Saint Petersburg is the second most populous city in Russia, located in the Northwestern Federal District, on the banks of the Neva River, 634 kilometers northwest of Moscow. The area of the settlement is 1439 square kilometers.
General data and historical facts
In 1300, on the site of the modern city, the Swedes built the Landskrona fortress, which a year later was demolished by the Novgorodians and local Karelians.
As a result of the Stolbovo Peace Treaty of 1617, the territory along the banks of the Neva River was included in Swedish Ingria. After the Northern War, the Neva and the coastal area became part of the Russian Empire.
In the spring of 1703, the Peter and Paul Fortress was founded on Hare Island.
In the first half of the 18th century, the Admiralty Shipyard, Galernaya Shipyard, Winter and Summer Palaces of Peter I, the Summer Garden, engineering and artillery schools were built in the city. Among the industrial enterprises, water mills, brick, gunpowder, weapons, tanning and trellis factories were put into operation.
At the end of the 18th century, there were over 1.2 thousand streets in St. Petersburg and about 220 thousand people lived.
In 1824, the largest flood in the city's history occurred. As a result of the flood, according to various sources, from 400 to 4 thousand people died.
In the 1830s, almost 300 industrial enterprises operated in the city. The largest enterprises in St. Petersburg at that time were the Putilov, Obukhov and Baltic factories.
In 1836, the railway from St. Petersburg to Krasnoe Selo was put into operation. This year the Tsarskoye Selo station (Vitebsky) was built.
In the second half of the 18th century, Nikolaevsky, Baltiysky, Varshavsky and Finlyandsky railway stations were built.
In 1897, the population of St. Petersburg grew to 1,265 thousand people.
In 1914, there were 60 higher educational institutions in the city, where almost 40 thousand people studied.
At the beginning of 1917, the February Revolution took place in Petrograd, as a result of which Emperor Nicholas II abdicated the throne.
In 1918, Soviet power was established in the city, and the status of the capital passed to Moscow. In 1924, Petrograd, by decision of the country's authorities, was renamed Leningrad.
In 1931, Moscow and Leningrad received the status of cities of republican subordination of the RSFSR.
During the Great Patriotic War, the Germans blockaded Leningrad for 900 days and nights. According to some estimates, between 650 thousand and 2 million residents of Leningrad died during the siege.
In January 1944, after the blockade was lifted, only 560 thousand residents remained in the city. In 1955, the Leningrad Metro began operating in the city.
In the 1960s, areas of the city began to be massively built up with Khrushchev houses.
In the 1970s, new 9-storey residential buildings-ships, the Yubileiny Sports Palace and the Great Oktyabrsky Concert Hall were built in Leningrad.
In 1979, work began on the construction of a dam to protect the settlement from natural disasters.
In 1988, the city's population reached 5 million. In 1991, following a referendum, the city returned its historical name of St. Petersburg.
Since 1997, the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum has been held annually in the city.
In the 2000s, the Ice Palace, the ring road, and the Bolshoi Obukhovsky Bridge were built in St. Petersburg.
In 2018, the city will host the World Cup finals.
Districts of St. Petersburg: Admiralteysky, Vasileostrovsky, Vyborgsky, Kalininsky, Kirovsky, Kolpinsky, Krasnogvardeysky, Krasnoselsky, Kronstadt, Kurortny, Moscow, Nevsky, Petrogradsky, Petrodvortsovy, Primorsky, Pushkinsky, Frunzensky, Central.
The telephone code of St. Petersburg is 812. Postal code is 190000.
Time
Climate and weather
St. Petersburg has a temperate climate. Winters are mild and long. The average temperature in January is -5.5 degrees.
Summer is moderately warm and short. The average temperature in July is +18.8 degrees.
Total population of St. Petersburg for 2018-2019
Population data was obtained from the State Statistics Service. Graph of changes in the number of citizens over the past 10 years.
The total number of residents in 2017 is 5,352 thousand people.
The data from the graph shows a strong increase in population from 4,571,184 people in 2007 to 5,351,935 people in 2018.
