The market in besieged Leningrad: evidence of survivors. Part of 1
Money as such was worthless. It was practically impossible to buy bread in the Leningrad market for the period described for rubles. About two thirds of the survivors of the blockade of Leningraders indicated in special questionnaires that the source of food for which they survived was products traded on the market for things.
Evidence of eyewitnesses allows you to make an impression about the markets in the besieged city: “The market itself is closed. Trade goes along Kuznechny Lane, from Marat to Vladimirskaya Square and further along Bolshaya Moskovskaya ... Back and forth, human skeletons walk, wrapped in unkind things, in a variety of clothing hanging from them. They brought here everything they could, with one desire - to exchange for food. ”
One of the blockade victims shares his impressions of the Sennoy Market, which are shocking: “The Sennoy market was very different from the small bazaar on Vladimirskaya. And not only by its size: it is located on a large area, with snow trampled and filled with many legs. He was also distinguished by a crowd that was not at all like a dystrophic slow group of Leningraders with expensive little things in their hands that were not needed by anyone during the famine — they were not given bread for them. Here such an unprecedented "business spirit" and a large number of dense, warmly dressed people, with quick eyes, quick movements, loud voices were striking. When they spoke, they had steam coming out of their mouths, as in peacetime! Dystrophics had such a transparent, imperceptible. ”
A. A. Darova writes in her memoirs: “The covered Sennaya market could not accommodate all trading and changing, buying and simply“ willing ”people, and the hungry set up their own“ hungry ”market right on the square. It was not 20-century trade, but a primitive exchange of goods and products, as at the dawn of mankind. Exhausted by hunger and disease, stunned by the bombing, people adapted all human relationships, and above all trade, to its tolerable Soviet power and unacceptable to the blockade to their stupid psyche. ” The blockade winter drove a “hungry” market on Sennaya to not only crowds of dying and cynical well-fed merchants, but also a mass of criminal elements and simply notorious gangsters from all over the region. This often resulted in the tragedies of life, when people lost everything from the hands of robbers, and sometimes lost their lives.
Numerous eyewitness testimonies allow us to make one very important observation - the terms “seller” and “buyer” often mean the same traders. In this regard, one of the Leningrad residents recalls:
The overwhelming majority of participants in transactions in the blockaded markets were citizens who received dependent rations that did not give a chance for survival. But they came for an additional power source and the military, workers with quite serious nutritional standards, which, however, allowed only to support life. Of course, those who wanted to satisfy the burning hunger or save their loved ones from fatal dystrophy were significantly more foodstuffs owners. This caused the appearance of speculators of various stripes, who simply captured the city. Eyewitnesses of the created lawlessness write:
The next participants in the ruthless process of selling lives were military personnel who were the most desirable trading partners in the markets of Leningrad. Usually they were the richest and most solvent, however, they cautiously appeared in the markets, as it was strictly punished by the authorities.
A military correspondent P. N. Luknitsky in this regard cited the episode: “On the streets, women more and more often touch my shoulder:“ Military comrade, do you not need wine? ”And briefly:“ No! ”- a shy excuse:“ I thought it was not bread exchange, a gram would be at least two hundred, three hundred ... ”Another blockade described a case when his father, returning from the front, had to put on civilian clothes in order to exchange canned food and concentrates of his ration for vodka.
Horrible were the characters, who Leningraders attributed to cannibals and sellers of human flesh. “At the Sennoy market, people walked through the crowd, as in a dream. Pale as ghosts, thin as shadows ... It was only sometimes that a man or woman suddenly appeared with a full, ruddy face, somehow soft and hard at the same time. The crowd trembled in disgust. They said it was cannibals. ” About this terrible time terrible memories were born: “Cutlets were being sold on the Haymarket Square. Sellers said it was horse meat. But I have not seen much time in the city not only horses, but also cats. For a long time the birds did not fly over the city. ” EI Irinarkhova writes: “They were watching on Sennaya Square: are they selling suspicious meatballs or something else? Such goods were seized, and sellers were taken away. ” I. A. Fisenko describes the case, as she could not satisfy the hunger with broth, which had a specific smell and sweetish taste - her father poured the full pan into the trash. The girl's mother unknowingly traded a piece of human meat for a wedding ring. Different sources cite different data on the number of cannibals in besieged Leningrad, but, according to the estimates of the internal affairs agencies, only 0,4% of criminals have admitted to terrible fishery. One of them told how he and his father killed the sleeping, flayed the corpses, salted the meat and exchanged it for food. And sometimes they themselves used in food.
