotionally and realize them more subtly when you hear them. Therefore, we interviewed one of the blockade survivors - Sokolova Lyudmila Alekseevna, who caught the beginning of the blockade, and was later evacuated to Siberia.
Tell about your family.
“I lived with my mother, grandmother and little sister in Sestroretsk, on the old Finnish border until 1939. Our house stood on the shore of the Gulf of Finland.
How did you hear about the war?
“I heard about the war on the forecourt when my mother and I were walking around the city. Molotov spoke over the loudspeaker, and everyone heard that the war had begun. Germany attacked the USSR.
Tell me about that time
“In 1941. I finished 6 classes and at the beginning of the war every morning we came to school.
We were taken to the old Finnish border. There, the military issued gas masks and sapper shovels, and we dug anti-tank ditches. We have not been bombed and have not yet been fired upon. But German bombers flew through us to Leningrad, where they dropped all the bombs and again flew through us. We could hear explosions and see fires (Sestroretsk is 18 km from Leningrad). Then the Badaevsky food warehouses burned, and black smoke hung over the city for several days.
Soon the enemy approached the old Finnish border and began shelling Sestroretsk, often had to sit out in a bomb shelter. We were evacuated to Razliv. The shells did not reach the Razliv. We started school in 7th grade. But soon the study ended. Leningrad was surrounded.
When there were a few people left in the class, then, I remember, the conversations were only about food. Who eats what: some bark from trees, some belts, bear skins who had them. And we ate potato peels. Since autumn, my grandmother has been throwing them not into the trash, but near it. In winter, she dug them up and laid them out on the stove - she fried them. The little sister barely reached the stove with her hands and asked her grandmother to fry them fried, but the bitterness still remained. Who taught us how to make poppy? Pour salt into a tin box and throw it into the oven, into the fire. As it burns out and cools down, a gray mass is obtained in the box, similar to poppies, which smells of rotten eggs (hydrogen sulfide). We sprinkled this “poppy” on bread and drank tea with it.
The winter was very cold, and people on the move froze and fell. The dead were not buried in coffins, but sewn up in rags and covered with snow near the road. They ate all the cats and dogs. Since autumn, the boys have shot birds from slingshots. Then people began to eat. But cannibals were identified and said that they were destroyed.
They gave 125g of bread, and it was not real. There were long queues for bread. Often had to stand for several days and nights. People held on to each other so as not to fall. Large white lice crawled on outer clothing, but they were not from dirt, but from hunger from the body.
I remember once we, the children, were given 75 g of soldier's crackers, because. no flour was delivered and the sailors shared their rations with us.
But it was real bread! Cake!
The house was cold, there was nothing to heat. They burned all the fences and everything that burns.
In the spring, birch sap began to pour. There were several birches in the yard and they were all hung with bottles. Then the grass went - nettle, quinoa.
Grandmother baked cakes from them and cooked balanda soup for us.
When the snow melted, they organized teams that collected the dead and carted them to the mass graves. Brigades went from house to house and found out who was alive and who was dead. Living children were assigned to orphanages, the dead were taken to mass graves.
Then we, the kids, went to weed the beds in the hospital. For this we were given a plate of soup-balanda. My arms and legs were swollen.
When we drove away from Ladoga, there was no more shooting there, but everything was plowed up and pitted with shells and bombs.
But that was the start of another life!
At the beginning of the war, the Germans threw out leaflets, where they promised us that "victory will be yours, but there will be porridge from Leningrad, and water from Krondstadt."
But neither porridge nor water came out. Didn't wait.
Leningrad and Krondstadt survived! The victory was ours!”
From an interview with Lyudmila Alekseevna, we see how hard it was for the people of Leningrad to endure the blockade. Terrible hunger, severe cold, deafening explosions ... - this is her memory, her memories.
The episodes of the memories of Leningraders, collected into a single whole, tell us about their exploits, stamina and courage.
Indeed, it is thanks to these memories that descendants will be able to form a holistic view of the blockade of Leningrad, and understand what role this heroic defense of the legendary city played during the Great Patriotic War.