As of January 2018, in terms of the number of residents, St. Petersburg ranked 2nd out of 1,113 cities in the Russian Federation.
Attractions
1.Saint Isaac's Cathedral- a large Orthodox church in the city is a masterpiece of world architecture. Overall dimensions of the cathedral: height 102 meters, weight 300 thousand tons, area 4 thousand square meters, capacity 12 thousand people.
2.Hermitage- the most famous art museum in Russia was founded in 1764. The Hermitage collections consist of works by the most famous artists in the world.
3.Palace Square- one of the main attractions of the city was formed at the beginning of the 18th century as Admiralty Meadow. On the territory of Palace Square there are the Winter Palace, the Headquarters of the Guards Corps, the Alexander Column, and the Arc de Triomphe.
4.Kazan Cathedral- the Orthodox church was founded by order of Emperor Paul I in 1801.
5.Peter-Pavel's Fortress- a fortification on the small Hare Island was founded in May 1703 by order of Peter I.
Transport
The city has sea and river transport. Pulkovo international airport of federal significance is located 15 kilometers south of St. Petersburg.
There are five railway stations in the city: Baltiysky, Vitebsky, Ladozhsky, Moskovsky, Finlyandsky.
St. Petersburg is a city of federal significance, ranking second in terms of population in Russia after Moscow. It is the largest administrative, industrial, cultural, scientific center of the Western Federal District of the Russian Federation and the Leningrad Region, and an important transport hub.
In the period from 1712 to 1918 it was the capital of the Russian state. The city, which has direct historical and cultural ties to the emergence of Russia as a European superpower, symbolizes the power of imperial power and its military glory. The city is located in the northeastern part of Russia, in the Neva Lowland, on the coast of the mouth of the Neva River, which flows into the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, and on numerous islands of the Neva Bay, stretching from the northwest to the southeast for 90 km. Its area is 1439 km 2, this is the second place after Moscow.
Founding history
At the beginning of the 17th century, the lands around the Neva River were owned by Swedish Ingria; as a result of the Northern War between Russia and Sweden at the beginning of the 18th century, the river valley was again returned to the Russian Empire. Here, on May 27, 1703, at the mouth of the Neva River, not far from the former Swedish town of Nyen, at the behest of Tsar Peter I, the first brick of the Peter and Paul Fortress was laid, this was the first building of the future St. Petersburg. In 1704, the Kronstadt Fortress was built on the island of Kotlin in the Gulf of Finland. Peter I attached very important strategic importance to the new city, because it was destined to become the Russian gateway to the countries of Western Europe. Since 1712, St. Petersburg has been the capital of the Russian state; the entire royal court, its employees and the government Senate moved here. The year 1725 was marked by the appearance in the city of the Smolny and Foundry yards, water saw mills, tanneries, weapons factories, gunpowder and other factories, the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, and since 1724 the Mint was located here. By the middle of the 18th century, many buildings and structures erected during the reign of Peter were destroyed by frequent floods and large fires. By order of Empress Anna Ioannovna, the city was restored and rebuilt, the Smolny Institute of Noble Maidens, the Mining School, the Imperial Academy of Arts and other architectural ensembles appeared. , embankments of the Fontanka and Neva rivers and the central canals of the city are being built. At the end of the 18th century, the population of St. Petersburg was about 220 thousand people, which was even more than in Moscow.
(Flood of 1824 in St. Petersburg)
In 1824, there was the largest flood in the entire history of the city, which resulted in millions of rubles in losses and cost the lives of a huge number of people (up to four thousand dead). In 1825, the Decembrist uprising took place on Senate Square, which became a significant historical event in the formation of the Russian revolutionary movement. At the same time, the city was experiencing a significant economic boom, due to the rapid pace of industrial development, there were 300 factories and plants (large factories Putilovsky, Baltiysky, Obukhovsky were being built), 25 commercial banks, by the end of the 18th century the number of enterprises reached 500.
