Today marks a special day in the history of Saint Petersburg. On this day 74 years ago the Soviet Red Army fully lifted the Siege of Leningrad.
On September 8th 1941, the German army had closed off the last road to the city of Peter and Lenin beginning a 872 day long blockade in which between 1.6 to 2 million soldiers and civilians would lose their lives. For this almost 900 day period the people of Leningrad endured near constant bombardment both from the air and by German artillery along with freezing winter temperatures and of course starvation. For much of the siege the only way to bring food into the city was across the frozen surface of Lake Ladoga. Supply trucks travelling across this icy road were constantly exposed to enemy shell fire, but they managed to deliver enough food to the starving residents of the city for the road to earn the name “the Road of Life”. Regardless of the valiant efforts of the Red Army to supply Leningrad however, food remained scarce. In the worst period of the famine, the winter of 1941, some adults received a daily bread ration of only 150 grams, whilst workers engaged in physical labour, who should normally have received 3000 calories of food a day, had to survive and work on a 700 calorie diet.
Through all these difficulties the people of Leningrad prevailed; the city did not surrender and Hitler’s plan to “wipe the city from the face of the earth” was not realised. For this the people of Leningrad were lauded as heroes and the city itself received the name “Hero City Leningrad”, a moniker still proudly emblazoned on a sign on the roof of the Hotel Oktyabrskaya on Uprising Square, right in the centre of the city.
Alongside the human cost of the siege, St. Petersburg suffered extensive physical damage. Before and during the blockade measures were taken to protect the city’s many culture treasures. A multitude of artworks, including the statues of Anichkov bridge, were evacuated from the city before the blockade began. Others were hidden away underneath St. Isaac’s Cathedral and the Hermitage and in other underground spaces to protect them from bombardment. The famous Bronze Horseman statue depicting Peter the Great on horseback, which was too big to move to safety, was enclosed in a protective structure, in part to keep it safe from harm, in part to prevent German bombers using it to orient themselves.
Despite all these measures much of great value was lost during the siege. Many of the grand palaces around St. Petersburg to which we now offer tours, including Peterhof, the Catherine Palace and Pavlovsk, were badly damaged in the German occupation of the Leningrad region and had to undergo drastic renovation and reconstruction after the war ended. The scars of the intense bombardment which accompanied the siege are also still visible around many of St. Petersburg’s most famous sights. On the columns of St. Isaac’s Cathedral and on the stonework of Anichkov Bridge, to name but two examples, you can still see recesses and pock-marks caused by exploding shells.
Modern day residents of St. Petersburg are rightly proud of their forebears’ efforts to defend this great city. As such, city and museum authorities have planned a series of events in honour of the anniversary of the lifting of the siege.