In conclusion, we want to quote the words of the commander, military leader, Marshal of the Soviet Union G.K. Zhukov: “... a lot has been written about the heroic defense of Leningrad. And yet, it seems to me that even more should be said about it, like about all our hero cities, to create a special series of books - epics, richly illustrated and beautifully published, built on a lot of factual, strictly documentary material, written sincerely. and true."
I write down, my hands get cold ...
“Died on 26/IV 1942, our daughter Miletta Konstantinovna, born on 11/VIII 1933 — 8 years 8 months and 15 days old.
And Fedor lived from 7 / IV 1942 to 26 / VI 1942 - 80 days ...
On April 26, the daughter died at one in the morning, and at 6 in the morning Fedor was breastfed - not a single drop of milk. The pediatrician said: “I am glad, otherwise the mother (that is, I) would have died and left three sons. Do not feel sorry for the daughter, she is a premature baby - she would have died at eighteen - for sure ... "
Well, since there is no milk, on 3/V 1942 I donated it to the Institute of Blood Transfusion on 3rd Sovetskaya Street, I don’t remember how many grams, since I have been a donor since June 26, 1941. Being pregnant with Fedya, she donated blood: 26/VI - 300 gr., 31/VII - 250 gr., 3/IX - 150 gr., 7/XI - 150 gr. It is no longer possible. 11/XII - 120 gr. = 970 gr. blood..."
January 12 - 1942 - I am writing down, my hands are getting cold. We had been walking for a long time, I walked obliquely across the ice from the University to the Admiralty along the Neva. The morning was sunny and frosty - a barge and a boat were frozen in the ice. She walked from the 18th line of Vasilyevsky Island, first along Bolshoy pr. to the 1st line and to the Neva, past the Menshikov Palace and all the collegiums of the University. Then from the Neva along the entire Nevsky prospect, Staronevsky to the 3rd Soviet ...
At the doctor’s appointment, she undressed, he poked me in the chest, asked: “What is this?” “I will be a mother for the fourth time.” He grabbed his head and ran out. Three doctors came in at once - it turns out that pregnant women cannot donate blood - the donor card was crossed out. They didn’t feed me, they kicked me out, and I had to get a certificate for February 1942, for a work card and rations (2 loaves, 900 grams of meat, 2 kg of cereals), if they took blood from me ...
She walked back slowly, slowly, and three children were waiting at home: Miletta, Kronid and Kostya. And my husband was taken to the sappers ... I will receive a dependent card for February, and this is 120 gr. bread a day. Death…
When I climbed onto the ice, I saw a mountain of frozen people under the bridge on the right - some were lying, some were sitting, and a boy of about ten, as if alive, leaned his head against one of the dead. And I so wanted to go to bed with them. I even turned off the path, but remembered: at home three of them were lying on one single bed, and I was limp, and went home.
I walk through the city, one thought is worse than the other. On the 16th line I meet Nina Kuyavskaya, my childhood friend, she works in the executive committee. I tell her: “They kicked me out of the donors and didn’t give me a certificate for a work card.” And she says: “Go to the antenatal clinic, they must give you a certificate for a work card” ...
There are four rooms in the apartment: ours is 9 meters, the last, former stable of the owner of four houses (19, 19a, 19b, 19c). There is no water, the pipes have burst, but still people pour into the toilets, the slurry pours down the wall and freezes from the frost. And there are no glasses in the windows, in the fall they were all knocked out from a bomb explosion. The window is covered with a mattress, only a hole has been made for a pipe from a potbelly stove ...
She came home cheered up, and the children are glad that she came. But they see that it is empty, and not a word, they are silent, that they are hungry. And at home there is a piece of bread. For three times. Adult, that is, me - 250 gr. and three children's pieces - 125 gr. Nobody took...