The sharp stratification of city dwellers in their standard of living caused a burning hatred for the owners of illegally acquired products. Survivors of the blockade write: “Having a bag of cereals or flour, you can become a wealthy person. And such a bastard has proliferated in abundance in an endangered city. " “Many are leaving. Evacuation is also a speculators' refuge: 3000 rubles from the head for transportation by car, 6000 rubles by plane. Undertakers earn, jackals earn. Speculators and Blatmasters seem to me to be nothing more than dead flies. What an abomination! ”Employee plant them. Stalin B. A. Belov fixes in his diary:
To be continued ...
Sources:
Mikhailov BM At the bottom of the blockade and war.
Gifts A. A. Blockade.
Salisbury G. Xnumx days. Leningrad blockade.
Luknitsky P.N. Leningrad acts ... Front-line diary (22 June 1941 g. - March 1942 g.).
Children and blockade. Memories, fragments of diaries, eyewitness accounts, documentary materials.
Pyankievich V. L. “Some die of hunger, others are cashing in, robbing the last crumbs of the first”: participants of the market trade in besieged Leningrad // Works of the Faculty of History of St. Petersburg University, 2012.
Evidence of eyewitnesses allows you to make an impression about the markets in the besieged city: “The market itself is closed. Trade goes along Kuznechny Lane, from Marat to Vladimirskaya Square and further along Bolshaya Moskovskaya ... Back and forth, human skeletons walk, wrapped in unkind things, in a variety of clothing hanging from them. They brought here everything they could, with one desire - to exchange for food. ”
One of the blockade victims shares his impressions of the Sennoy Market, which are shocking: “The Sennoy market was very different from the small bazaar on Vladimirskaya. And not only by its size: it is located on a large area, with snow trampled and filled with many legs. He was also distinguished by a crowd that was not at all like a dystrophic slow group of Leningraders with expensive little things in their hands that were not needed by anyone during the famine — they were not given bread for them. Here such an unprecedented "business spirit" and a large number of dense, warmly dressed people, with quick eyes, quick movements, loud voices were striking. When they spoke, they had steam coming out of their mouths, as in peacetime! Dystrophics had such a transparent, imperceptible. ”
A. A. Darova writes in her memoirs: “The covered Sennaya market could not accommodate all trading and changing, buying and simply“ willing ”people, and the hungry set up their own“ hungry ”market right on the square. It was not 20-century trade, but a primitive exchange of goods and products, as at the dawn of mankind. Exhausted by hunger and disease, stunned by the bombing, people adapted all human relationships, and above all trade, to its tolerable Soviet power and unacceptable to the blockade to their stupid psyche. ” The blockade winter drove a “hungry” market on Sennaya to not only crowds of dying and cynical well-fed merchants, but also a mass of criminal elements and simply notorious gangsters from all over the region. This often resulted in the tragedies of life, when people lost everything from the hands of robbers, and sometimes lost their lives.
Numerous eyewitness testimonies allow us to make one very important observation - the terms “seller” and “buyer” often mean the same traders. In this regard, one of the Leningrad residents recalls:
“Buyers are those who changed part of their sugar ration for butter or meat, others for bread searched in vain for rice for a sick person dying from hunger to stop the new disease - hungry diarrhea, with rice-water, miraculously.” B. M. Mikhailov writes the opposite: “Customers are different. They are arrogant, stealingly glaring around and holding their hands in their bosoms - there is bread or sugar, and maybe a piece of meat. I can not buy meat - is it not human flesh? I come to the "buyer".
- Sell it! - whether asking, whether I implore him.
- What about you?
I hastily reveal to him all my riches. He disdainfully delves into the bags.
- Do you have a clock?
- Нет.
- And the gold? - “Bread” turns away and leaves. ”
- Sell it! - whether asking, whether I implore him.
- What about you?
I hastily reveal to him all my riches. He disdainfully delves into the bags.
- Do you have a clock?
- Нет.
