What was the name of the blockade iron stove? Bread card

Questions 2 lines

1. In the summer of 1941, when the war began, all the sculptures in the Summer Garden and in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra were buried in the ground, and the monuments in the squares, streets, and embankments of Leningrad were covered with protective cases and camouflaged. However, some statues remained uncovered. The city's defense headquarters decided that they should stand in the midst of bombing and shelling at a combat post. Marine battalions and militia divisions passed by the monuments to a nearby front. We can say that these monuments withstood the blockade along with the living.

What kind of monuments are these?

These are monuments to great commanders: a monument to A.V. Suvorov on the Field of Mars, monuments to M.I. Kutuzov and M.B. Barclay de Tolly at the Kazan Cathedral

1. This avenue is named in honor of the outstanding commander, Marshal of the Soviet Union, four times Hero of the Soviet Union, who became one of the main creators of the victory of the Soviet army over Germany. He commanded the Leningrad Front. What is the name of this avenue?

Marshal Zhukov Avenue

1. This complex of monuments, located along the borders of the blockade ring, was created on the initiative of the poet Mikhail Dudin in order to perpetuate the memory of its heroic defenders. It includes 29 monuments and green spaces along 200 kilometers.

What is the name of this memorial complex? Green Belt of Glory

1. The Assumption Church on Malaya Okhta was built on the site of an old cemetery, where people who died of hunger were buried during the siege of Leningrad. It is called the temple of memory of the Leningrad blockade. The church was built with donations from townspeople, and its walls contain 8,000 bricks. What is written on these bricks?

Names of people who died during the siege.

1. This was the safest place in Leningrad. No shells could reach there, and there were no factories in the area that could be bombed.

Why was this place chosen in December 1941? What is it called now? For mass burial victims siege of Leningrad and warriors Leningrad Front .

This is Piskarevskoye Memorial Cemetery.

1. During the years of the Great Patriotic War, St. Isaac's Cathedral was never subjected to direct shelling - only once did a shell hit the western corner of the cathedral. According to the military, the reason is that the Germans used the highest dome of the city as a target for shooting. How could the residents of Leningrad use this fact while preserving museum values?

Leningraders hid some exhibits from the city’s museums in the basement of St. Isaac’s Cathedral.

1. As you know, metronomes are used in music to determine the tempo of a piece. However, during the siege, the metronome performed another function. Which one?

The sound of a metronome was broadcast on the radio in besieged Leningrad during moments of calm.

1. This Leningrad poetess, remaining in the besieged city during the blockade, worked on the radio, almost daily appealing to the courage of the city residents. At this time, she created her best poems dedicated to the defenders of Leningrad: “February Diary” (1942), “Leningrad Poem”. After the war, her words were carved on the granite stele of the Piskarevsky Memorial Cemetery, where 470,000 Leningraders who died during the Leningrad Siege and in battles defending the city rest.

Who are we talking about? Olga Berggolts

The words are:

Leningraders lie here.
Here the townspeople are men, women, children.
Next to them are Red Army soldiers.
With all my life
They protected you, Leningrad,
The cradle of the revolution.
We cannot list their noble names here,
There are so many of them under the eternal protection of granite.
But know, he who listens to these stones:
No one is forgotten and nothing is forgotten .

1. This piece of music was written by the composer during the siege of Leningrad. What kind of piece of music is this and who was its author? Leningrad Symphony or Symphony No. 7, author Shostakovich D. D.

1. How did Leningraders come up with the idea of ​​hiding the gilded spiers and domes in the city from fascist shells?

The spire of the Admiralty was covered with a camouflage cover, and the spire of the Peter and Paul Cathedral was painted.

1. As soon as the blockade was partially broken in April 1943 and a railway was laid from Shlisselburg to Morozovka, one of the first strategically important light gray cargoes, located in four cars, allowed us to save the surviving food warehouses in Leningrad. What kind of cargo was it?

These were cats. Their task was to fight rats, which were destroying the already small supplies of food in the besieged city.

1. . Mikhail Kuraev, evacuated with his mother and brother in 1942, writes in his memoirs: “My mother did not defend Leningrad and therefore, naturally, she was not awarded the medal “For the Defense of Leningrad,” unlike her relatives. “ZhBL” simply did not live up to the flattering title.” What is “ZhBL”?

Answer: “Resident of besieged Leningrad

Questions 3 lines

1. Who took command of the Leningrad Front on September 13, 1941?

1. Marshal Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov
2. Marshal Govorov Leonid Alexandrovich
3. Marshal Vasilevsky Alexander Mikhailovich

1. What was the name of the operation to break the blockade of Leningrad?

1. Operation Lightning
2. Operation Spark
3. Operation Pistol

1. What was the name of the anti-tank barrier made of welded rails in the shape of a six-pointed star?

1. Anti-tank cat
2. Anti-tank elephant
3. Anti-tank hedgehog

1. How many years will it be this year since the siege of Leningrad was lifted?

1. 73 years old
2. 70 years old

1. Which countries' troops blocked Leningrad?

1. Finland and Germany
2. Germany and England
3. USA and France

1. What did the fast and slow rhythm of the metronome mean?

Fast rhythm - air raid, slow rhythm - lights out

1. The name of the famous road that connected Leningrad and the mainland during the siege is known to everyone - “The Road of Life”. But few people know that this name appeared later, but what was this path called at the beginning, when it just began to operate? -