She flooded the stove, put a 7-liter saucepan, the water boiled, threw dry grass of blueberries and strawberries into it. I cut a thin piece of bread, spread a lot of mustard and salted it very hard. They sat down, ate, drank a lot of tea and lay down to sleep. And at 6 o'clock in the morning I put on trousers, a hat, a jacket, a coat, I go to take a turn. As soon as the store opens at 8, and the queue is long and 2-3 people wide - you stand and wait, and the enemy plane flies slowly and low over Bolshoy Prospekt and pours from cannons, people scatter, and then again in turn get up without panic - creepy …
And for water, you put two buckets and a ladle on the sled, you go to the Neva along Bolshoy Prospekt, 20th line, to the Mining Institute. There is a descent to the water, an ice-hole, and you scoop water into buckets. And we help each other to raise the sled with water. It happens that you go half way and spill water, you get wet yourself and go again, wet, for water ...
Umbilical cord tied with black thread
The apartment is empty, no one except us, everyone went to the front. And so day after day. Nothing from my husband. And then came the fateful night of 7/IV 1942. One in the morning, contractions. While she was dressing three children, she packed the linen in a suitcase, tied two sons to the sled so that they would not fall - she took them to the yard to the garbage dump, and left her daughter and the suitcase in the gateway. And she gave birth ... in trousers ...
I forgot that I have children on the street. She walked slowly, holding on to the wall of her house, quietly, being afraid to crush the baby ...
And in the apartment - it's dark, and in the corridor - water drips from the ceiling. And the corridor is 3 meters wide and 12 meters long. I'm going quietly. She came, quickly unbuttoned her pants, wanted to put the baby on the ottoman and fainted from pain ...
It is dark, cold, and suddenly the door opens - a man enters. It turned out that he was walking through the yard, saw two children tied to the sled, asked: “Where are you going?” And my five-year-old Kostya says: “We are going to the maternity hospital!”
“Oh, children, your mother must have brought you to your death,” the man suggested. And Kostya says: "No." The man silently took up the sled: "Where to take?" And Kostyukha is in command. A man looks, and here is another sled, another child ...
So he drove the children home, and at home he lit a cinder in a saucer, the lacquer wick smoked terribly. He broke a chair, lit the stove, put a pot of water - 12 liters, ran to the maternity hospital ... And I got up, reached for the scissors, and the scissors were black with soot. The wick cut off and cut the umbilical cord in half with such scissors ... I say: “Well, Fedka, half for you, and the other for me ...” I tied the umbilical cord to him with a black thread of the 40th number, but not mine ...
I, although I gave birth to the fourth, did not know anything at all. And then Kostya took out the book "Mother and Child" from under the bed (I always read at the end of the book how to avoid unwanted pregnancy, and then I read the first page - "Childbirth"). I got up and the water warmed up. I bandaged Fyodor's umbilical cord, cut off an extra piece, smeared it with iodine, but there was nothing to put in his eyes. I could hardly wait for the morning. And in the morning an old woman came: “Oh, you didn’t even go for bread, give me cards, I’ll run away.” The coupons were cut off for a decade: from the 1st to the 10th, but there remained the 8th, 9th and 10th - 250 gr. and three 125 gr. For a three days. So this bread was not brought to us by the old woman ... But on 9 / IV I saw her dead in the yard - so there is nothing to condemn, she was a good person ...
I remember that the three of us broke ice, held a crowbar in their hands, counted: one, two, three - and lowered the crowbar, and chipped all the ice - they were afraid of infection, and the military threw ice into the car and took it to the Neva so that the city was clean ...
The man through the door said, "The doctor will come tomorrow morning." The old woman went for bread. The sister came from the maternity hospital and screams: “Where are you, I have the flu!” And I shout: “Close the door on the other side, otherwise it’s cold!” She left, and five-year-old Kostya got up and said: “But the porridge is cooked!” I got up, lit the stove, and the porridge froze like jelly. I bought a large bag of semolina at the Hay Market on April 5 for 125 grams of bread. A man walked with me from Sennaya Square to the house, saw my children, took a coupon for 125 gr. bread and left, and I started to cook porridge, but the porridge did not thicken, although I poured all the cereal into a three-liter saucepan ...
Freeloader, or maybe victory
So we ate this porridge without bread and drank a 7-liter pot of tea, I dressed Fedenka, wrapped her in a blanket and went to the Vedeman maternity hospital on the 14th line. Brought, moms - not a soul. I say: "Treat your son's navel." The doctor answered: “Go to the hospital, then we will process it!” I say: "I have three children, they were left alone in the apartment." She insists: "Go to bed anyway!" I yelled at her, and she called the head physician. And the head physician yelled at her: "Process the child and give a certificate to the registry office for metrics and a children's card."
