Leningrad 1943: Inside a City Under Siege (26 page)

‘Think how much labour it has cost, for instance, to repair nearly all the roofs of Leningrad. If, two months ago, you had gone to the top of St. Isaac’s, you would have seen many houses with their roofs torn off. You won’t see many now. Throughout 1941 and 1942 we usually had 200 or 300 shells every day or every other day. We had about 40,000 shells fired into Leningrad during 1941 and 1942. The shelling now is less frequent, but when it comes, it comes usually in big doses, as it did today.

‘One cannot speak without emotion and admiration of our people. They put their heart into everything they do. In the past a man who cut five cubic metres of timber a day was considered a Stakhanovite. Now women, and not very strong women, cut seven or even ten cubic metres.

‘It was our people and not the soldiers who built the fortifications of Leningrad. If you added up all the anti-tank trenches outside Leningrad, made by the hands of our civilians, they would add up to as much as the entire Moscow–Volga Canal. During the three black months of 1941, 400,000 people were working in three shifts, morning, noon and night, digging and digging. I remember going down to Luga during the worst days, when the Germans were rapidly advancing on Luga. I remember there a young girl who was carrying away earth inside her apron. It made no sense. I asked her what she was doing that for. She burst into tears, and said she was trying to do at least that – it wasn’t much, but her hands simply couldn’t hold a shovel any longer. And, as I looked at her hands, I saw that they were a mass of black and bloody bruises. Somebody else had shovelled the earth on to her apron while she knelt down, holding the corners of the apron with the fingers of her bruised, bloodstained hands. For three months our civilians worked on these fortifications. They were allowed one day off in six weeks. They never took their days off. There was an eight-hour working day, but nobody took any notice of it. They were determined to stop the Germans. And they went on working under shellfire, under machine-gun fire and the bombs of the Stukas.’

‘The tradition of 1917!’ I remarked.

‘Not only that,’ said Popkov. ‘It’s much more general. Everybody took part in these tremendous efforts – not only the workers. Really
everybody.
And there was no panic at any time; no hysterics. A great love went into all that work – a great love, and a great spirit of self-sacrifice. We lost many, many valuable people during those months – and since. Yes, the Leningrad medal – which even many of our children have received – means a great deal.

‘Well, what more can I say?’ said Popkov. ‘Perhaps just this relatively small point. Perhaps you don’t know that Leningrad is quite an important manufacturing centre for consumers’ goods. We supply the army, not only on our own front, but on the other Soviet fronts with a lot of things. We make buttons in Leningrad, and combs, and hosiery, shaving brushes, and shaving powder, and razor blades, and eau-de-cologne for the troops, and even perfumery for the army girls – and for our soldiers’ wives and girlfriends! And,’ here Popkov grinned boyishly, ‘Leningrad has also started producing babies – hasn’t it, Professor?’ ‘Yes,’ said the Professor, ‘and strong and healthy babies too. Very good quality babies.’

I asked Popkov how he viewed the future of Leningrad after the war. ‘Isn’t it, industrially, something of an anomaly, with the iron ore and the coal so far away?’

‘No,’ said Popkov, ‘it’s like this. Leningrad after the war will be, first, the greatest educational centre in the Soviet Union; already before the war we had 400,000 students here, and we may have more after the war. Secondly, it is going to be a great centre of light industry, because Leningrad is famous for the skill of its workers (most of whom will come back), and for the quality of its goods. After the war we shall at last be able to concentrate on the production of consumers’ goods. They were pretty good even before the war. One of our comrades came back from a trip to Paris, and brought his wife some ‘wonderful French stockings.’ She had one look at them and found that they were our own Leningrad make! Thirdly – regarding heavy industry, you may know that northern Russia will no longer have to depend on the Donbais for coal, or on Krivoi Rog for iron ore. We are developing an important new iron ore area round Vologda just now, and it promises to cover all Leningrad’s needs. More important still, you will have heard of the Pechova coal basin in the north-east. A railway has been built right up to the Pechova area; it will supply Leningrad with coal. Although it is a very long railway, it will have little competing traffic – its main purpose will be to bring coal to Leningrad and central Russia. So the industrial future of Leningrad looks more promising perhaps than it has ever been.’

After this long talk we had supper. It was a much quieter affair, though, than the uproariously jolly supper at the Writers’ Union. The usual toasts were proposed to Churchill and Stalin, and also to Zhdanov and the other leaders of Leningrad, and Popkov, recalling a message he had received some months before from the Lord Mayor of London, proposed a toast to the Lord Mayor and the people of London. (Which, incidentally, shows that such messages which seem unimportant when read about in the press, do count with the people to whom they are addressed, and create genuine friendliness and mutual interest.) Altogether, one clearly felt at this gathering, as at so many others, the genuine desire of Leningrad to establish close contacts with Britain after the war, and how much the symbol of the window into Europe was still alive.