1. road of death
2. road of change
3. the road ahead

1. Which poet or writer survived the entire siege of Leningrad and spoke daily on the radio in Leningrad?

1. A.S. Pushkin
2. O. Berggolts
3. K.I. Chukovsky

1. To what point did the thermometer drop during the first winter of the siege?

1. The match in what sport took place in 1942 at the Dynamo stadium?

1. Football
2. Basketball
3. Tennis

1. How many people died during the years of the siege?

1. From 400 thousand to 1 million people.

1. What title was awarded to the city of Leningrad for the heroism and courage shown by the residents of Leningrad?

City Hero

1. What did Siege Bread consist of?

sawdust

Questions 4 and 5 lines

1. Which Leningrad schoolgirl kept a diary during the siege, which the whole world learned about?

1. Tanya Savicheva

1. Which transport resumed its service on April 15, 1942?

1. Tram
2. Trolleybus
3. Bus

1. What role did the GAZ-AA “Polutorka” car play during the blockade?

1. Transported food and people across the ice of Lake Ladoga
2. Took people to safety

1. Name this memorable day for all Leningraders in 1944

1. January 27 Day of the final lifting of the siege of Leningrad

1. How many days exactly did the siege of Leningrad last?

1. 872 days
2. 700 days

1. What was the name of the blockade iron stove?

1. Potbelly stove
2. Kopteyka

1. Where did people escape during air raids and shelling?

1. Bomb shelter
2. In the forest

1. What was the daily bread quota in the winter of 1941?

1. The daily bread allowance in December 1941 for workers was 250 grams, for everyone else 125 grams
2. 200 grams

1. How did the residents of the besieged city receive food?

1. By cards
2. By lists

1. What did the residents of besieged Leningrad turn the square near St. Isaac's Cathedral into?

1. Garden

1. Potatoes appeared in Europe in the mid-17th century as an ornamental plant. But after about three hundred years, in one of the European cities, potatoes reappeared in flower beds. What historical event contributed to this?

1. Leningrad blockade

1. What is the name of the only cultural and educational institution whose activities are entirely devoted to the history of the Battle of Leningrad during the Second World War?

1. State Memorial Museum of the Defense and Siege of Leningrad
2. Hermitage

1. It is known that in Leningrad there was only one animal, named Sultan, which survived the entire Siege. What kind of animal was it?

1. Dog German Shepherd

1. On what square is the Monument to the Heroic Defenders of Leningrad located?

1. On Victory Square
2. On the palace square

1. What was the name of the highway laid on the ice of Lake Ladoga?

1. The road of life
2. Road of Fidelity

1. What is the length of the ice route of the Road of Life from Osinovets to Kobona?

1. 30 km
2. 100 km

1. What is the largest siege cemetery in our city?

1. Piskaryovskoye Memorial Cemetery
2. Serafimovskoye Cemetery

1. What is the name of the central sculpture at the Piskarevskoye cemetery?

1. "Motherland"
2. Hero father

1. What is the name of the complex of memorial structures on the lines of the Battle of Leningrad in 1941-1944, the length of which is 200 km?

1. "Green Belt of Glory"
2. "Red Belt of Glory"

1. What is the name of the monument dedicated to the dead children of besieged Leningrad?

1. "Flower of Life"
2. "The tree of Life"

1. Name the Memorial that is part of the “Green Belt of Glory”, located on the western shore of Lake Ladoga.

1. Memorial "Broken Ring"
2. Memorial "Broken Circle"

1. What song about the Road of Life was created during the Great Patriotic War?

1. Song about Ladoga “Eh, Ladoga, dear Ladoga”

1. What is the name of the medal that was awarded to the siege survivors and defenders of our city?

1. Medal "For the Defense of Leningrad"
2. For the preservation of Leningrad

1. What device that gave a signal during the years of the siege was considered the “Heart of Leningrad”?

1. metronome
2. Speaker

1. Were children awarded the medal “For the Defense of Leningrad”?

1. How many loudspeakers were installed in Leningrad during the Siege?

1. 1500

Bread standards in besieged Leningrad were clearly defined for different segments of the population. This was the only and most reliable way to distribute food, giving hope for life. How was it possible to survive in a cold, besieged city, receiving only 125 grams of bread a day? The answer to this question lies in the enormous fortitude of the people of that time and their unshakable faith in victory. The Siege of Leningrad is a story that needs to be known and remembered in the name of the heroism of the people who gave their lives and survived the most terrible siege in the history of mankind.

Blockade: historical background

The 900 days that lasted from September 1941 to January 1944 went down in history as the most tragic days, claiming at least 800 thousand lives of the inhabitants of this city.