She turned the baby around and smiled. I praised the umbilical cord tied by me: “Well done, mom!” She noted the weight of the baby - 2.5 kg. She put drops in her eyes and gave all the information. And I went to the registry office - it was located on the 16th line, in the basement of the executive committee. The queue is huge, people stand behind documents for the dead. And I'm walking with my son, the people are parting. Suddenly I hear someone shouting: “You are carrying a freeloader!” And others: “He brings victory!”
They wrote out the metrics and a certificate for the children's card, congratulated me, and I went to the chairman of the executive committee. I went up the wide stairs and saw an old man sitting at a table, in front of him was a telephone. He asks where and why I am going. I answer that I gave birth to a son at one in the morning, and there are three more children at home, in the corridor - ankle-deep water, and in the room - two front walls, and half-wet pillows stuck to them, and slurry crawls from the walls ...
He asked, "What do you need?" I answered: "The daughter of eight years old, sitting under the arch on a sled at night, got cold, she would have to go to the hospital."
He pressed some button, three girls in military uniform came out, as if on command, ran up to me, one took the child, and two took me by the arms and escorted me home. I burst into tears, suddenly tired, barely reached the house ...
On the same day, we were moved to another apartment on our own stairs - the fourth floor. The stove is in working order, two glasses from our bookcase are inserted into the window, and on the stove there is a 12-liter pot with hot water. The doctor of the antenatal clinic, who also came to the rescue, began to wash my children, the first - Miletta - a bare head, not a single hair ... It's the same with my sons - skinny, it's scary to look ...
At night, there is a knock on the door. I open it, my own sister Valya is standing at the door - she walked from the Finland Station. Behind the shoulders is a bag. They opened it, God: pure rye bread, soldier's bread, a bun - a lush brick, a little sugar, cereals, sour cabbage ...
She is a soldier in an overcoat. And a mountain feast, here is happiness! ..
The radio worked all day. During the shelling - a signal, in the shelter. But we did not leave, although our area was fired upon from long-range guns several times a day. But the planes did not spare bombs either, factories were all around ...
Eyes overgrown with moss
26 / IV - 1942 - Miletta died at one in the morning, and at six in the morning the radio announced: the norm for bread was added. Workers - 400 grams, children - 250 grams ... I spent the whole day in queues. Brought bread and vodka...
She dressed Miletta in a black silk suit... Lying on a table in a small room, I come home, and two sons - seven years old Kronid and five years old Kostya are lying drunk on the floor - half of the little one is drunk ... I was frightened, ran to the second floor to the janitor - her daughter graduated medical institute. She came with me and, seeing the children, laughed: “Let them sleep, it’s better not to disturb them” ...
9/V - 1942 My husband came on foot from Finland Station for a day. We went to the zhakt for a cart and a certificate for a funeral at the Smolensk cemetery. In addition to my baby, there were two unidentified corpses... The janitors dragged one of the deceased by her feet and her head pounded on the steps...
It was forbidden to cry in the cemetery. An unfamiliar woman carried Miletta and laid it neatly on the "woodpile" of the dead ... Miletta lay at home for 15 days, her eyes were overgrown with moss - she had to cover her face with a silk cloth ...
At 8 o'clock in the evening, the husband went on foot to the station: he must not be late, otherwise he would fall under the tribunal, and the train ran once a day.
6/V 1942 - left in the morning for bread. I come, but I don’t recognize Kronid - he is swollen, he has become very fat, he looks like a roly-poly doll. I wrapped him in a blanket and dragged him to the 21st line to the consultation, and there it was closed. Then I carried him to the 15th line, where the door is also locked. Brought it back home. She ran to the janitor, called the doctor. The doctor came, looked and said that this is the third degree of dystrophy ...