By the end of the 19th century, the population of St. Petersburg was already 1.2 million people, and by 1914 it increased 1.6 times and amounted to almost 2 million people.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the rapid economic development of St. Petersburg was observed; it was the source of 12% of all industrial production of the Russian state, 50% of chemical production, 70% of electrical power production, 25% of the automotive industry, 17% of the production of the entire textile industry of Russia. In 1914, St. Petersburg, as a result of anti-German sentiment in the light of the events of the outbreak of the First World War, began to be called Petrograd. As a result of the October Revolution of 1917, the Bolsheviks came to power, the Tsar abdicated the throne, a Provisional Government was created and the Russian Soviet Republic was formed, its capital - Petrograd. As a result of the bloody revolutionary events, by the 20s of the twentieth century, the population of Petrograd had decreased significantly and amounted to 722 thousand people.
After that, the Bolshevik government led by Lenin, due to the proximity of anti-Bolshevik forces to Petrograd, moved to Moscow; it lost its status as a capital city; in 1924, after the death of the leader of the world proletariat, it was renamed Leningrad. When the war with Nazi Germany began, Leningrad was under siege for 900 long days, during which time up to two million people died from hunger, shelling and bombing; in 1944, after the blockade was finally lifted, 566 thousand people remained in the city.
(Nevsky Avenue)
In 1965, Leningrad received the status of a “hero city”; in 1990, its historical center was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.
In 1988, Leningrad became a millionaire city in terms of population; in 1991, after Russia gained independence, the city was returned to its historical name - St. Petersburg.
Population of St. Petersburg
According to the latest statistics, the city's population in 2017 was 5.3 million people, this is the second largest in Russia after Moscow and the fourth among all European cities, 1% of the population are visitors. From the beginning of the 90s of the last century until 2007, the population of the XIX century was constantly decreasing, there was an excess of the mortality rate over the birth rate, starting in 2009, a gradual increase in the population began due to migration growth, from 2002 to 2010 the population increased by only 4% and amounted to in 2010 there were 4,879,566 people, in 2012 it was already 5 million people, the majority were female (54.4%). The number of able-bodied people aged 16 to 65 years is about 3 million people or 57.7% of the total population.
St. Petersburg is a multinational city, representatives of more than two hundred nationalities live here, Russians make up more than 92.5% of the population (3.9 million people), Ukrainians - 1.52% (64 thousand people), Belarusians - 0.9% (38 thousand people), less than 0.9% - Tatars, Jews, Uzbeks, Armenians, Azerbaijanis, Tajiks, Georgians, Moldovans and representatives of other nationalities.
St. Petersburg is the center of the St. Petersburg agglomeration, which is located within a 50 km radius around the city and has a population of about 6 million people. This is the second largest agglomeration in our country after Moscow.
Industry of St. Petersburg
In modern times, the city has a developed economic system; its largest and most powerful enterprises operate in the manufacturing and construction industries, retail and wholesale trade, transport services, real estate, healthcare and services.
St. Petersburg is one of the largest economic centers of the Russian Federation; the gross regional product of this city in 2014 reached 2.6 trillion rubles, this is the fourth place among all economic entities in Russia. The city's financial market is the second largest among all regional financial markets in Russia; there are about 30 local banks and more than 100 branches of banking institutions from all over the Russian Federation.
St. Petersburg's industrial production is based on heavy industry, including power engineering. Largest shipbuilding enterprises:
- Admiralty Shipyards - production of warships, tankers, submarines for the Russian Navy;
- Sredne-Nevsky Shipyard - production of military boats, minesweepers;
- Baltic Plant - production of ships, icebreakers;
- "Severnaya Verf" - manufacturing ships for the Russian Navy.
(Leningrad Metal Plant, LMZ)
Large machine-building enterprises: the Compressor plant, Leningrad Metal Plant, Elektrosila, Sevkabel, Arsenal, Leninets, Lomo, etc. Transport giants - Vagonmash, St. Petersburg Tram-Mechanical Plant , automotive - representatives of such well-known corporations as Ford, Toyota, General Motors, Scania, Nissan, Hyundai Motor, MAN. Ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy is represented by the enterprises "Izhora Pipe Plant", "Krasny Vyborzhets", chemical - by the research and production enterprise "VMP-Neva", food - by the Baltika brewery, the Heineken beer production plant, the Stepan Razin brewery, the Krupskaya confectionery factory, the Parnas-M meat processing plant, the Petmol dairy plant of the Danone company, the Polustrovo mineral water plant and many others.