Leningrad occupied an important place in the German command's plan, which was called "Barbarossa". After all, this city, according to the developed strategy of the German Field Marshal Paulus, was supposed to precede the capture of Moscow. Hitler's plans were not destined to come true. The defenders of Leningrad did not allow the city to be captured. Transformed into Leningrad, it held back the movement of the German army into the interior of the country for a long time.

The city found itself under blockade, and the Nazis began to actively destroy Leningrad with heavy artillery and aircraft.

The most terrible test

Hunger is what the population of Leningrad suffered the most from. All routes to the besieged city that made it possible to deliver food were blocked. Leningraders were left alone with their misfortune.

Bread standards in besieged Leningrad were reduced 5 times. The famine began due to the fact that at the time of the blockade the city did not have sufficient supplies of fuel and food. Lake Ladoga is the only route through which food delivery was possible, but the capabilities of this method of transporting products did not meet the needs of the residents of Leningrad.

The massive famine was further complicated by the harsh winter; hundreds of thousands of people were unable to survive in the besieged city.

Leningraders' rations

More than 2 million civilians lived in Leningrad at the time of the siege. When the enemies began to actively destroy the city, and fires became regular, many tried to leave the city.

However, all roads were securely blocked.

From the available state farm fields of the besieged city, they carefully collected everything that could be eaten. But these measures did not save from hunger. Already on November 20, the norms for the distribution of bread in besieged Leningrad were reduced for the fifth time. Apart from bread, people received practically nothing. This ration served as the beginning of the most severe famine period in the history of Leningrad.

The truth about famine: historical documents

During the war, the facts of mass starvation of Leningraders were hushed up. The leaders of the city's defense did their best to prevent the appearance of information about this tragedy in print media. When the war ended, the siege of Leningrad was viewed as a tragedy. However, practically no attention was paid to the measures that the government took in connection with overcoming the famine.

Now, collections of documentation extracted from the archives of Leningrad make it possible to shed light on this issue.

Information about the work of the Tsentrzagotzerno office sheds light on the problem of hunger in Leningrad. From this document, which informs about the state of grain resources for the second half of 1941, you can find out that back in July of the same year the situation with grain reserves was tense. Therefore, it was decided to return ships with grain that was being exported to the city’s ports.

While there was an opportunity, trains containing grain were transported by rail to the city in intensive mode. These actions contributed to the fact that until November 1941 the baking industry operated without interruption.

What did the blocking of railway communications lead to?

The military situation simply demanded that the daily bread quota in besieged Leningrad be increased. However, when the railway connection was closed, food supplies decreased significantly. Already in September 1941, food saving measures were tightened.

The rate of bread distribution to residents of besieged Leningrad was sharply reduced. For the period from September to November of the first year of the war, workers who received 800 g each began to be given only 250 g. Employees who received 600 g each had their ration reduced to 125 g. The same amount of bread began to be given to children who were previously entitled to 400 g.

According to reports from the NKVD of the Leningrad Region, the mortality rate of city residents has increased sharply. People over 40 years of age and infants experienced the blockade especially hard.

Dates of reduction of bread standards in besieged Leningrad

Standards for the distribution of bread to the population existed even before the blockade began. According to archival documents, on September 2, 1941, the military and those working in hot shops received the most (800 g). Workers who worked in factories were entitled to 200 g less. Half of the worker's ration in the hot shop was received by employees, whose ration was 400 g. Children and dependents were given 300 g of bread.

On September 11, on the 4th day of the blockade, all rations for workers and employees were reduced by 100 g.

On October 1, 1941, bread standards in besieged Leningrad were again reduced: for workers by 100 g, children and dependents were given 200 g.

On November 13, another reduction in the norm took place. And 7 days later, on November 20, a decision was again made to severely reduce grain reserves. The minimum standard of bread in besieged Leningrad was determined - 125 g.

The period from November 20 to December 25, 1941 is considered the most difficult in the history of the blockade, because this is the time when rations were reduced to a minimum. During this period, employees, children and dependents received only 125 g of bread, workers were entitled to 250 g, and those who worked in hot shops received 375 g. Reduced bread standards in besieged Leningrad meant that many city residents could not survive this period. Without any food supplies, people were doomed to death. After all, apart from the treasured 125 g of siege bread, they had nothing. And this required ration was not always given out due to the bombing.

From December 25, the bread ration standards for all categories of the supplied population began to increase, this gave not only strength to the townspeople, but also faith in victory over the enemy.

Bread standards in besieged Leningrad were increased thanks to the sacrifices of many people who ensured the functioning of the enemy. Often, fragile ice was the reason that grain trucks simply sank.

In 1942, divers began to retrieve grain from the bottom of the lake. The work of these people is heroic, because they had to work under enemy fire. At first, grain was taken out by hand in buckets. Later, a special pump was used for these purposes, which was designed to clean the soil.

What was siege bread made from?

Grain reserves in the city were minimal. Therefore, blockade bread was very different from the bakery product we were accustomed to. When baking, various inedible impurities were added to the flour in order to save the main component of the recipe. It should be noted that often more than half were inedible impurities.