And I had that curious impression again that Leningrad was a little different from the rest of the Soviet Union; that it considered itself as being just so much better than the average. It was also keenly conscious of having, to a large extent, worked out its own salvation at the most critical moment, when the army was shattered and bled white, and when the nine Workers’ Divisions, dressed in army uniform, did so much to save the city. And of these nine divisions, four were practically wiped out in that grim rearguard action they fought in the late summer and the autumn of 1941. These Workers’ Divisions and the Baltic Fleet, who held Kronstadt and Oranienbaum, largely saved the situation during the most critical days at the beginning of September. The Army meantime had been retreating. Disguised as refugees, hundreds of enemy agents had penetrated into Leningrad, spreading wild rumours and firing signal rockets to German aircraft. Defeatist leaflets were showered on Leningrad by the thousand. The bulk of the population remained firm. Then sent by Stalin, General Zhukov arrived, instilled new spirit into the troops and reorganised them from top to bottom, thus giving birth to what was to become the ‘Leningrad Front.’ Leningrad was now fit to withstand new onslaughts.

And yet – what was Leningrad without the rest of Russia? If its spirit never broke, it was ultimately still due to the Russian victory at the gates of Moscow. It put new life and hope into the faint bodies of the people of Leningrad. If Moscow had not been saved, Leningrad would, sooner or later, have died of hunger.

After supper we went to see a film privately shown at the Smolny. It was a new film called
Two Soldiers.
One of the heroes was a delightfully amusing character, and not only looked the very image of the Odessa lad we had seen at the hospital that morning, but he talked in exactly the same Odessa jargon and sang an Odessa ditty which was to become one of the most popular tunes in Russia for months afterwards:

At the beginning of supper, Colonel Studyonov had received a phone call with the welcome news that flying conditions were bad, and that we could not fly back to Moscow at 5 a.m. as was originally planned. It meant at least another day in Leningrad.

Men of one of the Workers’ Divisions who played so great a part in the battle for Leningrad in 1941.

German prisoners being taken along the Nevsky Prospect. The building on the right is the State Library.

That last day – for it was the last, because the weather improved, and we did fly back to Moscow early the next morning – was a day without a programme. I simply wanted to walk about Leningrad, and breathe the air of Leningrad. I had tentatively asked to be taken to Kronstadt, but Major Lozak said it was impossible, because it was an exceptionally dangerous trip, while Colonel Studyonov laughed and said ‘Look at the rate his appetite is growing!’ Clearly, it was asking far too much, and, as it was, my hosts had gone to infinite trouble, and had let me see more in four days than a journalist normally sees in a few months. So in a way I was glad to spend the last day simply strolling about Leningrad.

It was a cold sunny morning as we walked out of the Astoria and turned right, towards the river, as on the first day. This time we walked; the overworked driver had been given the morning off. (Later he told me that we had driven nearly 600 kilometres since we arrived.) Old memories had become much fainter than they were on my first day in Leningrad. I could see the whole thing in different perspective now. I kept thinking of the Putilov works, and the children we had seen in the yard of the old house in the Mokhovaya, and so many other things and people who were part of Leningrad of its last two years. Yet old memories kept cropping up nevertheless. As we crossed the Horse Guards Boulevard, running east of St. Isaac’s Cathedral, I remembered two things – my Uncle Peter’s office in the building of the Olonetz Railway somewhere down this boulevard, and how I made a habit of dropping in to see him after school, and how he always gave me a glass of lemon tea and a biscuit, and, neglecting his work for half an hour, would talk about the new Meyerhold production at the Alexandrinka, or show me the latest copy of the art magazine
Apollo,
for which he wrote book reviews, and of which he kept a file in his otherwise prosaic-looking office. Or, at other times, he would explain to me Dostoievsky or recite bits of Baudelaire. In half an hour with Uncle Peter – that best type of old Russian intellectual – I learned more about books and art and other things that mattered than I learned at school in a month.

I had another pleasant memory of the Horse Guards Boulevard. Here, during Palm Week the Verba or Palm Week Fair was held. It was one of the gayest things I know. They sold there large bunches of
verba
or catkins – these were really the Russian version of palm branches – and all along the boulevard there was a superb display of gingerbread of a hundred varieties, the peppermint gingerbread and the white Viazma gingerbread being the most celebrated. And they sold large coloured balloons on strings – thousands of them – and other balloons which you blew up. The most famous of these was the long red balloon which made loud squeaky noises and was sold under the name of ‘Mother-in-law’s Tongue.’ Another great favourite with the children, and with the boys who sold them, were ‘American Inhabitants’ – little glass devils inside a narrow glass tube filled with water and with one end sealed up with a thin sheet of rubber; when you pressed the rubber, the ‘American Inhabitant’ would pirouette joyfully up the tube and blow tiny bubbles. And then there were the furry little monkeys on a pin. They were made of wire with green or red fluff and with two little beady eyes, and these monkeys carried umbrellas and feather dusters and wore the strangest assortment of hats. Verba meant noise and fun, and with its puddles of melting snow it meant the end of winter – and Easter in a few days.

For a long time shall I remember that last morning in Leningrad. We walked across the Senate Square, and then along the Embankment towards the Winter Palace. It was a sunny autumn day, with a strong wind from the Baltic whipping up the dark-blue surface of the Neva, and the waves beating impatiently against the high granite banks, with their long line of deserted palaces, as though trying to wake the great city out of its trance. The grey ships on the Neva were stationary and silent, there was hardly a soul anywhere, and only high in the blue sky were four fighter planes speeding northward across the Trinity Bridge and over the needle spire of the Fortress.