Knock on the door. I open it: two orderlies from the Krupskaya hospital - about my daughter. I closed the door in front of their nose, and they knock again. And then I came to my senses, my daughter is gone, but Kronya, Kronechka is alive. I opened the door, explained that my son needed to go to the hospital. She wrapped him in a blanket and went with them, taking the metrics and the children's card.
In the emergency room, the doctor says to me: “You have a daughter.” I answer: “The daughter died, but the son is sick ...” The son was taken to the hospital ...
There are no tears, but the soul is empty, creepy. Kostyukha is quiet, kisses me and takes care of Fedya, and Fedya lies in the children's bath, galvanized ...
They say on the radio: "Every Leningrader should have a garden." All squares have been converted into vegetable gardens. Seeds of carrots, beets, onions are given free of charge. We have planted onion and sorrel on Bolshoy Prospekt. Another announcement on the radio: you can get a pass to Berngardovka, to Vsevolozhsk, and Valya works for me there in the hospital. I'm in the 16th police department, to the chief. He writes out a pass for me, and I ask him for a nanny for the time of departure. And he calls a woman - Rein Alma Petrovna and asks her: “Will you go to babysit her?” Pointing at me. She has three sons: one is seven, the second is five years old, and the third is a newborn ...
She went to my house. And I'm on foot to the Finland Station. The train was running at night, shelling. I arrived in Vsevolozhsk at five in the morning: the sun, the leaves on the trees are blooming. Valin Hospital - a former pioneer camp.
Across the river, in the gazebo...
I am sitting on the bank of the river, the birds are singing, silence ... As in peacetime. Some grandfather came out of the house with a shovel. He asks: “Why are you sitting here?” I explain: “Here, I came to dig a garden, but I don’t know how to hold a shovel in my hands.” He gives me a shovel, shows me how to dig, and sits down and watches me work.
His land is light, well-groomed, and I try. I dug up a large area, and then my Valya came: she was carrying bread and half a liter of blackcurrant ...
I sat down, nibbling a little bread, eating berries, drinking water. Grandfather came up to me and said: “Write an application - I give you two rooms and a little room in the attic ...
So I'm not far from mine, but I took them out of the city. Fedenka was taken to a round-the-clock nursery, and her grandfather looked after Kostyukha ...
6/VI - 1942 Went to Leningrad for Kronid. He was discharged from the hospital with the following diagnoses: dystrophy of the III degree, paratyphoid fever, osteomyelitis. Not a single hair on the head, but white lice, large 40 pieces were killed. We spent the whole day at the station. I met women who explained: this is a corpse louse, it does not run to a healthy person ...
At five in the morning we got off the train. The son is heavy, I carry it in my arms, he cannot hold his head. When they reached the house, Valya looked at him and cried: “He will die ...” The doctor Irina Alexandrovna came, gave an injection and silently left.
Kronya opened his eyes and said: “I’m done well, I didn’t even wince.” And fell asleep...
And at 9 am the doctors came: the head physician of the hospital, a professor and a nurse, examined and gave recommendations. We fulfilled them as best we could. But he still didn’t hold his head, he was very weak, he didn’t eat - he only drank milk. Getting better day by day...
I tried to earn. She made girlish tunics, subtracting those that were sewn for men. And the customers brought me some stew, some porridge. And I, as best I could, sewed everything.
I sewed a gray suit for my blond Kostyukha at home. Once I was at work, and in order not to be bored, he sang loudly: “Partisan detachments are occupying cities.” Across the river, in the gazebo, the doctors of the hospital were sitting, they heard a clear children's voice and could not stand it, they ran across the river along a log, asked to sing more, treated them to candy ...
Fedora took from the manger already hopeless
My husband came on a visit and said that he was being transferred from sappers to machinists, to Leningrad. “I'm a sailor,” he said. “And I don’t know locomotives.” The boss even hugged him: “It’s even better: take a brand new boat to the TsPKiO, load it into a freight train - and go to Ladoga! ..”
July 6, 1942 We are going to Leningrad. Kronya should be taken to the hospital, and I donate blood - I need to feed the children ... I sit with my sons at the Blood Transfusion Institute - where donors are fed lunch. We slurp soup, and a war correspondent takes pictures of us and, smiling, says: “Let the front-line soldiers see how you are here in Leningrad ...” Then we go to the Raukhfus hospital. There they take my documents, and Kronya goes to the ward. The son was in the hospital for four months ...