To reduce flour consumption, beer production was stopped on September 23. All stocks of barley, bran, malt and soybeans were sent to bakeries. On September 24, oats with husks began to be added to bread, and later cellulose and wallpaper dust.

After December 25, 1941, impurities practically disappeared from the composition. But the most important thing is that from that moment on, the bread quota in besieged Leningrad, a photo of which can be seen in the article, was increased.

Figures and facts

During the blockade, 6 bakeries baked bread uninterruptedly in the city.

From the very beginning of the blockade, bread was baked from flour, to which malt, oats and soybeans were added. About 8 thousand tons of malt and 5 thousand tons of oats were used as an edible admixture.

Later, cotton cake was discovered in the amount of 4 thousand tons. Scientists have conducted several experiments that have proven that at high temperatures, the toxic substance contained in the cake is destroyed. So the composition of blockade bread also began to include cotton cake.

Years pass, people who witnessed that terrible period pass away, history passes away. And only we are able to preserve the memory of the terrible blockade that the city of Leningrad defeated. Remember! For the sake of the feat of the surviving and dead residents of Leningrad!

When the Germans came to Russian land once again, they did not think that they would have to be stuck here until winter. But they were met with hostility, and they were also stopped on the approaches to Moscow. And then the Krauts became acquainted with what Russian frosts are.

But, if our soldiers at the front could fight the cold without denying themselves firewood and food, then the people locked in besieged Leningrad found themselves in a terrible situation when they had to withstand both cold and hunger. More than half a million people died. They didn't deserve blasphemy. How those who survived against all odds did not deserve it.

Everything in this article is a complete outrage. But, before I talk about its author, who riveted the tag “Mine”, and therefore must be responsible for his words, I will say about the content.

Here is a short list of claims why, in HIS opinion, Leningraders did not use potbelly stoves:

1. The potbelly stove is ineffective; it would take 24 hours to heat it; there was no firewood for this.

2. Fire hazardous.

3. We need factory production, about which there is not a word.

4. In the fall, Leningraders did not know about the blockade, so thoughts about potbelly stoves did not arise.

5. There is no mention of the systemic distribution of potbelly stoves

6. There are no memories of purchasing potbelly stoves on the black market.

Let's start with the fact that a potbelly stove (or a temporary stove, according to the terminology of that time) really belongs to non-heat-intensive stoves.

These stoves heat up quickly and easily transfer heat to the surrounding area. That’s why they cool down quickly after the wood has burned out. Of course, few could afford to heat a potbelly stove 24 hours a day. In this mode, potbelly stoves worked in factories, hospitals and similar institutions. But even during those periods of time when fires were blazing in the potbelly stoves, people could at least sit for a while at the heat source and warm up boiling water for themselves, dry cubes of siege bread, or cook a liquid stew from products or their substitutes. All the blockade survivors indicated that they walked around the house without undressing, wrapped up as thoroughly as possible.

Potbelly stoves were indeed the cause of many fires during the first winter of the siege. Therefore, taking into account this sad experience, in preparation for the second wintering, the city authorities developed fire safety rules.

If anyone is interested in this question, you can read the book in its entirety using the link provided. I will only give drawings of temporary furnaces from this publication

Where did the siege survivors get such stoves?

A little educational program.

Let's say some townspeople cannot imagine what a potbelly stove is. And if you’ve ever seen a potbelly stove, you’ve most likely seen a cast-iron stove.

However, summer residents, village residents and simply those who have had to travel outside the city and find themselves in a difficult situation know very well that you can make a stove from almost anything - box-shaped, tubular, bucket-shaped, etc. that is, for the body of a metal stove, anything that has an internal cavity for firewood, and in which two holes can be made: for a pipe and for storing firewood, will do. Example:

Another option for a simple stove is a potbelly stove made from a barrel.

This, of course, is a potbelly stove for a greenhouse; you can’t cook anything on it, but you can make a vertical potbelly stove from a barrel in the same way.

Making a box-shaped potbelly stove not only for a man, but also for a woman will not be particularly difficult, especially if it is not made of galvanized steel (as in the photo), but of simple tin. In the right photo is a stove that served all summer: jams, compotes and other preparations for the winter were cooked on it (they say that it did not have time to cool down).

Few doubt that the Russian people are inventive.

« The Museum of the Defense and Siege of Leningrad houses a tabletop potbelly stove made from cut-up cans of stew that came through Lend-Lease. The fact is that during the war, potbelly stoves, as an addition to the main military production, were manufactured at the Kirov plant, the Karl Marx plant and many others. But, apparently, in insufficient quantities. Therefore, most of the potbelly stoves in the rear and at the front were homemade. They were made from a variety of materials, and a pipe for the chimney was often more difficult to find than metal for the stove itself“- explained historian from St. Petersburg, researcher of the siege of Leningrad Dmitry Sotchikhin

I would like to add another excerpt from the fire safety rules to this photo.

