January 27 is the day of the lifting of the siege of Leningrad. The Road to the Life of the Siege of Leningrad

January 27, the day of lifting the siege of Leningrad, is special in the history of our country. Today on this date, the Day of Military Glory is celebrated annually. The city of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) received May 1, 1945 the title of the city-hero. May 8, 1965 the northern capital was awarded the medal "Golden Star" and the Order of Lenin. The medal for Leningrad was also received by 1,496 million inhabitants of this city.

"Leningrad under siege" - a project dedicated to the events of that time

The country has preserved the memory of these heroic events to this day. January 27 (the day of the lifting of the siege of Leningrad) in 2014 is already the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the city. The archival committee of St. Petersburg presented a project called "Leningrad under siege". On the Internet portal "Archives of St. Petersburg" was created a virtual exhibition of various archival documents relating to the history of this city during the blockade. About 300 historical originals of that time were published. These documents are divided into ten different sections, each of which is accompanied by comments of specialists. All of them reflect different aspects of life in Leningrad during the blockade.

Recreating the state of war

Today it is not easy to imagine young Petersburgers that the magnificent city-museum in which they live was sentenced to complete extermination by the Germans in 1941. However, he did not capitulate when he was surrounded by Finnish and German divisions, and managed to win, although he seemed to be doomed to death. In order for the present generation of city dwellers to have an idea of what their great-grandfathers and grandfathers had to endure in those years (which the survivors of the besieged Leningrad remember as the most terrible time), one of the modern streets of the city, the Italian, and the Manege The square was "returned" to the 70th anniversary in the winter of 1941-1944. This project was named "Street of Life".

In the above-mentioned places in St. Petersburg are located various cultural institutions, as well as theaters, which even in those difficult siege years did not stop their activities. The windows of the houses are glued here with crosses, as at that time in Leningrad they were made to protect them from air raids, barricades were reconstructed from sandbags to pavements, anti-aircraft guns and military trucks were brought in for the full reproduction of the situation of that time. This marked the seventieth anniversary of the siege of Leningrad. According to the estimates of shells during the events of those years, approximately 3,000 buildings were destroyed, and more than 7,000 were significantly damaged. Residents of besieged Leningrad, for protection against shelling, erected various defensive structures. They built about 4,000 bunkers and pillboxes, equipped about 22,000 different fire points in buildings, and erected 35 kilometers of anti-tank obstacles and barricades in the streets of the city.

Blockade of Leningrad: major events and figures

Begun in 1941, on September 8, the defense of the city lasted about 900 days and ended in 1944. January 27 is the day of the lifting of the siege of Leningrad. All these years, the only way through which the necessary products were delivered to the besieged city, and also severely wounded children were taken out, was carried out in winter on the ice of the Ladoga Lake. It was the Road of Life of the besieged Leningrad. We will tell more about it in our article.

The blockade was broken on January 18, 1943, and Leningrad was completely cleared on January 27. And it happened only the next year - in 1944. Thus, the residents had to wait a long time before the blockade of the city of Leningrad was finally lifted. For this period, according to various sources, from 400 thousand to 1.5 million inhabitants perished. Figured at the Nuremberg trial the following number - 632 thousand dead. Only 3% of them are from shelling and bombing. The rest of the inhabitants died of hunger.

Start of events

Today, military historians believe that no city on earth throughout the history of wars has given so many lives for the Victory, as at that time Leningrad. On the day when the Great Patriotic War (1941, June 22) began, in this city, as well as throughout the region, martial law was immediately introduced. German fascist aviation on the night of June 22 to 23 tried to make a first flight to Leningrad. This attempt ended unsuccessfully. Not one of the enemy's planes was admitted to the city.

The next day, June 24, the Leningrad Military District was transformed into the Northern Front. Kronstadt covered the city from the sea. It was one of the bases that were at that time in the Baltic Sea. With the onset of enemy troops on the territory of the region, a heroic defense began on July 10, which the history of Leningrad can be proud of. On September 6, the first Nazi bombs were dropped on the city, after which he began to be systematically exposed to air raids. In just three months, from September to November 1941, an air alert was announced 251 times.

Loudspeakers and the famous metronome

However, the stronger the threat faced by the hero city, the more united the people of Leningrad opposed the enemy. To prevent the Leningraders of the air raids, about 1500 loudspeakers were installed on the streets in the first months. The population was notified by the radio about airborne alarm. The famous metronome, which went down in history as a cultural monument of the time of resistance, was broadcast through this network. A rapid rhythm of it meant that a military alarm was declared, and a slow one was a retreat. Mikhail Melaned, the announcer, announced the alarm. There was not a single district in the city to which the enemy shell could not fly. Therefore, the streets and areas in which the risk of entry was the largest were calculated. Here people hung out plaques or painted with paint about the fact that this place is most dangerous when shelling.

The city according to Adolf Hitler's plan was to be completely destroyed, and the defending troops were destroyed. The Germans, having failed in a series of attempts to break through the defense of Leningrad, decided to take it by storm.

The first shelling of the city

Each resident, including the elderly and children, became the defender of Leningrad. A special army of the people's militia was set up, in which thousands of people rallied to partisan detachments and fought against the enemy on the fronts, took part in the construction of defensive lines. The evacuation of the population from the city, as well as the cultural values of various museums and industrial equipment, began in the first months of the hostilities. The enemy troops occupied the town of Chudovo on August 20, blocking the railway line in the direction Leningrad-Moscow.

