The Arsenyev Museum carefully stores a manuscript from the besieged Leningrad

80 years ago, January 27, 1944, closed one of the most tragic pages in the modern history of Russia - the blockade of Leningrad.

To somehow survive the pain and fear, not to go crazy in inhuman conditions, even for a minute to forget about the exhausting hunger and cold, citizens of different ages kept diaries. According to some reports, there are about five hundred such blockaded diaries. A little over two hundred of them were published. One of these practically not introduced into scientific circulation historical documents is stored in the Museum-Reserve of the History of the Far East named after V.K. Arsenyev. 

The blockade diary of Georgy Alexandrovich Shcheglov, along with photos and a map, was transferred to the Arsenyev Museum by the chairman of the society of blockades of the Soviet district of Vladivostok Galia Sorokina after the exhibition "There was a front city, there was a blockade" dedicated to the 55th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War. The manuscript is filled with shocking details about the life of Leningrad and its inhabitants from the first day of the siege to the end of August 1942. She has almost no emotions. Only terrible facts about every day of the factory worker, written in dry language and almost calligraphic handwriting. Shooting, bombing, fires, death of loved ones, cruel cold, merciless hunger, food cards. And suddenly – like a ray of sun, a line written on November 7, 1941: “... the last time I was in a movie with Natasha.” We watched The Humpbacked Horse. This is from February 28, 1942. “Spring weather. Feeling better. There was hope that I would survive.” Judging by the last page of the diary, in August, Georgy Shcheglov was evacuated to Ulyanovsk.

Materials and photos provided  press service State United Museum-Reserve of the History of the Far East named after V.K. Arsenyev.