“The facades of the houses during the blockade looked unusual - pipes from homemade stoves were sticking out of almost all the windows, which were clogged with plywood, iron, and rags,” say museum staff. The stoves required special permission; they were manufactured at city enterprises, but demand exceeded supply, so in houses there were even heaters made from tin cans of American stew, supplied under Lend-Lease. "Potbelly stoves", as well as smokehouse lamps, torches and damper lamps, often became the cause of fires that killed thousands of people: only in the period from November 1941 to March 1942, due to careless handling of fire in Leningrad, 1289 fires." From here

The TASS photo is dated October 1941.

At the Metalloigrushka factory, transferred from Pushkin to Leningrad, women, along with boxes for mines, MANUALLY made potbelly stoves for the local population. One of these women was Raisa Nikolaevna Khizhnyak

...Thanks to the “potbelly stove,” the temperature in the large room was, depending on the distance from the stove, from +10 to +5 C, so we were constantly in winter coats, washing ourselves once a day with slightly warmed water...” From the recollections of an eyewitness blockade

+5 and +10 are still not -35 degrees!

The potbelly stove quickly appeared on the black market; one had to buy it for a lot of money, and then for bread. What can you do, you'll give everything away. The winter of 1941-1942, as luck would have it, was fierce: -30-35 C. At the front, potbelly stoves were also burning in our dugouts, firewood was also being mined, but warmth came from another five or six soldiers who were crowded on the bunks; and in a city room you can’t gain any heat from two or three dystrophics. - D. Granin

In general, I have already answered all the points with the help of which they are trying to deny the siege of Leningrad in general.

And now, closer to the point.

I'm sorry that I have to address this difficult topic again. Look at what “Sedition” and the one who is clearly the enemy’s mouthpiece have encroached on:

And look from which account in CONTACT this scoundrel is writing here

You can check it yourself. Just look at the address with id421249764 on VKontakte -

Previously, there was a brick and pumice plant No. 1, on the basis of which a crematorium was organized in the spring of 1942 due to a sharp increase in mortality in besieged Leningrad.

In 2004, a stele with a memorial plaque appeared in the park (see photo), on which there is an image of the document that was the direct basis for the cremation of the bodies of deceased Leningraders. This secret Decision No. 157c of the Executive Committee of the Leningrad City Council of Working People's Deputies of March 7, 1942. Below is the text according to the image on the memorial plaque.

SECRET

SOLUTION No. 157с
NARROWED SESSION
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
LENINGRAD CITY COUNCIL OF WORKERS' DEPUTIES
======================================================

ON THE ISSUE:
On the organization of burning corpses at the 1st brick factory "Lengorpromstrom".

1. Oblige the head of the Department of the Construction Materials Industry of the Executive Committee of the Leningrad City Council of Working People's Deputies, Comrade Vasilyev, to organize the burning of corpses at the 1st brick-pumice plant, putting into operation one of the plant's tunnel kilns by March 10, 1942 and the second by March 20, 1942, with appropriate trolley fittings.

2. Allow 160,000 rubles to the Gorpromstrom Administration for work on re-equipment of furnaces. from funds allocated by the government from the local budget for the 1st quarter for anti-epidemic and sanitary measures in the mountains. Leningrad.
Payment for the costs of burning corpses should be made in the amount of actual costs upon submission of a report by the head of the Gorpromstrom Department.

3. To propose to the Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Moscow District Council of Workers' Deputies, Comrade Tikhonov, to provide the 1st Brick Factory with fuel at the rate of 50 cubic meters of firewood per day from the wooden structures dismantled in the area, allocating 30 people daily. workers to procure the specified fuel.

4. To ask the Food Commission of the Lenfront Military Council to equate the workers involved in burning corpses, in the amount of 84 people, in terms of food supplies to the workers of the hot shops, with the issuance of an additional 100 grams of vodka to them daily.

5. Propose to the head of the Supply Department of the Executive Committee of the Leningrad City Council of Workers' Deputies, Comrade Byaloy, to supply the 1st brick factory with 60 pairs of rubber boots, 150 overalls, 300 pairs of canvas mittens and 50 waterproof aprons for workers involved in burning corpses.

6. To oblige the head of the Motor Transport Department of the Executive Committee of the Leningrad City Council, Comrade Klimenko, until the completion of work on equipping furnaces for burning corpses, to daily allocate at the disposal of the 1st brick factory one three-ton truck for the delivery of building materials.

7. To allocate the Deputy Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Leningrad City Council, Comrade RESHKIN, for the month of March of this year. for the plant and block station vehicles two tons of gasoline.

8. Oblige the Management of Public Utilities Enterprises of the Executive Committee of the Leningrad City Council / Comrade Karpushenko / and Gorpromstrom / Comrade Vasilyev / with the participation of the State Sanitary Inspectorate, within 5 days, to develop temporary rules for the operation of all premises related to the process of cremation of corpses.

9. In order to constantly ensure sanitary requirements, it is proposed that the Administration of Gorpromstrom introduce one sanitary doctor into the plant’s staff, with payment for him from the funds specified in paragraph 2 of this decision.

