home Style and fashion Stories of children of besieged Leningrad. The country saved

Stories of children of besieged Leningrad. The country saved

I came across a book S.A. Urodkov “Evacuation of the population of Leningrad in 1941-1942.” Editions 1958 of the year.http://liberea.gerodot.ru/a_hist/urodkov.htm#21
I started reading and became interested. Interesting figures are given. Moreover, the figures are from the reports of the fund of the city evacuation commission of the Leningrad City Council of Workers' Deputies, at that time stored in the State Archives of the October Revolution and Socialist Construction. Access for me, like other mere mortals, to the archives is, of course, denied; in the public domain, of course, these figures cannot be found either. And for this reason, the material seems extremely interesting, solely as a source of numbers. Let's forget about the ideological fluff in the book.

Let's start with the official one for today. We are told that in besieged Leningrad a huge number of people died of hunger. The numbers are named differently and vary significantly. For example, Krivosheev’s group, which has done monumental work on irretrievable losses, voices the figure of 641 thousand people. http://lib.ru/MEMUARY/1939-1945/KRIWOSHEEW/poteri.txt#w05.htm-45 . Precisely dead civilians. The website of the Piskarevsky Memorial Cemetery in St. Petersburg writes about 420 thousand people.http://pmemorial.ru/blockade/history . Also clarifying that this figure is exclusively for civilians. Not counting other cemeteries and not counting cremated ones. Wikipedia writes about 1052 thousand people (more than a million), while specifying that the total number of victims of the blockade among the civilian population is 1413 thousand people. (almost one and a half million).https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%91%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%B0_%D0%9B%D0%B5%D0 %BD%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B3%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%B0#.D0.9C.D1.83.D0.B7.D0.B5.D0. B9_.D0.B1.D0.BB.D0.BE.D0.BA.D0.B0.D0.B4.D1.8B
There is also an interesting quote from an American political philosopher on Wikipedia Michael Walzer and, claiming that “more civilians died in the siege of Leningrad than in the hell of Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.”

To complete the picture, I note that in Nuremberg the figure of the total victims of the blockade was announced at 632 thousand people, despite the fact that 97% of this number died from hunger.

Here it is appropriate to note where the figure of some conditional 600-odd thousand people, around which basically everything revolves, first came from. It turns out that it was voiced by Dmitry Pavlov, the State Defense Committee’s commissioner for food in Leningrad. In his memoirs, he clarifies it as 641,803 people. http://militera.lib.ru/memo/russian/pavlov_db/index.html What it is based on is not known and incomprehensible, but nevertheless, for many decades it was a kind of basic figure. At least this was the case under the USSR. For Democrats, this figure, understandably, turned out to be not enough and it is constantly jumping to a million or even one and a half million. Democrats hold millions in high esteem, millions in the Gulag, millions in the Holodomor, millions in the blockade, etc.

Now let’s figure it out together and separate the flies from the chaff.

Let's start with the starting figure, that is, how many people lived in Leningrad initially. The 1939 census says3,191,304 people, including the population of Kolpino, Kronstadt, Pushkin and Peterhof, taking into account other suburbs - 3,401 thousand people.

However, in connection with the introduction of a card system for food products in July 1941, an actual count of the population actually living in the city and its suburbs was made in Leningrad. And this is understandable, because with the beginning of the war, a huge part of the people were mobilized into the Red Army, sent for other needs, plus a lot of people, mostly children with their mothers, went to the outback to live with their grandmothers. After all, it was summer, schoolchildren were on vacation, and at that time many had village roots. So this accounting revealed that at the beginning of the war (July 1941) 2,652,461 people actually lived in Leningrad, including: workers and engineering workers 921,658, employees 515,934, dependents 747,885, children 466,984. Here you need It should be noted that the majority of dependents were elderly.

So, let's take the bull by the horns. Evacuation information.

With the beginning of the war, refugees from the surrounding area arrived in Leningrad. Someone forgets about them, and someone else increases the number of deaths, like a lot of them arrived and everyone died. But evacuation data provides accurate figures.

Refugees from the Baltic states and surrounding towns and villages : Before the blockade of Leningrad, 147,500 people were evacuated by vehicles into the interior of the country through the city evacuation point. In addition, 9,500 people were transported on foot. The latter accompanied cattle and property to the rear.

That is, they tried not to keep or leave anyone in the city, but transported them to the rear in transit. Which is logical and quite reasonable. If anyone remains, it is a relatively small part, measured in units or fractions of units of percent. In general, it had virtually no effect on the city’s population.

On July 2, 1941, the Lensoviet Executive Committee outlined specific measures for the removal of 400 thousand children of preschool and school age.

Please note that the war has only been going on for 10 days, but the approximate number of children is already known and measures are being taken to evacuate them.