Culture of the city of St. Petersburg
Since ancient times, St. Petersburg has proudly held the title of “cultural capital” of our country; it is the largest cultural center not only in Russia, but throughout Europe. There are about 8.5 thousand monuments here, which are the cultural, architectural and historical heritage of the entire Russian people, of which more than 4 thousand objects are of federal significance (this is 10% of all monuments of the Russian Federation protected by the state).
There are 200 museums in the city, the most famous: the State Hermitage (there is a collection of more than three million masterpieces of art from all over the world), the Russian Museum (one of the largest museums of Russian art), the Central Naval Museum, the Museum of the Russian Academy of Arts, the history of St. Petersburg, the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, better known to the general public as the Kunstkamera.
Here are such famous masterpieces of palace and park art as Peterhof, Oranienbaum, Tsarskoe Selo, a large number of exhibition centers, about 70 theaters: Mariinsky Theater, Alexandrinsky Theater, Mikhailovsky Theater, Bolshoi Drama Theater named after G. A. Tovstonogov, St. Petersburg Academic Theater Comedy named after N. P. Akimov, Maly Drama Theater (Theater of Europe), St. Petersburg Academic Theater named after Lensoveta, “Baltic House”, Academic Drama Theater named after V. F. Komissarzhevskaya, Clown Theater “Litsedei”, Great St. Petersburg State Circus . There are more than 1,000 libraries in the city, the largest of which are the public Russian National Library, the Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the B. N. Yeltsin Presidential Library, about 50 cultural and leisure institutions, more than 50 cinemas, several film studios, the oldest of them " Lenfilm", "Lennauchfilm".
Every year a significant number of exhibitions are held in St. Petersburg, and many festivals are held annually; international ballet festival "Mariinsky", festival "Arts Square", international ballet festival "Dance Open", international music festival "Palaces of St. Petersburg", international jazz festival "White Night Swing", international art festival "From the Avant-Garde to the Present Day" , international film festival "Festival of Festivals", international theater festival "Baltic House", international competition-festival of children's and youth creativity "Celebration of Childhood".
About the number of deaths in 1941 and 1942.
"In September 1941, 6808 died, in October - 7353, in November - 11083.1 The peak of mortality occurred in December-March 1942. According to the city statistical office, 52881 people died in December 1941, in January 1942 - 101,583 people, in February - 107,477 people, in March 98,966 people.2 It seems that these figures are still approximate, although the dynamics of mortality are expressed correctly. These assumptions are confirmed by the "Certificate of the NKVD LO in the OK and the Civil Code of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks" on the mortality rate of the city's population in January - March 1942." It provides slightly different data: in January 1942, 96,751 people died, in February - 96,015 people and in March 81,507 people.3 According to calculations by N.Yu. Cherepenina based on archival data in January In 1942, the death of 127 thousand Leningraders was registered."
Below the cut are more evacuation statistics by month.
1941
September - 6,808
October - 7,353
November - 11,083
December - 52,881
1942
January - 101,583 (96,751)
February - 107,477 (96,015)
March - 98,966 (81,507)
“According to official post-war data (presented, in particular, at the Nuremberg trials), the number of losses among the civilian population amounted to 649 thousand people (without taking into account the losses of the population of the city’s suburbs caught in the blockade ring), however, most researchers consider this number to be underestimated (numbers are given up to up to two million people).For comparison, in Hiroshima 78,150 people died and 13,983 people went missing.
The table below shows the number of deaths registered registry offices of 15 urban districts, as well as Kolpino and Kronstadt for 1942. Most researchers believe that registry offices recorded only a portion of the deaths."
