On Thursday September 8th, 2011, Russia marked 70 years since the beginning of one of the longest and deadliest sieges in the history of warfare – the blockade of Leningrad by Nazi troops…
Now on Monday January 27th, 2014, Russia marks the end of that deadly siege…
Bombed out, isolated and taken to the brink of starvation, Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, survived 872 days cut off from the rest of the country…
When the German army encircled the city it was not the shells and bombs that the inhabitants feared most, it was hunger…
“It got far worse when the famine spread. There is nothing more terrible than famine, than to be there when your nearest and dearest starve to death,” remembers blockade survivor, Irina Skripachyova…
Those trapped inside the city had to resort to whatever means necessary to survive…
“A horse slipped on an icy street and collapsed. Immediately, people rushed out of their houses to chop it up. Our dad went out with an axe. He managed to get something like a hoof. The whole family lived off it for a week,” recalls Zinaida Goncharova, another blockade survivor…
Sometimes the need to eat saw people take drastic action…
“There were days when I would step outside my house and see dead people lying in the snow, with their buttocks severed for meat. This isn’t something we should try to cover up with heroic stories. That would be unfair to the history of the siege, and the people who endured it,” says Viktor Vilner, reflecting on what he saw back then…
70 years ago that terrible siege ended, but the memory has lived on within the Russian people..
Post by Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…