And on July 26, 1942, Fedenka, Fedor Konstantinovich, died. I took him from the nursery already hopeless. Died like an adult. He cried out somehow, took a deep breath and straightened up ...
I wrapped him in a blanket - an envelope, very beautiful, silk, and carried him to the police, where they wrote out a funeral certificate ... I took him to the cemetery, picked flowers here, put him in the ground without a coffin and buried him ... I could not even cry ...
On the same day I met the doctor of the Fedya Kindergarten, a kindergarten of the Baltic Shipping Company. She told me that her son had died, we hugged her, kissed ...
To Ladoga
On July 1, 1942, I came to the personnel department of the shipping company. She said: she buried her daughter and son. And the husband serves on Ladoga. I asked to be a sailor. She explained: I don’t need cards, I’m a donor, I get a working card, but I need a permanent pass to Ladoga. He took the passport, stamped it, issued a pass to Osinovets, the Osinovets lighthouse. I wrote out a permanent ticket for the second car of the train going there - free of charge, and on the 10th I arrived at my destination. They let me into the port. They explained to me that the boat carrying the evacuees and food (well, they managed to unload the cargo) went to the bottom during the bombing. And the team - the captain, the mechanic and the sailor escaped, sailed out. Then the boat was raised, and now it is under repair ...
The boats usually went to Kobona, they carried live cargo ... From time to time I went to the city. But she could not take even a grain, even a speck of flour with her - if they find it, they will immediately be shot. Over the pier, where there are sacks of cereals, peas, flour, the plane will fly by at low level, make a hole, stocks are pouring into the water - trouble!
My Kostya made sourdough and baked pancakes - the whole pier came to us. Finally, the head of the port ordered to supply us with flour and oil. And then the loaders and the military took out the soaked mass from the water - and onto the stove. They eat it, and then they turn the intestines, they die ... How many such cases there were!
So I went back to the court. I have two work cards: I give one to the kindergarten, they are happy there, Kostyukha is well cared for, and I give the other card to Valya. Like going to my grandfather, who has our things, he pampers me with cabbage and berries. And he also gives apples, I send them to Leningrad, to the hospital to Krona. I’ll treat the nanny, the doctor, I’ll deliver letters from Osinovets and back to Ladoga, to the port ... I’m spinning like a squirrel in a wheel. The smiles of people are a gift, and the husband is nearby ...
27/VIII. Summer passed quickly. Ladoga is stormy, cold, windy, bombardments have intensified… We are sailing to Kobona. The cargo was unloaded, not far from the shore the boat sank. This happened often, but this time the Epronovites could not raise the boat ...
Kostya was sent to a water pump (Melnichny Ruchey station). Day on duty, two - free ...
At that time, Kronya was transferred from the Rauhfus hospital to the hospital on Petrogradka, they said that they would perform an operation there. They put him in the women's section. Women fell in love with him - they taught him sewing, knitting ...
At the end of December, a piece of Krone's jaw was removed, and in January he was told to take him home.
January 3, 1943 Again she went to ask for housing, they offered an empty house in Mill Creek. In this house, the stove was flooded - it smokes, there is a wonderful stove with a brick oven ... And next to it, the military dismantled the houses log by log and took them away, and they drove up to us, but we scared them, and our house was not touched.
The earth is soft
Kronid and Kostyukha were taken home, and the kindergarten gave us cards. Husband Kostya is close to go down to work - the railway line will cross, and there is a water pump. While he is on watch for a day, he will cut firewood, chop it, dry it and bring it home.
To warm the house, you have to heat the stove without ceasing. Warm, bright, lots of snow. Husband made a sled. On the way, a horse will pass by the house two or three times a day - the children on the sled. They take a box, a broom, shoulder blades with them - they will collect the horse's "good" and put manure near the porch - it will come in handy for future plantings ...