Month |
Men |
Women |
Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 89151 | 37838 | 126989 |
| February | 67448 | 55232 | 122680 |
| March | 41404 | 57077 | 98481 |
| April | 24854 | 41511 | 66365 |
| May | 14044 | 29083 | 43127 |
| June | 7511 | 17161 | 24672 |
| July | 4378 | 10788 | 15176 |
| August | 2214 | 5398 | 7612 |
| September | 1354 | 3160 | 4514 |
| October | 1028 | 2490 | 3518 |
| November | 1032 | 2349 | 3381 |
| December | 1602 | 2433 | 4035 |
Total |
256020 |
264530 |
520550 |
(Materials from the book “Life and Death in Blockaded Leningrad. Historical and Medical Aspect”, St. Petersburg: 2001)
About evacuation.
Urodkov S.A. “Evacuation of the population of Leningrad in 1941-1942.”Bulletin of Leningrad University. 1958. 8. pp. 88-102.
"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, including factories evacuated 164,320 people, district councils - 401,748 people, evacuation points - 117,580 people and the city railway station - 22,635 people.
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 issue of evacuating the population from Leningrad was considered by the State Defense Committee, whose decision proposed evacuating 500,000 people along the ice route.”
The third population decline... and the last?
St. Petersburg is the fourth largest city in Europe after London, Moscow and Paris. According to the 2002 All-Russian Population Census, its permanent population was 4,661 thousand people. In pre-revolutionary St. Petersburg, population censuses were carried out in 1864, 1869, 1881, 1890, 1900 and 1910; a one-day census took place on June 2, 1918 in revolutionary Petrograd. Systematic recording of the natural movement of the city's population has been established since 1881. In the same year, the publication of “Statistical Yearbooks of St. Petersburg” began. Before the revolution, 29 yearbooks were published.
When using this rich material and comparing it with modern publications, it is necessary to take into account what territory and what categories of population we are talking about. The expansion of the official boundaries of the city was due to the inclusion of suburban areas with cities, towns and villages. Starting from 1890, in the publications of pre-revolutionary censuses, the “city” was distinguished separately, “the city with Bolshaya and Malaya Okhta” and “the city with suburbs” separately. The materials of the All-Union Censuses were developed based on the current and permanent population for Leningrad and the territory subordinate to the Leningrad City Council. In addition, data from previous population censuses are traditionally recalculated within the administrative boundaries that existed at the time of the last census. Therefore, the use of data on the total population of St. Petersburg over a long period should be accompanied by a large number of reservations.
As an example, we provide information on the current population of St. Petersburg from 1764 to 2002, published in the Anniversary statistical collection "St. Petersburg 1703-2003". In table 1 and in Fig. 1 the current population is given without cities and workers' settlements subordinate to the Leningrad City Council, and later to the Administration of St. Petersburg. Data from 1864 to 1897 are for the city, and from 1898 for the metropolitan area. Data for 1937, 1939, 1959, 1970, 1979, 1989 are given according to population censuses. Since 1958, the population at the beginning of the year is given within the boundaries as of January 1, 2002.
Table 1. Current population of St. Petersburg in 1764-2002, thousand people
|
years |
thousands of people |
years |
thousands of people |
years |
thousands of people |
years |
thousands of people |
|
1764 |
1911 |
1942 |
1973 |
||||
|
1765 |
1912 |
1943 |
1974 |
||||
|
1770 |
1913 |
1944 |
1975 |
||||
|
1775 |
1914 |
1945 |
1976 |
||||
|
1780 |
1915 |
1946 |
1977 |
||||
|
1785 |
1916 |
1947 |
1978 |
||||
|
1790 |
1917 |
1948 |
1979 |
||||
|
1795 |
1918 |
1949 |
1980 |
||||
|
1800 |
1919 |
1950 |
1981 |
||||
|
1805 |
1920 |
1951 |
1982 |
||||
|
1810 |
1921 |
1952 |
1983 |
||||
|
1815 |
1922 |
1953 |
1984 |
||||
|
1820 |
1923 |
1954 |
1985 |
||||
|
1825 |
1924 |
1955 |
1986 |
||||
|
1830 |
1925 |
1956 |
1987 |
||||
|
1835 |
1926 |
1957 |
1988 |
||||
|
1840 |
1927 |
1958 |
1989 |
||||
|
1845 |
1928 |
1959 |
1990 |
||||
|
1850 |
1929 |
1960 |
1991 |
||||
|
1855 |
1930 |
1961 |
1992 |
||||
|
1860 |
1931 |
1962 |
1993 |
||||
|
1865 |
1932 |
1963 |
1994 |
||||
|
1870 |
1933 |
1964 |
1995 |
||||
|
1875 |
1934 |
1965 |
1996 |
||||
|
1880 |
1935 |
1966 |
1997 |
||||
|
1885 |
1936 |
1967 |
1998 |
||||
|
1890 |
1937 |
1968 |
1999 |
||||
|
1895 |
1938 |
1969 |
2000 |
||||
|
1900 |
1939 |
1970 |
2001 |
||||
|
1905 |
1940 |
1971 |
2002 |
||||
|
1910 |
1941 |
1972 |
2003 |
Source: St. Petersburg.1703-2003: Anniversary statistical collection. / Ed. I.I. Eliseeva and E.I. Gribova. - Issue 2. - St. Petersburg: Shipbuilding, 2003. pp. 16-17.