By August 7, 311,387 children were evacuated from Leningrad to the Udmurt, Bashkir and Kazakh republics, to the Yaroslavl, Kirov, Vologda, Sverdlovsk, Omsk, Perm and Aktobe regions.

A month from the start of the decision to evacuate, and a month before the start of the blockade, 80% of the number of preschool and school-age children planned for evacuation had already been evacuated from the city. Or 67% of the total.

Seven days after the start of the war, it was organizedplannedevacuation of not only children, but also adults. The evacuation took place with the help of the administration of factories, evacuation centers and the city railway station.

Evacuation was carried out along railways, highways and country roads. The evacuated population of the Karelian Isthmus was sent along the Peskarevskaya road and the right bank of the Neva, bypassing Leningrad. For him, by decision of the Leningrad City Council, near the hospital named after. Mechnikov at the end of August 1941, a food center was organized. Medical care and veterinary supervision of livestock were established at the site where the carts were parked.

For a more successful and planned removal of the population along the roads of the Leningrad railway junction, the Executive Committee of the Leningrad City Council at the beginning of September 1941 decided to create a central evacuation point, to which district points under the Executive Committees of the district Soviets were subordinated.

Thus, planned the evacuation of the population began on June 29 and continued until September 6, 1941 inclusive. During this time it was evacuated706 283 person

Who doesn't understand? Before the blockade began, more than 700 thousand people were evacuated from the city during the PLANNED evacuation. or 28% of the total number of registered residents. That's what's important here. These are the people who were evacuated. But there were also those who left the city on their own. Unfortunately, there are no and cannot be figures for this category of people, but it is clear that these are also thousands, and most likely even tens of thousands of people. It is also important to understand that, apparently, all 400 thousand children planned for evacuation were evacuated and apparently no more than 70 thousand children remained in the city. Unfortunately, there is no exact data. In any case, these 700 thousand are mainly children and women, or rather women with children.

In October and November 1941, the evacuation of the population of Leningrad took place by water - through Lake Ladoga. During this time, 33,479 people were transported to the rear. At the end of November 1941, the evacuation of the population by air began. By the end of December of the same year, 35,114 people were transported by plane.

The total number of evacuees during the first period was774 876 Human. In the second period, the evacuation of the population from blockaded Leningrad was carried out along the highway - through Lake Ladoga.

December 1941 was the most difficult time. Minimum rations, hunger, cold, intense shelling and bombing. It turns out that by December 1941, up to 1,875 thousand people could remain in the city. These are those who met the most terrible days of the blockade.

People with families and alone flocked to the Finlyandsky Station from Leningrad. Family members who retained the ability to move carried homemade sleds with baskets and bundles. Leningraders were transported by rail to the western shore of Lake Ladoga. Then the evacuees had to overcome an exceptionally difficult path along the ice track to the village of Kabon.

In battles from December 18 to 25, Soviet troops defeated enemy groups in the areas of the Volkhov and Voybokalo stations and liberated the Tikhvin-Volkhov railway. After the liberation of Tikhvin from the Nazi invaders, the section of the road beyond the lake was significantly reduced. Shortening the route speeded up the delivery of goods and greatly facilitated the conditions for evacuation of the population.

During the construction of the ice route, before the start of the mass evacuation of the population (January 22, 1942), the population was evacuated through marching order and unorganized transport across Lake Ladoga.36 118 Human

Starting on December 3, 1941, evacuation trains with Leningraders began to arrive in Borisov Griva. Two trains arrived daily. Sometimes 6 trains arrived at Borisov Griva per day. From December 2, 1941 to April 15, 1942 arrived in Borisov Griva502 800 Human

In addition to the transport of the military highway, evacuated Leningraders were transported by buses of the Moscow and Leningrad columns. They had at their disposal up to 80 vehicles, with which they transported up to2500 people per day , despite the fact that a large number of machines broke down every day. At the cost of enormous strain on the moral and physical strength of the drivers and the command staff of military units, the vehicles completed the task assigned to them. In March 1942, transportation reached about15,000 people per day .

from January 22, 1942 to April 15, 1942 evacuated to the interior of the country554 463 person

That is, by mid-April 1942, another 36,118 + 554,463 = 590,581 people were evacuated from the city. Thus, if we assume that no one died in the city, was not bombed, was not drafted into the army and did not join the militia, then the maximum could remain up to 1200 thousand people. That is, there really should have been fewer people. April 1942 is a certain point after which the most difficult phase of the blockade was passed. In fact, since April 1942, Leningrad was little different from any other city in the country. Food service has been established, canteens are opening (the first was opened in March 1942), enterprises are operating, street cleaners are cleaning the streets, and city transport is running (including electric transport). Moreover, not only do enterprises operate, but they even produce tanks. Which suggests that the city has established not only the supply of food, but also components for production needs, including guns and tanks (machines, engines, tracks, sights, metal, gunpowder...). Made in the city in 1942 and sent tofront 713 tanks, 480 armored vehicles and 58 armored trains. This is not counting small things such as mortars, machine guns and other grenades and shells.

