1. The Seige of Leningrad. Выполнили: Сырцова Софья (11-а)
Беднова Виолетта (10-а)
ГБОУ школа № 331 Невского района Санкт-Петербурга

2. The Siege of Leningrad (September 8, 1941 – January 27, 1944)

3. Encirclement of Leningrad
According to the plan “Barbarossa” in the summer of 1941 Hitler was planning to conquer the USSR in two months. The key city in the northern direction was Leningrad. 150 km from the city of Leningrad by the town of Luga the Nazis were stopped by the Soviet troops because Russian resistance was fierce.
Initially, the city was to be taken immediately but the Germans relied on the expectation that the besieged city would surrender.
Hitler decided to raze Leningrad to the ground with the help of aviation.
Encirclement of Leningrad
According to the plan “Barbarossa” in the summer of 1941 Hitler was planning to conquer the USSR in two months. The key city in the northern direction was Leningrad. 150 km from the city of Leningrad by the town of Luga the Nazis were stopped by the Soviet troops because Russian resistance was fierce.
Initially, the city was to be taken immediately but the Germans relied on the expectation that the besieged city would surrender.
Hitler decided to raze Leningrad to the ground with the help of aviation.

4. Encirclement of Leningrad
The last rail connection to Leningrad was severed on 30 August, when the Germans reached the Neva River. On 8 September, the road to the besieged city was severed when the Germans reached Lake Ladoga at Shlisselburg, leaving just a corridor of land between Lake Ladoga and Leningrad which remained unoccupied by axis forces. Bombing on 8 September caused 178 fires.
On 21 September, German High Command considered the options of how to destroy Leningrad. Simply occupying the city was ruled out "because it would make us responsible for food supply". The resolution was to lay the city under siege and bombardment, starving its population. On 7 October, Hitler sent a further directive signed by Alfred Jodl reminding Army Group North not to accept capitulation.

5. 900 blockade days
There was no food supplies, energy, water. People died from cold, bombardments and starvation. Civilians in the city suffered from extreme starvation, especially in the winter of 1941–1942. For example, from November 1941 to February 1942 the only food available to the citizen was 125 grams of bread, of which 50–60% consisted of sawdust and other inedible admixtures, and distributed through ration cards. In conditions of extreme temperatures and city transport being out of service, even a distance of a few kilometers to a food distributing kiosk created an insurmountable obstacle for many citizens. In January–February 1942, about 700–1,000 citizens died every day, most of them from hunger.

6. Operation Iskra
The encirclement was broken in the wake of Operation Iskra. After fierce battles the Red Army units overcame the powerful German fortifications to the south of Lake Ladoga, and on 18 January 1943 the Volkhov Front's 372nd Rifle Division met troops of the 123rd Rifle Brigade of the Leningrad Front, opening a 10–12 km (6.2–7.5 mi) wide land corridor, which could provide some relief to the besieged population of Leningrad.

7. Although the Red Army managed to open a narrow land corridor to the city on 18 January 1943, the siege was finally lifted on 27 January 1944, 872 days after it began. It was one of the longest and most destructive sieges in history. The total number of human losses during the 29 months of the siege of Leningrad is estimated as 1.5 million, both civilian and military.

8. Notable people who survived.

9. Anna Akhmatova
Anna Akhmatova was a Russian modernist poet, one of the most acclaimed writers in the Russian canon.
During World War II, Akhmatova witnessed the 900 day Siege of Leningrad. In 1940, Akhmatova started her Poem without a Hero, finishing a first draft in Tashkent, but working on "The Poem" for twenty years and considering it to be the major work of her life, dedicating it to "the memory of its first audience – my friends and fellow citizens who perished in Leningrad during the siege". On returning to Leningrad in May 1944, she writes of how disturbed she was to find "a terrible ghost that pretended to be my city".