It was not possible, however, to divide the army under the name "North" to break into Leningrad on the move, although the front came close to the city. Systematic shelling began on September 4. Four days later the enemy seized the city of Shlisselburg, as a result of which the land communication with the Big Land of Leningrad was discontinued.

This event marked the beginning of the blockade of the city. In it there were more than 2.5 million inhabitants, including 400 thousand children. In the city, at the beginning of the blockade, there was no necessary food stock. As of September 12, they were calculated only for 30-35 days (bread), 45 days (croup) and 60 days (meat). Even with the strictest economy, coal could be sufficient only until November, and liquid fuel - only until the end of the current. The food standards, which were introduced by the card system, began to decline gradually.

Hunger and cold

The situation was aggravated by the fact that the winter of 1941 was early in Russia, and in Leningrad - very fierce. Often, the thermometer dropped to -32 degrees. Thousands of people were dying from hunger and cold. The peak of mortality was the time from November 20 to December 25 of this difficult 1941. During this period, the norms for issuing bread to soldiers were significantly reduced - up to 500 grams per day. For those who worked in hot shops, they were only 375 grams, and for the rest of the workers and engineers - 250. For other layers of the population (children, dependents and employees) - only 125 grams. Practically there were no other products. More than 4 thousand people died daily from hunger. This figure exceeded by 100 times the death rate of pre-war time. At the same time, male mortality over women was predominant. The representatives of the weaker sex by the end of the war made up the bulk of the inhabitants of Leningrad.

The Role of the Road of Life in Victory

The connection with the country was, as already mentioned, the Road of Life of the besieged Leningrad, passing through Ladoga. This was the only highway that existed from September 1941 to March 1943. It was on this road that the evacuation of industrial equipment and population from Leningrad, the delivery of foodstuffs to the city, as well as weapons, ammunition, reinforcements and fuel took place. In total, over 1,615,000 tons of cargo were delivered to Leningrad, about 1.37 million people were evacuated. At the same time in the first winter of cargo received about 360 thousand tons, and residents were evacuated 539.4 thousand. A pipeline was laid along the bottom of the lake in order to supply oil products.

Protection of the Road of Life

Hitler's troops constantly bombed and bombed the Road of Life in order to paralyze this single saving path. To protect it from air strikes, as well as ensure uninterrupted operation, the country's air defense assets and forces were mobilized. In various memorial ensembles and monuments today heroism of people that made possible uninterrupted movement on it was immortalized. The main place among them is the "Broken Ring" - a composition on the Ladoga Lake, as well as an ensemble called "Rumbolovskaya Gora", located in Vsevolozhsk; "Flower of Life" (a monument in the village of Kovalevo), which is dedicated to children who lived in Leningrad in those years, as well as a memorial complex set up in the village of Chernaya Rechka, where warriors who died on the Ladoga road settled in a mass grave.

The lifting of the siege of Leningrad

The blockade of Leningrad was first broken, as we said, in 1943, on January 18. This was accomplished by the forces of the Volkhov and Leningrad fronts in cooperation with the Baltic Fleet. The Germans were abandoned. The operation "Iskra" took place during the general offensive of the Soviet Army, which developed widely in the winter of 1942-1943 after the enemy's troops were surrounded at Stalingrad. Army "North" acted against the Soviet troops. On January 12, the troops of the Volkhov and Leningrad fronts went on the offensive, and six days later they joined forces. On January 18, the city of Shlisselburg was liberated, and the southern coast of the strategically important Ladoga Lake was cleared of the enemy. Between him and the front line a corridor was formed, the width of which was 8-11 km. Through it for 17 days (just think about this time!) Were laid road and railroad tracks. After that, the supply of the city improved dramatically. The blockade was completely lifted on January 27. The day of the lifting of the siege of Leningrad was marked by a salute, which illuminated the sky of this city.

The siege of Leningrad became the most brutal in the history of mankind. Most of the residents who died at that time are buried today at the Piskarevsky memorial cemetery. The defense lasted, to be precise, 872 days. Before the war, Leningrad was no more. The city has changed a lot, it was necessary to restore many buildings, some - to build anew.

Diary of Tanya Savicheva

From the terrible events of those years there were many evidences. One of them is Tanya's diary. Leningrad Savicheva Tatiana began his message at the age of 12 years. It was not published, because it consists of only nine terrible records about how the members of this girl's family died in Leningrad in that time. Tanya herself could not survive. This notebook as an argument accusing Fascism was presented at the Nuremberg Trials.

There is this document today in the museum of the history of the hero city, and a copy is kept in the window of the memorial of the above-mentioned Piskarevsky cemetery, where 570 thousand Leningraders were buried, during the blockade of those who died from starvation or bombings between 1941 and 1943, and also in Moscow on Poklonnaya Gora .

Losing strength because of hunger hand wrote sparingly, unevenly. The childish soul, stricken with suffering, was no longer capable of living emotions. The girl only recorded the terrible events of her life - the "visits of death" to her family's house. Tanya wrote that all Savicheva died. However, she still did not find out that not everything had died, their kind continued. Sister Nina was rescued and taken out of the city. She returned in 1945 to Leningrad, in her home, and found Tanya's notebook among the plaster, fragments and bare walls. Brother Misha also recovered from a serious wound on the front. The girl herself was found out by the employees of the sanitary teams who bypassed the houses of the city. She fainted from hunger. She, barely alive, was evacuated to the village of Shatka. Here, many orphans became stronger, but Tanya never recovered. For two years, doctors fought for her life, but the girl still died. She died in 1944, on 1 July.