After Lake Ladoga was cleared of ice, on May 27, 1942, the third period of evacuation began.

during the third period of evacuation it was transported448 694 person

On November 1, 1942, further evacuation of the population was stopped. Departure from Leningrad was permitted only in exceptional cases, upon special instructions from the City Evacuation Commission.

On November 1, the evacuation point at the Finlyandsky station and the food service in Lavrovo ceased operation. At all other evacuation points, the staff of workers was reduced to a minimum. However, the evacuation of the population continued in 1943, until the final expulsion of the Nazi invaders from the Leningrad region

Here you need to understand that in fact the evacuation took place in the summer months and by the fall there was simply no one left to evacuate. Since September 1942, the evacuation was more of a nominal nature, rather a kind of Brownian movement back and forth, despite the fact that in the summer of 1943 an influx of population had already begun into the city, which in the spring of 1944 took on a massive character.

Thus, in During the war and blockade, 1,814,151 were evacuated from Leningrad people, including:
in the first period, including planned evacuation before the blockade - 774,876 people,
in the second - 590,581 people,
in the third - 448,694 people.
And almost 150 thousand more refugees. In a year!

Let's count how many people could have remained in the city by the fall of 1942. 2652 - 1814 = 838 thousand people This is provided that no one died or went anywhere. How accurate is this figure and how much can you trust the evacuation data? It turned out that there is a certain reference point, or rather a certain document that allows you to check this. This document was declassified relatively recently. Here he is.

Population information
cities of Leningrad, Kronstadt and Kolpino

The Leningrad Police Department began re-registration of passports on July 8 and completed on July 30, 1942 (1).

According to the re-registration (re-registration of passports) in Leningrad, Kronstadt, Kolpino, the population is 807,288
a) adults 662361
b) children 144927

Of them:

Around Leningrad
- adults 640750
Children under 16 years old 134614
Total 775364

In Kronstadt - adults 7653
Children under 16 years old 1913
Total 9566

In Kolpino - adults 4145
Children under 16 years old 272
Total 4417

This includes the population that was registered but did not receive passports:
a) Patients undergoing treatment in hospitals 4107
b) Disabled people in nursing homes 782
c) Patients in apartments 553
d) Mentally ill people in hospitals 1632
e) Soldiers of the MPVO 1744
f) Those who arrived for mobilization from other regions 249
g) Persons living on temporary certificates 388
h) Persons with special certificates for evacuees 358
Total 9813

Children on state support:
a) in orphanages 2867
b) in hospitals 2262
c) in receivers 475
d) in baby homes 1080
e) artisans 1444
Total 8128

Note: Of the total re-registered population during this period, 23,822 adults (excluding children) dropped out due to evacuation.

In Leningrad, in addition to the indicated population, it supplies:
1) Workers and employees of suburban areas of the region working in the city - 26,000
2) Military personnel of military units and institutions on supply duty in Leningrad - 3500

On 30/VII-1942. is on supply duty in Leningrad 836788

Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Leningrad City Council of Working People's Deputies Popkov

Head of the NKVDLO Department, State Security Commissioner 3rd Rank Kubatkin

Surprisingly, the numbers are very close.

So how many could have died from starvation? As it turns out, not much. We can admit that evacuation data may be somewhat overestimated. Could this be? Quite. We can assume that during this year a certain number of people from the surrounding area arrived in Leningrad. Surely it was so. We can assume that the wounded were brought to Leningrad from the front, and for some reason those who remained here remained. Surely this happened too, not even for sure, but definitely, because such a clause is in the certificate. We can assume that the return of part of the population from evacuation began earlier than the autumn of 1942. Could this happen? Quite, especially if someone left relatively close and was forced to get out of the occupation along partisan paths, including with children. Perhaps other suburbs of Leningrad are not taken into account, for example Oranienbaum and Vsevolozhsk.
However, we will not get exact figures. There is none of them. In this case, the only important fact is that the officially accepted figures for those who died of starvation during the blockade do not correspond to reality. Apparently, it would be correct to say that it was not hundreds, let alone millions, who actually died of hunger during the blockade, but tens of thousands of people. In total, with those who died naturally, from bombing, from disease and other causes - probably no more than a hundred thousand.

What conclusions can we draw from everything? First of all, this topic requires additional research by historians. Moreover, an honest, objective study. No myths. It is necessary to remove from the archives everything that has been falsified, especially the last 25 years. Here, for example, is one of the most blatant fakes signed by an incomprehensible senior lieutenant, in which the numbers do not add up at all, but nevertheless all historians present it every time someone begins to doubt the millions who died of starvation.

