The Presidential Library's materials to reveal the New Year celebrations in besieged Leningrad

The most difficult first winter in besieged Leningrad featured frost, hunger, bombing, lack of electricity... The frozen trams stood still on the deserted streets in the snowdrifts.

These days, the Leningrad Radio Committee played a significant role in the life of the besieged city. Radio broadcasted stories of front-line correspondents, poems of Leningrad poets and the voice of Olga Bergholz dear to Leningrad residents.

Igor Malakhov, who lived in the besieged city, donated to the Presidential Library his memoirs as part of a large-scale project devoted to the 75th anniversary of the Great Victory. His diaries include the following lines: "Only radio varied the harsh life of those days. In December, they broadcasted concerts but not very often. But in October and November, there was nothing. With pain in our hearts, we listened to Susanin's aria or waltz from Swan Lake..."

On December 31, 1941, the Leningradskaya Pravda newspaper reported: "Today the Leningrad Radio Committee organizes a series of special New Year programs. A radio meeting will be held in the committee's studio - a meeting of soldiers, commanders and political workers of the Leningrad Front with representatives of the city's workers and Vsevobuch (Universal Military Training) fighters. After that, there will be a big concert with performances of N. Velter, N. Legkov, I. Nechaev, front-line theatre brigades and a jazz orchestra of the Red Army House.

The central topic of the evening's Latest News program is: "We are Entering 1942 - the Year of Our Victory". It begins with a poetic performance by Alexander Prokofiev. Then, we will read celebrations to the Leningrad residents.

The festive radio program will end with a concert".

The poems read on the radio by Alexander Prokofiev ended with a direct appeal to the forthcoming 1942.

From the year, which is "coming in a fighting impulse", everyone expected one thing - victory and the liberation of the city from the Siege. Leningraders had not yet expected that the Siege would last almost 900 days...". In the middle of the Great Patriotic War, we celebrate a new year, 1942", wrote the Leningradskaya Pravda newspaper on January 1. - "On this day, we do not sum up the results of peaceful construction, but the results of fierce battles and struggles with the German hordes that deceitfully attacked our country. <…> Our heroical people opposed the enemy's invasion. <…> 1941 will go down in history as the year of the fearless resistance of the Soviet people to the German fascist invaders. 1942 should go down in history as the year of the complete defeat of the German military machine, the universal elimination of the fascist occupiers".

Leningraders found the powers and time to support the soldiers who defended the city: artists went to the front to perform, schoolchildren gave concerts in hospitals, women collected simple gifts: knitted socks, homemade pouches, books. December 31, 1941, the newspaper Na Strazhe Rodiny in the article 16 Thousand New Year's Gifts stated: "From Vladivostok and Tbilisi, Tashkent and Sverdlovsk, Gorky and Alma-Ata - fighters, commanders and political workers of the Leningrad Front receive warm New Year's greetings from all over the Soviet Union. Letters, telegrams and parcels express the great people's love for the heroic Red Army, for the glorious defenders of Leningrad.We received a lot of New Year's gifts. There is a short address on the boxes, packages and parcels: "To the soldiers and commanders of the Leningrad Front". The same newspaper issue states: "The Sergei Kirov Red Army Leningrad House is sending mobile film equipment to the front military units. The front-line soldiers will listen to the historical speeches of Comrade Stalin on November 6 and 7. Students of the Theater Institute will visit the soldiers. They will read stories about the combat activities of the great Russian commanders - Suvorov, Kutuzov, Bagration".

On January 1, 1942, political instructor Yakov Dukhin, who fought on the Leningrad front, wrote in his diary: "New Year. I sit in a dugout and celebrate it, writing these lines. <...> Now and then, I can hear the shots of rifle-machine-gun fire from afar. <…> We mark this moment when our troops continue their offensive. Kerch and Simferopol were captured. This year must and will be the last year for German fascism. <…> We were not always happy in 1941, and sometimes even sad. But at such moments as now, we say to each other: Happy New Year, New Happiness! With new victories in the new year, dear country!".

The soldier of the signal corps Leonid Mikhailovich Pikunov wrote to his relatives in the besieged city: "January 1, 1942. Happy New Year, New Happiness! Hello dear relatives and friends, Dad and Mom, Lida and Klavdia, Misha, Anya ... as well as the entire team of our home. Be happy in the New Year and live for many years. <…>… Hold on tight. We are coming to your aid. There are only a few days left and our beloved city of Lenin will be liberated from the Siege".

The issue of the newspaper Leningradskaya Pravda, published on January 3, 1942, states the following: "the representatives of the N-factory visited the soldiers of commander Andreev": "... Spacious, well-built dugout. Moving by short bounds, under the bullets' whistle, Leningraders made their way to meet the brave defenders of our city. <…> Representatives of all divisions gathered in the red corner. The Red Corner is arranged underground. It is a spacious dugout, decorated with portraits of the leaders, combat newspapers, and posters. <...> The soldiers warmly welcome the delegates. With excitement, they accept gifts made with love for them by women workers".

The terrible days of the Siege lasted for weeks and months... The next year, 1943, was round the corner. And although everyone understood then that it was still far from complete victory over the enemy, the holiday atmosphere changed.

"For the second time, we celebrate the New Year struggling with the German fascist invaders. <…> This New Year's Eve is unlike the last one. And our city does not look like before - the pulse of life is full beating, trams and cars are ringing on the streets, there are no last year's snowdrifts, there is no heaps of rubbish. Factories and factories are working. There are classes in schools. Theatres and cinemas are open. <…> Almost all houses have water supply and sewage. <...> And our people are also not the same - they are stronger physically, more cheerful, more experienced. <...> This transformation of the city, this transformation of people is the greatest success of the past year", wrote Pyotr Popkov, the Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Leningrad City Council of Working People's Deputies, in an article published in the first issue of Leningradskaya Pravda in 1943.

The newspaper also reported about the New Year holidays for the children of the besieged city: "1,360 students are going to spend winter vacations in rest homes and health resorts. An additional recreation centre is opening. Schoolchildren will stay in health resorts until January 10. First of all, the children of the frontline soldiers will receive the vouchers. The rest homes will arrange Christmas parties for children. All of them will receive New Year's gifts".

Exactly a year later, Vera Michurina-Samoilova, People's Artist of the USSR, the Stalin Prize laureate, wrote in the Leningradskaya Pravda newspaper: "I want to welcome the new year 1944 with the words of the great Russian poet Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin: "Long live the sun, / Let the darkness hide!" <…> With a great desire to live and work, with faith in the future joy, I meet 1944".

...They fought on the outskirts of besieged Leningrad - and believed in victory. They stood during a twelve or sixteen-hour work shift by the machines, helping the front - and believed. They wrote poems, painted pictures, gave concerts in the front line - and believed from the very beginning of the war that every New Year would be the year of the long-awaited Victory.