March 15, 1943 A huge pile of manure has accumulated by the porch. Leningradskaya Pravda just published an article by Academician Lysenko stating that it is possible to grow a rich crop of excellent potatoes from potato sprouts. To do this, you need to make a greenhouse, stuff it with horse manure, then lay it with frozen ground and throw in snow. Close the frames and plant sprouts in two to three weeks.
I had to remove five internal frames in the house, and they did something like it was written in the newspaper.
22/III 1943 The earth is soft. We bought a bowl full of sprouts from an old neighbor for 900 g of candy. We were engaged in landings for a long time - troublesome business ...
June 5, 1943. The frosts were very strong, and the whole earth froze - it was a pity for our labors. And then it's time to plant cabbage, rutabaga, beets. They dug day and night.
Opposite are two two-story houses. Former Kindergarten of the Meat Processing Plant. No one guarded them, but no one touched them - the state ...
In Leningrad, I got onion sets - these are the “onion” things: eternal, plant it once, and it grows for several years. Onions grow by leaps and bounds, but I don’t know how to sell, and there is no time - the market is far away. I'll cut it into a basket and take it to the sailors. They wrote me a thank you note. Then they themselves went to me, carefully cut them with scissors and took them to them ...
Hope is born
... For a long time I did not take up the diary - it was not before that. Went to the doctors. They examine me, listen to how you grow up with me, and I talk to you, stroke you - I dream that the affectionate one will grow up, comely, smart. And you seem to hear me. Kostya has already brought you a wicker bed - very beautiful, we are waiting for you with great joy. I know that you are my daughter, you are growing up, you know what Miletta was like ...
I remember the blockade - it protects the brothers. I'll leave, and the three of them alone. As soon as the bombing starts, she will put everyone under the bed ... Cold, hunger, she will share the last crumbs with them. I saw how I divide the bread, and I also divided it. He will keep a smaller piece for himself, and more mustard, like me ... It’s scary to be alone in a four-room apartment ... Somehow a bomb exploded in the yard - glass from a neighboring house is pouring, and ours is staggering ...
... I have not donated blood since May, because I know that it is harmful to you, my beloved daughter. I went out for a log, the neighbors are walking by - they rejoice, the blockade has been broken ...
Soldiers of the 63rd Guards Division gave my husband Kostya a new officer's coat. Full hut to the people, noise, jokes, happiness! Really behind the blockade!
2/II 1943 I say to Kostya: "Run for the doctor, it's starting!" There is a 12-liter pot with warm boiled water on the stove, and water is already boiling in the 7-liter one. And yesterday, February 1, a doctor looked at me, put drops in my eyes, gave me iodine, a silk thread in a bag and said: “Don’t go to the hospital - it’s wildly cold there, and it’s all littered with the dead, and it’s located 4 kilometers from home ... "
The husband returned, there is no face on him. I didn’t find a single person in the hospital - apparently, they quietly took off at night ... People told him that the weak were sent to the rear, and those who were stronger were sent to the front ...
The fights are already unbearable. The children sleep in the room, I stand in the trough, in Kostya's shirt. He is in front of me, scissors at the ready... He is already holding your head, you are already in his arms... His face is bright... I take you in my arms. He cuts the umbilical cord, smears it with iodine, ties it up. Bath nearby. Pouring water on your head - your head is hairy. You yell, the children jump up, their father shouts to them: “Get back!”
Wraps you up, carries you to bed...
I wash myself, Kostya takes me in his arms and also carries me to the bed. And he pours water out of the containers, washes the floor, washes his hands and comes to watch you sleep in the crib. Then he comes up to me, strokes my head, wishes me good night, goes to sleep on the kitchen bench ... The moon outside the window is huge ...
In the morning, my husband tells me: “I didn’t sleep all night, listening to my daughter snoring. And I thought: let's call her Hope, and we will think that Hope and joy await us. Happiness that he was there, took birth, named you, otherwise he was all at sea ...
tar river
On February 5, 1944, Kostya was sent to Terioki (translated from Finnish as the Smolyanaya River), and my mother Zoya, Dagmar and Lucy came from Udmurtia.
Zoya's husband Ivan Danilovich Rusanov (for many years they shared joy and sorrow together) was killed at the front ...