Reference
Leningrad city department of civil status acts
about the number of deaths in Leningrad in 1942
Secret
February 4, 1943

January_ _ _ _Number of population in Leningrad - 2383853; Total number of deaths - 101825; The number of deaths per 1000 population is 512.5.
February _ _ _Number of population in Leningrad - 2322640; The total number of deaths is 108,029; The number of deaths per 1000 population is 558.1.
March_ _ _ _ _Number of population in Leningrad - 2199234; The total number of deaths is 98,112; The number of deaths per 1000 population is 535.3.
April_ _ _ _Number of population in Leningrad - 2058257; Total number of deaths - 85541; The number of deaths per 1000 population is 475.4.
May _ _ _ _ _Number of population in Leningrad - 1919115; Total number of deaths - 53256; The number of deaths per 1000 population is 333.0.
June_ _ _ _ _Number of population in Leningrad - 1717774; The total number of deaths is 33,785; The number of deaths per 1000 population is 236.0.
July_ _ _ _ _Number of population in Leningrad - 1302922; The total number of deaths is 17,743; The number of deaths per 1000 population is 162.1.
August_ _ _ _Population number in Leningrad - 870154; Total number of deaths - 8988; The number of deaths per 1000 population is 123.9.
September _ _Number of population in Leningrad - 701204; Total number of deaths - 4697; The number of deaths per 1000 population is 80.3.
October _ _ _Number of population in Leningrad - 675447; Total number of deaths - 3705; The number of deaths per 1000 population is 65.8.
November_ _ _ _Number of population in Leningrad - 652872; The total number of deaths is 3239; The number of deaths per 1000 population is 59.5.
December _ _ _Number of population in Leningrad - 641254; Total number of deaths - 3496; The number of deaths per 1000 population is 65.4.

Total: Total number of deaths - 518416; The number of deaths per 1000 population is 337.2.
Head of the OAGS UNKVD LO
Senior Lieutenant of State Security (Ababin)

The same fakes apparently include data from cemeteries and brick factories converted into crematoriums. Naturally, there was no accounting there and there could not be. But for some reason there are public figures. And of course hundreds of thousands. It's just some kind of competition to see who is bigger.

You may ask, what about film and photo chronicles? What about the memories of the siege survivors? Let's think about it. Let 100 thousand people die from bombing, hunger and cold. In principle, such a figure can be accepted. The bulk of deaths occurred in December-February. Let it be half of the total number, that is, 50 thousand. 50 thousand in three months is 500-600 people per day. 8-9 times more than if they died naturally (in peacetime). On some days, when it was very cold, this figure was even higher. There could be a thousand people a day and even more. This is a huge number. Just think about it, a thousand a day.Despite the fact that at this time the relevant services worked with restrictions, and on some days they might not work at all, including cemeteries and crematoriums. And city transport in December-January worked with restrictions and at some points did not work at all. This led to corpses piling up on the streets. The picture is certainly creepy, and could not help but remain in people’s memories. Yes, we saw a lot, but I don’t know how many and I don’t remember.

Now let's look at the food package in besieged Leningrad. Most people think that throughout the blockade people ate 125 grams of bread, half of which was made from sawdust and straw, and that’s why they died. However, it is not.

Here are the standards for bread.

Indeed, from November 20 to December 25 (5 weeks), children, dependents and employees received 125 grams of bread per day, and not of the highest quality, with an admixture of malt (stocks from breweries stopped in October 1941) and other fillers (cake, bran, etc.). There was no sawdust or other straw in the bread, this is a myth.

This is for bread.

And we are assured that other than bread, other products were not issued due to lack of availability. In particular, this is stated by the official website of the Piskarevsky cemetery. http://www.pmemorial.ru/blockade/history However, by looking at archival materials, we learn in particular that since February 1942, meat standards have been replaced from canned to fresh-frozen. Now I will not delve into the quality of meat, its distribution and other nuances; the fact is most important to me. The fact of the presence of not just canned meat, but meat. If meat was issued using ration cards, it is logical to assume that other products were also issued according to rationing standards. And spices, and shag, and salt and cereals, etc. In particular, the card for butter in December 1941 meant 10-15 grams per day per person.

And the card for January 1942 meant twice as much: 20-25 grams per day per person. It’s like it is now in the army for soldiers, but in the USSR it was for officers.

The sugar card for December 1941 meant 40 grams per person per day

for February 1942 - 30 grams.

This was during the hungriest months; it is clear that later food standards only increased, or at least did not decrease.
Moreover, since March 1942, canteens have been opened in the city, where anyone could eat for money. Of course, this is not a restaurant, but the very fact of having canteens implies a certain assortment of dishes. In addition, there were factory canteens where food was provided free of charge using food cards.

Don't think that I want to embellish something. No. I just want an objective assessment. First of all, the truth. And everyone is free to make their own conclusions and assessments from this truth.