10. Responsibility for the exact implementation of this decision rests with the head of Gorpromstrom, comrade Vasilyev.

Chairman of the S.Z. Executive Committee
Leningrad City Council
of Working People's Deputies (SIGNATURE) /Popkov/

Secretary of the S.Z.Executive Committee
Leningrad City Council
deputies of workers - (SIGNATURE) /Mosolov/

Based on the photograph of the memorial plaque, an electronic version of the document was made (handwritten graphic elements were partially reproduced, hyphenation, spelling and punctuation were preserved):

Let me clarify that the image of the document was not verified with the archival original, so complete authenticity is not guaranteed. In particular, the image on the plaque has a length to width ratio greater than 2:1, which may indicate that the images of two sheets were glued together to give artistic integrity to the composition.

In addition to Decision No. 157c I present a valuable study by an unknown author. Unfortunately, the only source I found for this post already produces a 404 error, so here I am providing the text saved on January 15, 2008.

Cremation during the siege

60 years ago - in March 1942 - in besieged Leningrad, a besieged crematorium began operating at the 1st brick factory. The documentary history of this enterprise, unfortunately, has not yet been written, which leads to the emergence of various kinds of legends about the supposed “second Piskarevka on Moskovsky Prospekt”, which are actively circulated by some media. Meanwhile, materials stored in the Central State Archives of St. Petersburg make it possible to trace the history of the plant and quite accurately establish the number of Leningraders whose ashes were scattered here.

The organization of the crematorium in the besieged city was caused by practical necessity - the Funeral Business trust, whose production capacity in peacetime did not exceed 4 - 5 thousand burials per month, already in the late autumn of 1941 ceased to cope with its responsibilities. Severe frosts, freezing of the soil, lack of equipment, and extreme exhaustion of the people working in the cemeteries prevented burials from being carried out in compliance with the necessary sanitary standards.

A particularly tense situation developed in Kolpino, which was located in close proximity to the front. On January 14, 1942, the chief engineer of the Izhora plant ordered to determine the possibility of adapting the furnaces of one of the workshops for burning corpses. By February 5, the furnaces of the thermal section of the mechanical shop were selected for the experiment, and late in the evening of February 10, a trial cremation of seven corpses took place, which lasted 2.5 hours at a temperature of 725 degrees.

The special commission, “from a hygienic point of view,” considered it “necessary to recommend and develop combustion as a real and necessary means in this situation.” The protocol on the trial cremation was sent to the Leningrad City Executive Committee, and on February 27 its narrowed meeting decided: “To allow the executive committee of the Kolpinsky District Council of Workers' Deputies and the directorate of the Order of Lenin of the Izhora plant to burn corpses in the thermal furnaces of the plant.” The crematorium in Kolpino operated for 4 months (from February to May), and, as is clear from the plant’s report, in total the remains of 5,524 people were cremated, including fallen soldiers of the Leningrad Front.

The experience of the Izhora plant was used to organize a crematorium at brick factory No. 1.

This small enterprise, located on the outskirts of the city (its pre-war address was Moskovskoe Shosse, 62), was put into operation in 1931. Initially, the plant had one workshop with two brick kilns, and in 1938 a second workshop, a pumice one, began operating. By 1941, the plant's equipment was severely worn out and required major repairs. The reconstruction that had begun was interrupted by the war. As a result of the bombing in September-October 1941, the workshops were severely damaged - walls were partially destroyed, roofs were torn off, windows and doors were broken, and electrical wiring was damaged. But the work continued, and in January 1942, several plant workers were awarded medals “For Labor Valor” for the successful implementation of military orders.

On March 7, 1942, a narrowed meeting of the Lengorpromstrom Executive Committee adopted secret decision No. 157-s “On organizing the burning of corpses at the 1st brick factory of Lengorpromstrom.”
Consisting of 10 points, it ordered “to organize the burning of corpses at the 1st brick-pumice plant, putting into operation one of the plant’s tunnel kilns by March 10, 1942 and the second by March 20, 1942, with the corresponding adaptation of trolleys.” 160 thousand rubles were allocated for the re-equipment of the furnaces, the plant was supposed to receive 50 cubic meters of firewood per day, and a three-ton truck was allocated to transport construction materials.
Workers (there were 84 of them at the time) involved in burning corpses were treated in terms of food supply as workers in hot shops; they were given an additional 100 grams of vodka every day, and were ordered to be provided with rubber boots, overalls, canvas mittens, and waterproof aprons. The position of a sanitary doctor was added to the plant's staff; within five days, rules for the operation of all premises associated with cremation were to be developed.

The re-equipment of the furnaces proceeded at a rapid pace, a mobile block station was installed to supply the plant with electricity, and a hearse trolley was constructed according to the design of chief engineer V.D. Mazokhin (an ordinary trolley is lined with fire-resistant bricks). Oil shale and wood were used as fuel. Initially, firewood was split manually, but later engineer A. A. Tsyganov designed a mechanical splitter.
The main problem was that the oven temperature increased unevenly. It was necessary to manually clean the underfloor channels and push the trolleys through at high temperatures.
It was this terrible cleaning of the furnace tunnels that was remembered by those plant workers who lived to see the publication of information about the besieged crematorium in the early 1990s. At first, the unburned remains had to be returned for re-burning, but by April a high temperature was reached - 1100 - 1200 degrees, which practically ensured complete combustion. By this time, the second furnace had been re-equipped and put into operation. Along the quarry where the ashes were poured, a narrow-gauge track for trolleys was laid.

