The Forbidden Garden of Leningrad: Science and Sacrifice in a City Under Siege

My great-grandmother and grandfather were in Leningrad during the siege. My great-grandmother continued to teach throughout. At some point she was given the option to evacuate with my (very) young grandfather over the "road of life".

As my mother tells the story, my great grandmother had the choice of either taking a bus, or hanging on to the back of some delivery truck. She chose the truck. The bus broke through the ice and disappeared under the water.

It's strange to realize how close one can be to not being "here" and how history weaves its way through your blood and ends up on the front page of hackernews.

A family friend was 7 years old in Leningrad when the siege started. He talked proudly of finding a cat and killing it so that he could bring it home for his aunt to cook (his father was conscripted and his mother was already dead). He talked about how they would peel down the wallpaper because the glue used to put it up before the war contained flour, and so a very weak sort of soup could be made from it.

They evacuated him over Lake Ladoga to Siberia where he spent the war. His father returned to Leningrad after the war and made contact, and they sent him at 10 years old by himself on the trans-Siberian railway back to Leningrad with a sack of potatoes to eat/trade.

Back at school in Leningrad they saw German POWs helping cleanup/rebuild and they would trade with them.

He also remembers enjoying American movies in the late 40's, before they were banned.

David Benioff’s (Game of Thrones show runner) City of Thieves is a very entertaining book set during the siege. It was an inspiration for The Last of Us video game (and later HBO series)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Thieves_(novel)

I've heard of this story before, the scientists who saved seeds and refused to eat them, despite the starvation everywhere.

It's remarkable that they sacrificed even their own lives to this end.

Shostakovich's symphony is marvelous

The experience of Vladimir Putin's parents in the siege continue to shape Putin's views.