The date of the beginning of the blockade of Leningrad is called September 8, 1941 - on this day the city’s land connection with the rest of the country was finally cut off. In fact, the city was cut off from the outside world two weeks earlier, when only the railway connection was interrupted.

Literally from the first days of the Great Patriotic War, large-scale evacuation was launched in the Soviet Union. From June 1941 to the spring of 1943, more than one and a half million people were transported from Leningrad.

Children were the first to leave the city back in June 1941. In those days, the lack of information and the confidence that the fighting should move into enemy territory led to the fact that most of the evacuees were taken to the south of the Leningrad region, where the Germans were rapidly advancing. Soon the children had to be quickly returned to the city. The evacuation of the population and industrial enterprises turned to the east.

Leningraders in Siberia

The evacuation of the population from Leningrad took place in several stages. From June to the end of August, people left the city by rail. On August 27, railway communication with the country was interrupted. And on September 8, 1941, a blockade ring closed around Leningrad. After the siege of the city, the scale of evacuation decreased sharply, and under constant shelling, Leningraders were sent to the mainland only by plane and along the waterway of Lake Ladoga (until November by water, and after that along the ice Road of Life).

For residents of Leningrad weakened by hunger, evacuation points were hastily created in distant Siberian cities - Omsk, Novosibirsk, Kemerovo, Barnaul, Tomsk and Krasnoyarsk. The cities and villages of Siberia with poorly developed infrastructure were not ready to accept such a number of refugees.

While waiting for a roof over their heads, exhausted people lived for weeks at train stations and stations. Arriving refugees were settled in clubs, pioneer houses, old multi-tiered barracks, in attics and dugouts, and local residents were crowded together.

Evacuation to Krasnoyarsk

According to the recollections of residents of Krasnoyarsk, at the end of September 1942, almost one and a half thousand children arrived from Leningrad. 22 schools, 5 nurseries, 13 kindergartens and 4 orphanages were relocated to the Krasnoyarsk Territory in an organized manner. Immediately after their arrival, all the children were examined by doctors and were horrified by the number of dystrophies among toddlers.

Kindergarten No. 26 spent three years in Siberian evacuation. Photo: Archive photo

The most “severe” were urgently distributed to hospitals, the rest were sent to the cities and villages of the region. Krasnoyarsk residents took some children into their families straight from the station and adopted them.

Kitten's journey

In October 1942, an entire kindergarten No. 26 was relocated to the Karatuzsky district of the Krasnoyarsk Territory. The kids arrived with all the staff - from the manager to the teachers, the linen maid and the cleaning lady. For the 50 little Leningraders who arrived, 50 pairs of children's felt boots were quickly found; local residents brought clothes, books and toys. Gradually, the kindergarten acquired its own farm and began to live as one big family.

A hay plot and land for subsidiary farming were allocated especially for Leningraders, and two horses and four cows were bought. The guests were accommodated in the building of the local pioneer house. Once upon a time, this solid wooden house belonged to the gold merchant Klavdia Kolobova. Leningrad children lived in its spacious and warm rooms for three years, until the blockade was lifted, the end of the war and their return to their hometown.

In the summer of 1945, the older and stronger children were escorted back to Leningrad by the entire village. Karatuz children, who knew from the stories of Leningraders that there were no cats or dogs left in the city during the siege, gave their friends a small kitten as a souvenir. The children took care of the tiny creature all the way and brought it safely to Leningrad.

For Anastasia Stepanova and Nikolai Shishkin, the evacuation became fateful. Photo: Archive photo

One of the kindergarten teachers, 20-year-old Anastasia Stepanova, found her destiny in a Siberian village - Hero of the Soviet Union, junior sergeant Nikolai Shishkin. Together with her husband, she returned to her hometown and continued to work as a teacher.

The evacuation is one of the most memorable and painful pages in the history of besieged Leningrad. Five days after the start of the war, on June 27, 1941, by decision of the bureau of the city and regional committees of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, the Leningrad City Evacuation Commission was created. Three weeks later, or rather on July 14, 1941, the plans of the German command to quickly capture Leningrad became known. This was reported in a report from the NKVD of the USSR to the Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army, Georgy Zhukov.

The evacuation commission had to do a colossal amount of work related to the removal of institutions, equipment, enterprises, military cargo and cultural property, as well as the population, primarily children. And this is in conditions when a stream of refugees poured into the city from areas under the threat of occupation (from Karelia, the Baltic states, and later from the Leningrad region).

A month before the start of the blockade, the entire population of the city was divided into those who wanted to leave as quickly as possible, and those who wanted to stay in Leningrad. Some did not want to leave their loved ones who remained in the city, others feared for their property, others considered it their patriotic duty to remain in their hometown. Finally, the majority simply doubted that they would be better off in the outback, without any definite prospects, without housing, far from relatives and friends.