Before the war, Ivan Danilovich and us were united by joint work: he was the chief engineer (he graduated from the Forestry Engineering Academy), my Kostya was a mechanic, and I was a mechanic - I repaired and gave out tools at the tool station at the Alexander lumber station. Mom Zoya and he got married on the eve of the war, in May, and left ...
And now Ivan Danilovich is already lying somewhere in Sinyavino ... And Kostya and I are young, healthy, but we lost our daughter and son, they were carried away by the blockade ...
27/V 1944 We moved to Kostya in Terioki. It's full of empty houses. Settled in a small, with a veranda. Under the windows there is a garden, currant bushes, a well three steps from the porch. A huge shed and a cellar - unexpectedly this cellar turned out to be full of wine. Fifteen minutes to the train station…
19/11, 1944 Kostya and I were invited to a celebration in honor of the Artilleryman's Day, we had to go to Leningrad. The children were put to bed - the train left at three in the morning. Shortly before departure, one military man brought us a bucket of gasoline. I closed the bucket with a basin, it stood next to the potatoes ...
We arrived in the city, went to a meeting in honor of the holiday, visited my mother. And then they did not know that in Terioki our house caught fire. Fortunately, the children were not hurt - their neighbors saved them by pulling them out through the window. And when they pulled it out, the house collapsed. After the fire was extinguished by the arriving military, the loss was discovered: Kostya's memory of his father was a heavy silver cigarette case, a box of bonds (maybe, of course, burned down), and the military loaded the wine from the cellar onto a car and drove away.
They blamed everything on Kronya: as if he went with a candle for potatoes, and a spark got into the gasoline ...
20/XI - 1944. We got off the train, went up to the house and see - the ashes ... Kostya says: "If the children were alive, they don't give a damn about the rest!" It is true: there is an apartment in Leningrad - we will not die. The neighbor comes out, reassures: “I have children, but without clothes, undressed ...”
And they told how the house collapsed. They came up, and on the stove there was a 7-liter aluminum pan, as if alive. Touched, and she crumbled. The box of wheat did not burn, but the groats turned out to be bitter ...
They called in Leningrad to the military unit on Labor Square. Kostya called Valerian, he immediately took the car, loaded us (and we took the frozen potatoes and two live rabbits and took them to Leningrad). In the city, kind people put clothes on the children - it’s good that they didn’t die, they just got very hungry.
Did they survive the war?
We ate rabbits, we ate potatoes. The children did not go to school because they were undressed. And from the railway, Sergei Nikolaevich brought me work, collected cartridges for street lighting, paid very little ...
You stand in line for bran. You will stand overnight, in the morning they will give you the norm of bread. Wet the bread, bran, scalded with boiling water, swell, mix the soaked bread and bran, push frozen, boiled potatoes, and into the pan. Aroma in the rooms. Let's eat - and get to work, collect cartridges ...
Finally the spring of 1945. Did they survive the war?.. My husband and I went to Repino. Painted beds and walls. They took me as a management farm, at night guarded the dachas of artists, artists - none of them lived there. The prisoners lived. Even one night they gave me a gun, unloaded. I put it on my right shoulder. And the prisoners from the windows look at me, cackle ... I stood up for the night, came home - burst into tears, Kostya went to the board in the morning to demand that I be paid.
I'm still breastfeeding Nadenka. We go to the bay with the whole family. Father and sons fish: perch, and even zander. Small: fish gather near the stones, and from the side of Kronstadt - haze, naval sappers clear the fairway of mines. There are a lot of fish - we will collect a whole gas mask, small things, and a large one - we will string it on a branch and carry it over our shoulder. The shores are deserted, not a soul, and the sand is hot ...
We bathe, and lower the youngest Nadenka into the water (she went early, at ten months old). Merry, jumping, fiddling, squealing, wants to catch a fish, and she runs away. Children laugh, and my father and I feel good ...
Kostya drags two huge zander over his shoulder. We go along the alley, and towards - a huge kid. First he looks at zander, and then let's hug! It turned out that Kostin was the head of the BGMP, captain. My husband was on a boat with him...