- And the gold? - “Bread” turns away and leaves. ”
The overwhelming majority of participants in transactions in the blockaded markets were citizens who received dependent rations that did not give a chance for survival. But they came for an additional power source and the military, workers with quite serious nutritional standards, which, however, allowed only to support life. Of course, those who wanted to satisfy the burning hunger or save their loved ones from fatal dystrophy were significantly more foodstuffs owners. This caused the appearance of speculators of various stripes, who simply captured the city. Eyewitnesses of the created lawlessness write:
Ordinary people suddenly discovered that they had little in common with merchants who had suddenly appeared on Haymarket Square. Some characters - directly from the pages of the works of Dostoevsky or Kuprin. Robbers, thieves, murderers, and gang members roamed the Leningrad streets and seemed to gain more power when night fell. Cannibals and their accomplices. Thick, slippery, with an implacably steel look, calculating. The most terrible personalities of these days, men and women. " But they also had to be careful in their trading actions when they had a loaf of bread in their hands - the incredible value of those days. “Bread was usually sold on the market, sometimes in whole loaves. But the sellers took him out with an eye, the roll was held tightly and hid under the coat. They were not afraid of the police, they were desperately afraid of thieves and hungry gangsters who could at any moment take out a Finnish knife or just hit them on the head, take away the bread and run away.
The next participants in the ruthless process of selling lives were military personnel who were the most desirable trading partners in the markets of Leningrad. Usually they were the richest and most solvent, however, they cautiously appeared in the markets, as it was strictly punished by the authorities.
A military correspondent P. N. Luknitsky in this regard cited the episode: “On the streets, women more and more often touch my shoulder:“ Military comrade, do you not need wine? ”And briefly:“ No! ”- a shy excuse:“ I thought it was not bread exchange, a gram would be at least two hundred, three hundred ... ”Another blockade described a case when his father, returning from the front, had to put on civilian clothes in order to exchange canned food and concentrates of his ration for vodka.
Horrible were the characters, who Leningraders attributed to cannibals and sellers of human flesh. “At the Sennoy market, people walked through the crowd, as in a dream. Pale as ghosts, thin as shadows ... It was only sometimes that a man or woman suddenly appeared with a full, ruddy face, somehow soft and hard at the same time. The crowd trembled in disgust. They said it was cannibals. ” About this terrible time terrible memories were born: “Cutlets were being sold on the Haymarket Square. Sellers said it was horse meat. But I have not seen much time in the city not only horses, but also cats. For a long time the birds did not fly over the city. ” EI Irinarkhova writes: “They were watching on Sennaya Square: are they selling suspicious meatballs or something else? Such goods were seized, and sellers were taken away. ” I. A. Fisenko describes the case, as she could not satisfy the hunger with broth, which had a specific smell and sweetish taste - her father poured the full pan into the trash. The girl's mother unknowingly traded a piece of human meat for a wedding ring. Different sources cite different data on the number of cannibals in besieged Leningrad, but, according to the estimates of the internal affairs agencies, only 0,4% of criminals have admitted to terrible fishery. One of them told how he and his father killed the sleeping, flayed the corpses, salted the meat and exchanged it for food. And sometimes they themselves used in food.
The sharp stratification of city dwellers in their standard of living caused a burning hatred for the owners of illegally acquired products. Survivors of the blockade write: “Having a bag of cereals or flour, you can become a wealthy person. And such a bastard has proliferated in abundance in an endangered city. " “Many are leaving. Evacuation is also a speculators' refuge: 3000 rubles from the head for transportation by car, 6000 rubles by plane. Undertakers earn, jackals earn. Speculators and Blatmasters seem to me to be nothing more than dead flies. What an abomination! ”Employee plant them. Stalin B. A. Belov fixes in his diary:
People walk like shadows, some swollen from hunger, others - obese from theft of foreign stomachs. One had eyes, skin and bones and a few days of life, others had whole furnished apartments, and wardrobes were full of clothes. To whom the war - whom profit. This saying is now in fashion. Some go to the market to buy two hundred grams of bread or exchange food for the last tights, others visit commission shops, from there they go out with porcelain vases, sets, and furs - they think for a long time to live. Some were frayed, worn, decayed, both in dress and body, others shine with fat and flaunt silk rags.
To be continued ...
Sources:
Mikhailov BM At the bottom of the blockade and war.
Gifts A. A. Blockade.
Salisbury G. Xnumx days. Leningrad blockade.
Luknitsky P.N. Leningrad acts ... Front-line diary (22 June 1941 g. - March 1942 g.).
Children and blockade. Memories, fragments of diaries, eyewitness accounts, documentary materials.
Pyankievich V. L. “Some die of hunger, others are cashing in, robbing the last crumbs of the first”: participants of the market trade in besieged Leningrad // Works of the Faculty of History of St. Petersburg University, 2012.
- Evgeny Fedorov
- upsya.livejournal.com, perunica.ru
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