Nevertheless, the evacuation began. The children were the first to leave. Already on June 29, 1941, the first batch was sent in ten echelons - 15 thousand 192 children with schools and child care institutions. In total, it was planned to take 390 thousand children to the Yaroslavl and Leningrad regions. True, about 170 thousand children very soon returned to the city, since fascist troops were rapidly approaching the south of the Leningrad region, where they were placed.

Little known fact: Paradoxically as it may seem, the financial expenses for ensuring the evacuation of children and adolescents, as well as for their further stay in child care institutions in the rear, were obliged to be borne by parents and those who replaced them. This order was observed both before the siege of the city and after the siege ring around Leningrad closed. In the article St. Petersburg historian, candidate of sciences Anastasia Zotova“On collecting fees for the evacuation of children from besieged Leningrad” with reference to the Central State Archive of St. Petersburg, documents and resolutions of the siege are analyzed, from which it follows that the collection of funds from parents was regularly carried out throughout the siege years, and special commissions were created for this purpose , who reported monthly on the amounts collected until 1944. Parents were temporarily exempt from payments if they left Leningrad and their whereabouts were not established. Only the removal and provision of children who did not have parents or guardians were fully funded by the state.

The evacuation of the adult population began later. Until mid-August 1241, it was planned to evacuate 1 million 600 thousand people, but before the onset of the land blockade, according to the City Evacuation Commission, only 636 thousand 203 people managed to leave, including almost 150 thousand residents of the region and refugees from the Baltic states.

When the Road of Life opened, the evacuation continued by water through Lake Ladoga. In total, until the end of navigation in 1941, about 33,500 people were evacuated from the besieged city by water.

“The opening of the Ladoga route gave many Leningraders hope of salvation,” says blockade survivor Lidiya Aleksandrovna Vulman-Fedorova. “The crossing on Ladoga took us to a magical land with bread, porridge and other dishes, although the evacuation itself was under fire, during which people also died.”

This navigation claimed hundreds of lives. During storms and bombings, 5 tugs and 46 barges sank. The greatest casualties among evacuated people were on September 18 and November 4. In the first case, a barge sank, and in the second, a patrol ship was bombed. Both ships transported hundreds of Leningraders to the mainland, of whom about 500 people died.

This is how blockade survivor Lev Nikolaevich Krylov, born in 1935, recalls the bombing of ships and his failed evacuation: “In early summer, they tried to take me and the boarding school across Ladoga to the mainland. On the shore, everyone was given a “fairytale” package of rations: a roll, crackers, cookies, even a chocolate bar! We were warned that eating too much at once was dangerous. I was watching my brother Yura, and he was capricious and asked not to interfere. After departure, a storm broke out. Many children felt sick and vomited. The bombing began. For some reason we weren’t scared, rather interested. When the lead steamer was hit by a bomb, our ship turned back and the evacuation did not take place.”

In the fall, before frost set in and the ice on Ladoga hardened, the evacuation was almost interrupted. By December 1941, the first peak of mortality was recorded in the city - about 50 thousand Leningraders. And already in January this figure was doubled: according to a secret certificate from the Leningrad city registry office, in the first month of 1942, 101,825 people died in the city.

By the end of January, evacuation became almost the only chance to escape certain death. Leningraders who left the city sold their belongings for next to nothing in order to leave as quickly as possible. By this time the city had turned into a huge market. Hundreds of notices on the walls of houses announced the urgent sale of valuables, books, paintings, furniture, clothing and luxury items that had remained in many families since pre-revolutionary times.

Those leaving were in dire need of funds. From conversations and rumors circulating in the city, they knew that in order to safely leave the city, overcome the deadly path across Lake Ladoga and survive in a new place, they needed money, vodka, tobacco or valuables. So they sold everything they couldn’t take with them. “The city is full of advertisements: “for sale, changing,” the city is a continuous market; things, especially furniture, cost pennies,” Leningrad architect Esfir Gustavovna Levina wrote in her diary.

In total, during the winter and early spring of 1942, according to official data, 554 thousand 186 people were evacuated by ice. And after the opening of navigation in May 1942 and until August, when the evacuation was basically over, there were over 432 thousand more people. After this, the flow of evacuees decreased sharply. The wounded, the sick, the last remaining orphanages in the city left.

No one has calculated how many people survived after they got out of the besieged city. This data simply does not exist. Leningraders died in trains, at distribution points, in hospitals. Weak from hunger, with dystrophy and other ailments, many were unable to survive the hardships of the road in conditions of war and confusion. People died even because they received plenty of food after many months of hunger.

During the entire period of evacuation, namely from June 29, 1941 to December 17, 1943, according to archival documents of the Leningrad City Evacuation Commission, 1 million 763 thousand 129 people were evacuated from Leningrad, including residents of the Leningrad region and the Baltic republics.

