Times of War and Suffering

By 1939 the population topped 3 million, but their peaceful labours were disrupted by war. In the winter of 1939 – 1940 when the Soviet Union invaded Finland, Leningrad became a frontier town, with only 25km to the Finnish border. In March 1940 a peace treaty was signed and in accordance with that agreement, the border was relocated to over 100km from Leningrad.

On the 22nd June 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union, starting what is known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War. This was to become the most tragic period in the history of the city, a period of suffering and heroism. For everyone who lives in St. Petersburg the Blokada (the siege) of Leningrad is an important part of the city’s heritage and a painful memory for the population’s older generation.

On the 18th July 1941, the first Nazi bombs fell on Leningrad. In less than two and a half months after Germany invaded the Soviet Union, German troops were already approaching Leningrad. The first German artillery attack came on the 4th September. The Red Army was outflanked and on the 8th September the Germans had fully encircled Leningrad and thus a 900-day struggle the likes of which history had not known. The Germans dropped over 100,000 bombs and fired 150,000 artillery shells. The city’s civilians refused to surrender and endured rapidly increasing hardships in the encircled city. Food and fuel stocks were limited to a mere 1 to 2 month supply, public transport was not operational and by the winter of 1941- 1942 there was no heating, water or electricity and very little food. The city’s food rations became so low, that in January 1942 in the depths of an unusually cold winter the ration of bread per person per day was only 125 grams. 200,000 people died of cold and starvation in Leningrad in the two months of January and February 1942. Despite these tragic losses the city’s war industries continued to work in inhuman conditions.

During the siege, several hundred thousand people were evacuated from the city across Lake Ladoga via the famous “Road of Life”. During the warm season people were ferried to the mainland, and in winter they were carried by trucks across the frozen lake under constant artillery fire.

The treasure from the Hermitage and the suburban palaces of Petrovorets and Pushkin were hidden in the basements of the Hermitage and St Isaac’s Cathedral. Students continued their studies and even managed to pass their finals. Dmitry Shostakovich wrote his Seventh “Leningrad” Symphony and performed it in the besieged city.

The blockade was finally broken in January 1943, but it took another year for the soldiers of the Leningrad to finally route out the Germans fully. The bombs and artillery killed 16,747, but by far the most significant was the death toll from cold and starvation, put at around 641,803. Most of them were buried in mass graves in different cemeteries, with the majority in the Piskariovskoye Memorial Cemetery, the resting place of over 500,000 people and a timeless reminder of the heroic deeds of the city.

Next: Post War Reconstruction