The population of St. Petersburg grew from its founding until pre-revolutionary 1916, when it amounted to 2.4 million people. Over the next 30 years, the city was twice devastated by famine, disease and exodus. During the repressions of the 30s and the post-war “Leningrad affair,” thousands of city residents died. The depopulation of Petrograd after the February Revolution, when by 1920 the city's population had decreased threefold, S.A. Novoselsky called it “unprecedented and unprecedented in history.” But the population of Leningrad suffered even greater losses during the Siege of 1941-1944, which has no analogues in world history.
Figure 1. Current population of St. Petersburg in 1764-2002, thousand people
In the post-war years, the city's population recovered slowly. After the civil war, Leningrad returned to its previous numbers in the early 1930s. This was greatly facilitated by the massive influx of rural residents during collectivization. V. Paevsky noted then “the large number of farmers who were drawn into Leningrad as a source of replenishment of qualified labor.” In 1930, the number of city residents for the first time exceeded 2 million, in 1939 - 3 million. After the Great Patriotic War, the city regained its pre-war population only at the very end of the 1950s. This was mainly due to the active arrival of migrants to work and study in Leningrad. The 1970 census recorded the passage over the 4 million mark, the 1989 census - through the 5 million mark. The peak population of St. Petersburg was passed in 1991, when 5034.7 thousand people lived in the city. Since then, the city's population has been steadily decreasing.
1 - Novoselsky S.A. Age composition of the population of Petrograd according to the census of August 28, 1920 // Materials on the statistics of Petrograd, issue 4. - Pg.: Ed. Peter. Gubernia Department of Statistics, 1921. p.9.
2 - Paevsky V.V. Mechanical movement of the population of Leningrad // Bulletin of the Leningrad Gubernia Statistical Department, 1925, No. 14. p. 112.
The siege of Leningrad became the most difficult test for city residents in the entire history of the Northern capital. In the besieged city, according to various estimates, up to half of the population of Leningrad died. The survivors did not even have the strength to mourn the dead: some were extremely exhausted, others were seriously injured. Despite hunger, cold and constant bombing, people found the courage to survive and defeat the Nazis. One can judge what the residents of the besieged city had to endure in those terrible years by statistical data - the language of numbers of besieged Leningrad.
872 days and nights
The siege of Leningrad lasted exactly 872 days. The Germans encircled the city on September 8, 1941, and on January 27, 1944, residents of the Northern capital rejoiced at the complete liberation of the city from the fascist blockade. For six months after the blockade was lifted, the enemies still remained near Leningrad: their troops were in Petrozavodsk and Vyborg. Red Army soldiers drove the Nazis away from the approaches to the city during an offensive operation in the summer of 1944.
150 thousand shells
Over the long months of the blockade, the Nazis dropped 150 thousand heavy artillery shells and over 107 thousand incendiary and high-explosive bombs on Leningrad. They destroyed 3 thousand buildings and damaged more than 7 thousand. All the main monuments of the city survived: Leningraders hid them, covering them with sandbags and plywood shields. Some sculptures - for example, from the Summer Garden and horses from the Anichkov Bridge - were removed from their pedestals and buried in the ground until the end of the war.