From then until today, many Leningraders continue to search for their loved ones who were lost during the evacuation process. " Mom and Dad had nine of us children—small and small,” says blockade survivor Alevtina Aleksandrovna Startseva, born in 1938. - Some of my sisters and brothers ended up in orphanages after the evacuation of pioneer camps. In December 1942, my mother and I were evacuated to Omsk. There my brother and I went to kindergarten, and my mother and my ninth-grader sister got a job at a factory.

By the end of the war, our mother found all the children who disappeared in 1941. There was an amazing story with my sister Nadya, she is 8 years older than me. She had already been adopted, but her mother was given the address where she lived. When my mother arrived there, Nadya’s adoptive mother said: “Let’s agree, whoever Nadya goes with will stay with him. She lived with us throughout the war, we love her.” When my mother and this woman entered the room, Nadya threw herself on our mother’s neck and shouted: “Mommy!” Who will she end up with is no longer a question.”

But there are also Leningraders who were evacuated along with their children’s institutions and did not find their parents, brothers and sisters after the war. Some of them are still looking for their loved ones. Moreover, in the last year there has been a chance to find people who were lost many years ago, since scattered archives were brought together and others were declassified. Project “Siege of Leningrad. Evacuation" was launched on April 27, 2015. This is a unified information database on Leningrad residents evacuated from the city during the siege, which continues to be updated with new archival data and allows you to independently search for information.

That's what I told you Senior Inspector of the Archive Committee of St. Petersburg Elizaveta Zvereva, who participated in the project from the first days: “There are already cases when, thanks to the “Evacuation” database, citizens were able to confirm the fact of their stay in the besieged city and, accordingly, qualify for the “Resident of besieged Leningrad” badge and the entitlement social benefits. A specific example happened quite recently: a woman was 21 years old at the beginning of the war, and she had just given birth to a daughter. She claimed that she was evacuated with her daughter from Leningrad in 1942, and complained that she still could not confirm the fact of evacuation. She lived during the war on Khersonskaya Street, then it was the Smolninsky district, and until recently all requests received a negative answer. Now we have the opportunity to search through the combined database. And we immediately got results! It turned out that the woman and her daughter were evacuated from the enterprise in the Vyborg region, where her brother worked. That’s why they were on the lists.”

According to Elizaveta Zvereva, the creation of the database is not finished yet, it takes place in several stages. First of all, documents on evacuated townspeople from the archives of district administrations were transferred to the Central State Archive. In most cases these are filing cabinets. Unfortunately, in a number of areas, such as Kurortny and Kronstadt, no card files were kept. In such cases, the only source of information is lists of evacuees, filled out by hand, often in illegible handwriting, and poorly preserved. And in the Petrogradsky, Moscow, Kirovsky, Krasnoselsky and Kolpinsky districts, documents have not been preserved at all, which significantly complicates the search. However, work on the project continues and every day more and more people are finding documents for themselves and their loved ones. From April 27, 2015 to the end of September 2016, more than 39,000 people have already used this database.

Tatyana Trofimova

I came across a book S.A. Urodkov “Evacuation of the population of Leningrad in 1941-1942.”» Publications 1958 of the year. http://liberea.gerodot.ru/a_hist/urodkov.htm#21
I started reading and became interested. Interesting figures are given. Moreover, the figures are from the reports of the fund of the city evacuation commission of the Leningrad City Council of Workers' Deputies, at that time stored in the State Archives of the October Revolution and Socialist Construction. Access for me, like other mere mortals, to the archives is, of course, denied; in the public domain, of course, these figures cannot be found either. And for this reason, the material seems extremely interesting, solely as a source of numbers. Let's forget about the ideological fluff in the book.

Let's start with the official one for today. We are told that in besieged Leningrad a huge number of people died of hunger. The numbers are named differently and vary significantly. For example, Krivosheev’s group, which has done monumental work on irretrievable losses, voices the figure of 641 thousand people. http://lib.ru/MEMUARY/1939-1945/KRIWOSHEEW/poteri.txt#w05.htm-45. Precisely dead civilians. The website of the Piskarevsky Memorial Cemetery in St. Petersburg writes about 420 thousand people. http://pmemorial.ru/blockade/history. Also clarifying that this figure is exclusively for civilians. Not counting other cemeteries and not counting cremated ones. Wikipedia writes about 1052 thousand people (more than a million), while specifying that the total number of victims of the blockade among the civilian population is 1413 thousand people. (almost one and a half million). https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%91%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%B0_%D0%9B%D0%B5%D0 %BD%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B3%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%B0#.D0.9C.D1.83.D0.B7.D0.B5.D0. B9_.D0.B1.D0.BB.D0.BE.D0.BA.D0.B0.D0.B4.D1.8B
Wikipedia also contains an interesting quote from the American political philosopher Michael Walzer, who claims that “more civilians died in the siege of Leningrad than in the hell of Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.”

