The Presidential Library marking the day of the beginning of the siege of Leningrad

On September 8, 1941, a siege ring closed around Leningrad, which squeezed the city until January 18, 1943 the troops of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts joined near the southern shore of Lake Ladoga. 82 years have passed since the beginning of those terrible events. The Presidential Library’s portal features unique documents, essays, periodicals, diaries of Leningraders, photo and video materials telling about how the city lived on the Neva. There is also an opportunity to watch numerous interviews with siege survivors, eyewitnesses of those distant days, home front workers and soldiers who defended and liberated our city.

The lines of the diary of Leningrader Yakov Dukhin, written in pencil, are filled with warmth and tragedy. Before the start of World War II, Yakov Duhin served in the army with the rank of senior political officer, and during the war years as a captain in the 86th Infantry Division. Captain Duhin died on February 10, 1944. His notes were received by his relatives, preserved and transferred to the Presidential Library.

The fate of besieged Leningrad and its residents was watched by the whole country. The newspaper Tambovskaya Pravda dated February 2, 1944, № 22 reported: “Regular suburban passenger train traffic has been opened on the Leningrad-Kolpino line, the Oktyabrskaya Railway. For two years the Germans held the Kolpino station under artillery fire. Trains stopped a few kilometers from it, and the population had to make their way to their homes under fire. Now here is a deep rear. Suburban trains (TASS) will run daily on the Leningrad–Kolpino line”ю

The collection Defence and Siege of Leningrad on the Presidential Library’s portal features the "Act of the Leningrad City Commission on the deliberate extermination of civilians of Leningrad by the Nazi barbarians and the damage caused to the economy and cultural and historical monuments of the city during the period of war and siege" (1945) . The document tells about the atrocities committed by the Nazis against the residents of Leningrad, about the destruction of the economy and cultural and historical monuments: “Unable to take Leningrad by storm, the Nazi invaders decided to strangle the city with a three million civilian population with a siege  ring”.

The Act of the Leningrad City Commission says: “November 8, 1941 in Munich, Hitler declared: “Leningrad will have to die of starvation...”. Starting from September 1941, throughout the 900 days of the siege, Leningrad, despite the fact that there were no fortifications in it, was subjected to air bombardments and systematic artillery shelling, pursuing the goal of destroying the city and killing its civilian population. The documents seized from the Nazis revealed plans for Leningrad, on which the Hermitage, the Anichkov Palace, the Institute for the Protection of Motherhood and Infancy, and others were listed among the “military” objects. Each object number had its own artillery data: sights, calibers and types of projectiles. The Nazi invaders "fired systematically and methodically around the city, choosing the hours of the greatest revival of traffic in order to destroy as many civilians as possible". During the siege in Leningrad, “187 historical buildings built by famous architects were destroyed and damaged by bombs and shells”, “dozens of scientific institutes and institutions were damaged”. Serious damage was inflicted on higher educational institutions: "five institute buildings were completely destroyed". Children's institutions were subjected to merciless bombing and artillery shelling. They fired high-explosive fragmentation and high-explosive incendiary projectiles. On May 18, 1942, after artillery shelling of school № 218 along Rubinstein Street, 13, “four students were killed and seven were wounded”. As a result of high-explosive and incendiary bombs, the hospital at Suvorovsky Prospekt, 50 was completely destroyed, "442 people were killed and wounded".

The order of the headquarters of the German naval forces on the destruction of Leningrad dated September 29, 1941 states: “If, due to the situation in the city, requests for surrender are made, they will be rejected, since the problems associated with the stay of the population in the city and its food supply, cannot and should not be decided by us. In this war being waged for the right to exist, we are not interested in preserving at least part of the population…”.