Bombings in Leningrad took place every day. Photo: AiF/ Yana Khvatova
13 hours 14 minutes of shelling
Shelling in besieged Leningrad was daily: sometimes the Nazis attacked the city several times a day. People hid from the bombings in the basements of houses. On August 17, 1943, Leningrad was subjected to the longest shelling during the entire siege. It lasted 13 hours and 14 minutes, during which the Germans dropped 2 thousand shells on the city. Residents of besieged Leningrad admitted that the noise of enemy planes and exploding shells continued to ring in their heads for a long time.
Up to 1.5 million dead
By September 1941, the population of Leningrad and its suburbs was about 2.9 million people. The siege of Leningrad, according to various estimates, claimed the lives of from 600 thousand to 1.5 million city residents. Only 3% of people died from fascist bombing, the remaining 97% died from hunger: about 4 thousand people died every day from exhaustion. When food supplies ran out, people began to eat cake, wallpaper paste, leather belts and shoes. There were dead bodies lying on the streets of the city: this was considered a normal situation. Often, when someone died in families, people had to bury their relatives themselves.
1 million 615 thousand tons of cargo
On September 12, 1941, the Road of Life opened - the only highway connecting the besieged city with the country. The road of life, laid on the ice of Lake Ladoga, saved Leningrad: along it, about 1 million 615 thousand tons of cargo were delivered to the city - food, fuel and clothing. During the blockade, more than a million people were evacuated from Leningrad along the highway through Ladoga.
125 grams of bread
Until the end of the first month of the blockade, the residents of the besieged city received a fairly good bread ration. When it became obvious that flour supplies would not last long, the quota was sharply reduced. Thus, in November and December 1941, city employees, dependents and children received only 125 grams of bread per day. Workers were given 250 grams of bread, and paramilitary guards, fire brigades and extermination squads were given 300 grams each. Contemporaries would not have been able to eat the siege bread, because it was made from practically inedible impurities. The bread was baked from rye and oat flour with the addition of cellulose, wallpaper dust, pine needles, cake and unfiltered malt. The loaf turned out to be very bitter in taste and completely black.
1500 loudspeakers
After the start of the blockade, until the end of 1941, 1,500 loudspeakers were installed on the walls of Leningrad houses. Radio broadcasting in Leningrad was carried out around the clock, and city residents were forbidden to turn off their receivers: radio announcers talked about the situation in the city. When the broadcast stopped, the sound of a metronome was broadcast on the radio. In case of alarm, the rhythm of the metronome accelerated, and after the shelling ended, it slowed down. Leningraders called the sound of the metronome on the radio the living heartbeat of the city.
98 thousand newborns
During the blockade, 95 thousand children were born in Leningrad. Most of them, about 68 thousand newborns, were born in the autumn and winter of 1941. In 1942, 12.5 thousand children were born, and in 1943 - only 7.5 thousand. In order for the babies to survive, the Pediatric Institute of the city organized a farm of three purebred cows so that the children could receive fresh milk: in most cases, young mothers did not have milk.
The children of besieged Leningrad suffered from dystrophy. Photo: Archive photo
-32° below zero
The first winter of the blockade became the coldest in the besieged city. On some days the thermometer dropped to -32°C. The situation was aggravated by heavy snowfalls: by April 1942, when the snow should have melted, the height of the snowdrifts reached 53 centimeters. Leningraders lived without heating or electricity in their houses. To keep warm, city residents lit stoves. Due to the lack of firewood, everything inedible that was in the apartments was burned in them: furniture, old things and books.
144 thousand liters of blood
Despite hunger and the harshest living conditions, Leningraders were ready to give their last for the front in order to speed up the victory of the Soviet troops. Every day, from 300 to 700 city residents donated blood for the wounded in hospitals, donating the resulting financial compensation to the defense fund. Subsequently, the Leningrad Donor aircraft will be built with this money. In total, during the blockade, Leningraders donated 144 thousand liters of blood for front-line soldiers.