Trial cremations began on March 10, and the crematorium began operating regularly on March 16, when 150 corpses were burned. In April, its capacity increased 10 times. The dead were brought from morgues (district and at medical institutions), and after the snow had melted, from cemeteries, where there were many unburied or barely covered with earth corpses (“snowdrops,” in the bitter terminology of the siege years).
The question arises: did the plant keep a name record of those whose remains were cremated in the plant’s ovens? We can confidently answer - no, it was assumed that their death had already been registered, and often they were considered buried in cemeteries. Only a general record of the number of cremated corpses was organized.
The reduction in mortality made it possible to completely abandon mass graves from June 1, 1942. Deceased citizens whom relatives or friends could not bury individually in cemeteries were usually cremated.

In September 1942, the Leningrad City Executive Committee initiated a petition to award the 17 most distinguished factory workers with orders and medals, emphasizing that the results “were achieved as a result of the colossal dedicated and heroic work of the team of workers of the 1st brick factory, done in difficult, incredible, sometimes inhuman conditions. People worked without leaving the factory for whole days, living at the factory, forgetting their personal hardships, losing people close to them, not taking into account time, difficulties, or types of work...”
The plant carried out a special task during 1942 and at the beginning of 1943. According to the plant’s own report, 109,925 corpses were cremated in 1942 (according to the Lengorpromstrom administration, which was in charge of the plant, 117,863), and in 1943, another 12,122. Consequently, the total number of cremated people did not exceed 130,000. This is a huge figure, but it is far from what some journalists call, based on the imperfect memory of eyewitnesses.

The archive preserves a unique document - “Certificate of services provided by the brick factory for 1942 for cremation for the Funeral Business Trust” - a kind of invoice signed by a senior accountant, which states the “cost” of cremation of the remains of 109,925 people - 9,234,789 rubles. 24 kopecks After all, it was, albeit “special” work. The certificate shows that until June 62,461 corpses were cremated, i.e., on average up to 800 corpses daily, but gradually this figure fell and since August did not exceed 150 - 200, and in the fall the plant cremated on average just over 100 corpses.

In the summer of 1943, a large group of plant workers was awarded the medal “For the Defense of Leningrad.” Their award characteristics sparsely stated: “performed special-purpose work.” An analysis of the award documents casts doubt on the reliability of some memoirs that talk about the involvement of teenagers in unloading trolleys - the lists contain only one young man born in 1927 (an electrician).

The legends about the work of the crematorium throughout 1943 also do not correspond to reality. Already at the end of 1942, the head of Lengorpromstrom ordered to begin developing a project for restoring brick production. In 1943, the rails and narrow gauge tracks were dismantled, and on November 15, the plant began producing its regular products.

Archival documents, classified as “secret” for fifty years, preserved the names of many crematorium workers. These are the forty-year-old director P. I. Ivanov, who organized the work of the plant and was nominated for the Order of the Red Star, the chief engineer V. D. Mazokhin, who solved the thermal technical issues of cremation, D. A. Abramova, who was involved in cleaning the trolleys and returning the “unburnt parts again” for re-burning,” S. A. Dubrovin, who “heroically climbed into the tunnel and cleaned the underground channels,” A. T. Efimova, who repeatedly eliminated accidents in furnaces “at high temperatures, among the remains,” and others.

The names of those whose ashes found eternal rest in a corner of modern Moscow Victory Park will remain unknown, but their memory should not be insulted by lies and stirring up passions.

http://butcher.newmail.ru/blokada.htm
(status as of January 15, 2008)

I hope that the presented materials will help the reader to form a more holistic and reliable picture of the events of 1942 in besieged Leningrad.

Siege life

People who know about the blockade from official documents - photographs, films, posters, museum exhibitions - cannot understand how it was possible to exist in those conditions when there was no food, water, heat and light, when every day you could die from a shrapnel shell or bomb and end up under the ruins of a house.

People gradually got used to life under siege. A unique siege lifestyle developed. Life began to change dramatically with the onset of cold weather. The fact that cards were introduced, that the norm for issuing food and bread was reduced and was brought to a minimum limit (250 g for workers and 125 g for employees, dependents and children), which was not sufficient to survive - everyone knows about this. But gradually everything necessary for life disappeared.

It was necessary to think, first of all, about warmth and where and how to prepare food, how to protect children, who needed not only to be fed, but also washed and diapers.

They began to install potbelly stoves in apartments - stoves the size of a small box or bucket with a burner and a pipe through the window. The walls of the houses began to become covered with black streaks of soot.