10. Vera Inber was a Russian-Soviet poet and writer.
During World War II she lived in besieged Leningrad where her husband worked as the director at a medical institute. Much of her poetry and prose during those times is dedicated to the life and resistance of Soviet citizens. In 1946 she received an esteemed government award (Gosudarstvennaya premiya SSSR) for her siege-time poem "Pulkovskij meridian" (Pulkovo Meridian). She was also awarded several medals.

11. Olga Berggoltz 
Olga Fyodorovna Bergholz was a Soviet poet. She is most famous for her work on the Leningrad radio during the city's blockade, when she became the symbol of city's strength and determination.
 Olga Berggolts spent all the 872 days of the blockade in Leningrad. She worked at the radio, encouraging hungry and depressed citizens of the city by her speeches and poems. Berggolts wrote many times about heroic and glorious events in the history of Russia, such as Faithfulness and They Were Living in Leningrad.

12. Boris Babochkin 
Boris Babochkin was a well known Soviet film and theatre actor and director. Boris Babochkin was one of the first internationally recognized stars of the Soviet-Russian cinema. He rose to fame with the title role in the classic film Chapaev (1934).
From 1927 to 1940 Babochkin lived and worked in Leningrad. During World War II he made several trips to Leningrad, besieged by the Nazis, where he supported the defenders of Leningrad under the Siege and helped lift their spirits with his performances, while they were struggling to survive.

13. Dmitry Shostakovich  
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Russian composer and pianist, and a prominent figure of 20th-century music.
The greatest and most famous wartime contribution was the Seventh Symphony. Whether or not Shostakovich really conceived the idea of the symphony with the siege of Leningrad in mind, it was officially claimed as a representation of the people of Leningrad’s brave resistance to the German invaders and an authentic piece of patriotic art at a time when morale needed boosting.
After the outbreak of war between the Soviet Union and Germany in 1941, Shostakovich initially remained in Leningrad. He tried to enlist for the military but was turned away because of his poor eyesight. To compensate, Shostakovich became a volunteer for the Leningrad Conservatory’s firefighter brigade and delivered a radio broadcast to the Soviet people .

14. Joseph Brodsky 
Joseph Brodsky was a Russian and American poet and essayist.
Brodsky was born into a Jewish family in Leningrad. His father, Aleksandr Brodsky, was a professional photographer in the Soviet Navy and his mother, Maria Volpert Brodsky, was a professional interpreter whose work often helped to support the family. They lived in communal apartments, in poverty, marginalized by their Jewish status. In early childhood Brodsky survived the Siege of Leningrad where he and his parents nearly died of starvation; one aunt did die of hunger. He later suffered from various health problems caused by the siege.

15. Alisa Freindlich
Alisa Freindlich was born into the family of Bruno Freindlich, a prominent actor and People's Artist of the Soviet Union. She is of German and Russian ancestry. Her father and paternal relatives were ethnic Germans living in Russia for more than a century. In her childhood years, Alisa Freindlich attended the drama and music classes of the Leningrad Palace of Pioneers. During the Second World War she survived the 900-day-long Siege of Leningrad and continued her school studies after the war.
Alisa Brunovna Freindlich is a Soviet and Russian actress, People's Artist of the Soviet Union.

16. Boris and Arkady Strugatskiy
Arkady Natanovich Strugatsky was born August 25, 1925 in Batumi;  The family later moved to Leningrad. In January 1942, Arkady and his father left the besieged city, but Arkady was the only survivor in his train car; his father died upon reaching Vologda. Arkady was later drafted into the Soviet army; Prior to that, he was able to take the mother and brother of Leningrad.
Born April 14, 1933, Boris Natanovich Strugatsky remained in Leningrad with his mother during the siege of the city during World War II.

17. “Nobody is forgotten, nothing is forgotten”
These words are carved into the wall of the Piskaryov Memorial Cemetery where nearly half a million victims of the 900-day siege lie.

18. We remember
We will never forget the heroic deeds of citizens of Leningrad who were under siege and withstood despite the deaths and starvation.