The Russian Century: A Hundred Years of Russian Lives

The office was packed full of people. We had to stand in the stairwell, holding Lena in our arms. Only toward morning could we go back up to the fifth floor.

9September 1941. The extensive Badaev food stores have been bombed:

blackish-red rags of fire, blowing about in the wind, can be seen from all ends

of the city, burning sugar, groats, and flour.

—September, 1941. All roads to Leningrad are cut off. What will happen to us now?

Elena I. Kochina, Blockade Diary

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11September 1941. The bread ration has been reduced again. We now receive

850 grams.

September 1941. Wreaths of black smoke still rise above the Badaev stores.

September 1941. The Germans bomb Leningrad every night.

10 October 1941. Our supply of rusks is rapidly diminishing. Dima is probably eating them, even though we had agreed not to touch them except for the portions allocated for dinner.

20 October 1941. The Germans continue to bomb Leningrad, but almost no one hides in the bomb shelters. I sit at home. When I hear the whine of the bombers I merely cover Lena with my body in order to die together, should death come. This makes Dima angry at me: “You have no right to risk the life of the child.”

“But I haven’t the strength, try to understand. And if we are killed together, that’s not the worst thing that could happen.”

“That’s an idiotic philosophy,” he screams, “we have to preserve her life no matter what. Even if we ourselves perish.”

“Why? How will she live?”

We fight for a long time, each one of us holding to our own opinion.

15 November 1941. Starvation has set in. Our personal supplies have ended. An idiosyncratic Leningrad cuisine has been developed. We have learned to make buns out of mustard, soup out of yeast, meat patties out of horseradish, a sweet gruel out of carpenter’s glue.

10 December 1941. Almost all Leningraders have become dystrophic. They have swelled up and gleam as if covered with lacquer—this is first stage dystrophy. Others have become desiccated—second stage. Women walk about in pants. Men in women’s scarves. Everyone looks the same. Leningraders have lost all signs of gender and age.

12December 1941. Today I felt that something strange is happening to my

face. I brought a shard of a mirror from the kitchen and peered into it with cu

riosity. My face resembled that end of a pig where its tail grows.

“What a mug,” I spat into the mirror. Dima’s gaze slid down my face like a dead fish. He himself had bloated up long ago.

13December 1941. Lena is ill. Dima’s on sick call. He no longer helps me.

He doesn’t ever look after Lena. But he goes eagerly to the bakery and prob

ably eats the small pieces added to make the weight. We cook “soup” from

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Chapter Twenty-Four

the soft center of the bread. We eat it with tiny crusts. I pour Dima four serving spoons and two for myself. But for this I have the right to lick out the pot, though the soup is so thin, there is, in fact, nothing to lick.

Dima eats his “soup” with a teaspoon to prolong the eating. But today he ate his portion quicker than I. There was a hard crust in my soup which I chewed with pleasure. I sensed the hatred with which he watched my slowly moving jaws. “You’re eating slowly on purpose,” he suddenly exclaimed malevolently. “You want to torment me.”

“Oh, no! Why would I do that?” I blurted, startled.

“Don’t justify yourself. I see everything.” He glared at me, his eyes glistening white with rage. I was terrified. Had he gone crazy? I quickly swallowed the crust and cleared the table. He kept grumbling, but I was silent. He wouldn’t believe me anyway. Lately, he has become very suspicious and irritable.

15 December 1941. As I was returning from the bakery, I saw a worker running toward me, his small fox-like head pushed forward. I began to move aside as he ran by, but he snatched the loaf of bread from me. I screamed and looked around, but he was gone. I looked at my empty hands with horror, slowly comprehending what had occurred. There wasn’t a crumb to eat at home. That meant that today and tomorrow, until we get our next ration of bread, we’d go hungry, and worst of all, there was no food for Lena.

My legs suddenly become heavy as irons, and I barely made it home. In the hallway I bumped into Dima and immediately told him everything. He gave me a wild look from underneath his sooty eyelashes, but said nothing.

17 December 1941. Our sense of smell has become very sharp: we now know the smell of sugar, of pearl-barley, of dried peas, and other “non-odorous” groceries. Dima hardly gets out of bed. He doesn’t even go for bread. This disturbs me—those who lie about die sooner.

“Don’t lie in bed all the time.” I sat down next to him and cautiously touched his sleeve. He threw me a cross glance.

“What would you have me do?”

“Go up into the attic. Maybe you’ll catch a cat up there?”

“So that’s it,” he said sarcastically.