To complete the picture, I note that in Nuremberg the figure of the total victims of the blockade was announced at 632 thousand people, despite the fact that 97% of this number died from hunger.

Now let’s figure it out together and separate the flies from the chaff.
Let's start with the starting figure, that is, how many people lived in Leningrad initially. The 1939 population census speaks of 3,191,304 people, including the population of Kolpino, Kronstadt, Pushkin and Peterhof, taking into account the remaining suburbs - 3,401 thousand people.

However, in connection with the introduction of a card system for food products in July 1941, an actual count of the population actually living in the city and its suburbs was made in Leningrad. And this is understandable, because with the beginning of the war, a huge part of the people were mobilized into the Red Army, sent for other needs, plus a lot of people, mostly children with their mothers, went to the outback to live with their grandmothers. After all, it was summer, schoolchildren were on vacation, and at that time many had village roots. So this accounting revealed that, according to the state at the beginning of the war (July 1941), 2,652,461 people actually lived in Leningrad, including: workers and engineers 921,658, employees 515,934, dependents 747,885, children 466,984. It should be noted that the majority of dependents were elderly.

So, let's take the bull by the horns. Evacuation information.

Refugees from the Baltic states and surrounding cities and villages: Before the blockade of Leningrad, 147,500 people were evacuated by vehicles into the interior of the country through the city evacuation point. In addition, 9,500 people were transported on foot. The latter accompanied cattle and property to the rear.

On July 2, 1941, the Lensoviet Executive Committee outlined specific measures for the removal of 400 thousand children of preschool and school age.

Please note that the war has only been going on for 10 days, but the approximate number of children is already known and measures are being taken to evacuate them.

By August 7, 311,387 children were evacuated from Leningrad to the Udmurt, Bashkir and Kazakh republics, to the Yaroslavl, Kirov, Vologda, Sverdlovsk, Omsk, Perm and Aktobe regions.

Seven days after the start of the war, a planned evacuation of not only children, but also the adult population was organized. The evacuation took place with the help of the administration of factories, evacuation centers and the city railway station.

Thus, the planned evacuation of the population began on June 29 and continued until September 6, 1941 inclusive. During this time, 706,283 people were evacuated

The total number of evacuees during the first period was 774,876 people. In the second period, the evacuation of the population from blockaded Leningrad was carried out along the highway - through Lake Ladoga.

During the construction of the ice route, before the start of the mass evacuation of the population (January 22, 1942), 36,118 people were evacuated through Lake Ladoga in marching order and unorganized transport.

In addition to the transport of the military highway, evacuated Leningraders were transported by buses of the Moscow and Leningrad columns. They had at their disposal up to 80 vehicles, with which they transported up to 2,500 people a day, despite the fact that a large number of vehicles broke down every day. At the cost of enormous strain on the moral and physical strength of the drivers and the command staff of military units, the vehicles completed the task assigned to them. In March 1942, transportation reached about 15,000 people per day.

from January 22, 1942 to April 15, 1942, 554,463 people were evacuated into the interior of the country

That is, by mid-April 1942, another 36,118 + 554,463 = 590,581 people were evacuated from the city. Thus, if we assume that no one died in the city, was not bombed, was not drafted into the army and did not join the militia, then the maximum could remain up to 1200 thousand people. That is, there really should have been fewer people. April 1942 is a certain point after which the most difficult phase of the blockade was passed. In fact, since April 1942, Leningrad was little different from any other city in the country. Food service has been established, canteens are opening (the first was opened in March 1942), enterprises are operating, street cleaners are cleaning the streets, and city transport is running (including electric transport). Moreover, not only do enterprises operate, but they even produce tanks. Which suggests that the city has established not only the supply of food, but also components for production needs, including guns and tanks (machines, engines, tracks, sights, metal, gunpowder...). During 1942, the city produced and sent to the front 713 tanks, 480 armored vehicles and 58 armored trains. This is not counting small things such as mortars, machine guns and other grenades and shells.

After Lake Ladoga was cleared of ice, on May 27, 1942, the third period of evacuation began.

During the third period of evacuation, 448,694 people were transported

On November 1, 1942, further evacuation of the population was stopped. Departure from Leningrad was permitted only in exceptional cases, upon special instructions from the City Evacuation Commission.

Thus, in During the war and blockade, 1,814,151 people were evacuated from Leningrad, including:
in the first period, including planned evacuation before the blockade - 774,876 people,
in the second - 590,581 people,
in the third - 448,694 people.
And almost 150 thousand more refugees. In a year!

Let's count how many people could remain in the city by autumn 1942 of the year. 2652 - 1814 = 838 thousand people This is provided that no one died or went anywhere. How accurate is this figure and how much can you trust the evacuation data? It turned out that there is a certain reference point, or rather a certain document that allows you to check this. This document was declassified relatively recently. Here he is.