We also got a potbelly stove. The pipe was led into the chimney next to the fireplace. But it was necessary to have firewood. They were sold in bundles or logs near bakeries, and exchanged for things or pieces of bread. In our family, this concern fell entirely on the shoulders of the mother. She usually went early in the morning somewhere far away, to the Petrograd side or to Vasilyevsky Island, where there were still blocks of wooden houses that burned every night then. Half-burnt houses were dismantled for firewood, and a board or piece of log could be found. Sometimes it was possible to buy a log somewhere near the wood warehouse. To deliver the log to the house, they took with them a large nail and rope. They drove a nail into a log, tied a rope and dragged it home. In winter it was easier than carrying a bundle on your back.

As soon as severe frosts hit (at the end of November), problems began with the water supply. At first the water began to flow in a thin stream, then in drops, and finally the day came when it was necessary to think about where to bring it from. For some time they took water from the basement, but not for long, 2-3 days. Then I had to follow her to another house - on the other side of the street, not far from the Astoria Hotel. There was a tap in the gateway, and people from several houses came there. A queue formed, and when the water began to flow poorly, they stood for a long time, an hour or two. In the end, we had to go to the Neva for water, to the ice hole behind the Bronze Horseman. It wasn't easy for various reasons. We didn't have buckets or a large can with a lid, and the water splashed a lot. The cans and a single bucket were carried on children's sleds over the unevenness of the uncleared streets. I often had to walk with my mother and hold the sled and bucket behind me so that they wouldn’t tip over and the water wouldn’t splash too much. It was very difficult to get water from the narrow ice hole and lift it to the sled. People fell, spilled water, and it immediately turned into ice, and the stairs into an ice slide. It was possible to rise only by helping each other, when someone gave a hand from above.

Taking care of the water also fell on the mother’s shoulders.

It was necessary to take care of the lighting. By the time the cold weather began, there was no electricity, but this did not happen immediately. Gradually, day by day, the voltage decreased, the light bulbs burned barely, and, in the end, only a red hair remained - a wire inside the lamp. With this lighting, everyone moved around the room like shadows. It only helped to avoid bumping into each other, but it was impossible to do anything.

First they burned all the candles. When there was kerosene, they lit a kerosene lamp. When it became an unaffordable luxury, they began to make a smokehouse - a wick lowered into a bowl with flammable oil. As once in the lamps. But smokehouses were called that because they produced a lot of soot; when breathing, soot settled on their faces, especially around the mouth and nostrils. Black circles on the face became an integral feature of the appearance of survivors of the siege.

The main concern, of course, was concern for bread and food. We survived because we were all together. There were 8 of us. And sometimes on Sundays they released relatives from their “barracks position” and they came to us.

The lines for bread were getting longer. Bread was brought to bakeries less and less often. At first we stood on the street and waited for delivery. Then they waited their turn. This took several hours. And in December there were days when nothing was brought to the bakeries. They still stood.

The bread was sticky, almost black. One day it turned out that it was impossible to eat it: it was bitter, like wormwood. The experienced grandmother Elena Gavrilovna examined it carefully and made a diagnosis: the black lumps were mouse droppings.

With our six bread cards we received about one kilogram a day. We always tried to get a day ahead, preferably two. But they didn’t give me two days.

The line was moving very slowly. During the smokehouse, the saleswoman, with frozen hands in gloves with cut off fingers, had to cut coupons from each card, stick them on sheets of paper by category (workers, employees, dependents, children), receive money and weigh the bread. He had to be hidden in a bag or briefcase (not in a net) as soon as possible, and only after that he had to get out of the queue, holding him close to him. There was usually a crowd of people around the counter. The bread could have been taken away. It was also dangerous on the street; even here he could be snatched out of his hands. Craftsmen were especially dangerous - teenage boys from vocational schools, with hungry eyes and blackened faces. And they were dressed all in black.

A kilogram of bread had to be divided among 6 people and 3 times a day, i.e. for 18 pieces. In addition to bread, a large pot of cereal soup was cooked daily. They added what they had to it: dried vegetables or some canned food received on ration cards.

Products, except bread, were obtained from one of the nearest stores to which they were assigned. Most often at the "vodnikov" - that was the name of the store on the corner of Gorokhovaya and Herzen, in house No. 28. There was also an "ORS" store - the labor supply department of the factory named after. Volodarsky on Gorokhovaya, but only those working at the factory and sometimes some lucky people were assigned there. But on the corner of Nevsky and Gogol Street (Malaya Morskaya) the store was called “general’s”. They entered there only with passes. Very formidable law enforcement officers in white sheepskin coats stood at the door. There were rumors that everything was there.

One cup of cereal was measured per day for soup and 2 cups for porridge. Porridge - either in the morning or in the evening. Of course, on the water. Of course, without oil. Only occasionally one teaspoon of sunflower.

The cards were used to receive briquettes of porridge, some kind of coffee briquettes the size of toffee, which were intended to be diluted with water, but were eaten like candy. You could also use sugar coupons to get gingerbread or cookies, which were bought for Petya. For meat coupons - most often canned fish - something in a tomato. Later, American stew, egg powder, and chopped chocolate appeared, but the norms were minimal, and the entire ten-day norm was eaten in 2-3 days. This was in 1942, and in December 1941 there was a peak of hunger, cold, and mortal danger.