The journalist Faina Osmanova and the writer Dmitry Stakhov were previously known as historians of everyday life, the authors of the book "The History of Simple Things". Now they are focusing on one "simple thing" - food. Their new book is a collection of stories about familiar foods and dishes. Here the reader can learn the difference between jelly and jellied meat, about religious bans on chocolate and about the regulation of alcohol prices in ancient Babylon.

Russkaya Planeta publishes an excerpt from the book of Faina Osmanova and Dmitry Stakhov, The Stories of Simple Food by the Lomonosov publishing house, dedicated to the everyday food of Soviet citizens during World War II.

Hunger changes a person

Vladimir Voinovich, in his autobiographical book Self-Portrait, recalls the taste of potato peel pancakes. At the very beginning of the war, in the evacuation, there was nothing more beautiful for him. But very little time passed, and at the beginning of 1944, when the food became better, the future author Chonkin asked his mother to cook such pancakes: “I took a pancake, took a bite, and spat it out. I have never tasted anything more disgusting than that. Except perhaps boiled bacon. "

People who experienced real hunger are just as different from never seriously starving, as those who fought at the front from those who fought in the rear. Or they have not experienced what a war is at all. Hunger changes a person. Sometimes - completely, in principle. Including - externally: for example, those who survived the Leningrad blockade during the Great Patriotic War, especially those who were a child or adolescent during those years, have forever retained a hungry cheekbone pattern, special folds near the lips that are inherent only to the blockade.

In addition, a person of the times of fast food, the Internet, and the like has no memory for hunger. Genetic, social. After all, those who fell into the hungry years of the Great Patriotic War as an adult knew firsthand what hunger was in the early twenties, early thirties, what the rationing system was, abolished in the USSR in 1935. Hunger for them was, so to speak, close by.

Indeed, to see his traces, it is enough to look closely at the photographs of those years. Mostly thin faces. Those who survived hunger for the most part could not gain weight, remained slender. Or they have retained in their appearance some feature that brings them closer to the blockade and testifies to what they have experienced - hunger does not pass without a trace! - hunger. For example, a thin neck with a generally strong, athletic figure. And the offensive word "fattrest" is from the same time: there were few "fattrests", and even less fattened among them.

Experience and memory very often do the remembering a disservice: what once, as described by Vladimir Voinovich, tasted of nectar and ambrosia, is in fact real disgusting. So the long-deceased aunt of the author of these lines, a psychiatrist, a student of Bekhterev, recalled how, in the hungry days of the Leningrad blockade, she and her sister cooked broth from caught and cleverly skinned rats. For those who do not know, I will inform you that in smell and color, and my aunt claimed that in taste, rat broth is very similar to chicken broth. The scent spread from the sisters' room throughout the communal apartment, reached the nostrils of the surviving neighbors, and they were very offended that Katya and Eva did not share the chicken with them: the neighbors shared the latter, they lived there as one family, and even terrible ordeals did not shake the true noble Petersburg spirit.

Many, many years later, Aunt Katya, talking about the blockade, sang a "ditty": "Ladies! Don't wash your frames! Eat beans better, cook coffins soon! " The text "ditties" was dropped on leaflets from the air by the Germans, who saw that in the spring Leningraders started washing windows. And remembering that they had no beans left that spring for a long time, she spoke of the forever-remembered taste of rat meat: there were three, the first, of course - 1812), and these rats. The rats made it possible to survive, the cakes gave a guideline - why ... "

Bread by cards

By the way, in Leningrad, cards were introduced even before the blockade began, on July 18, 1941, the norm was 800 grams of bread, but already in September the norms were reduced: workers and engineers - 600 grams each, office workers - 400 grams each, children and dependents - 300 grams each. Subsequent reductions brought the daily rate of workers to 250 grams, for everyone else - 125 grams, which led to a sharp jump in mortality (about 50 thousand people died in December 1941), but by the spring the rates were increased to 350 grams for workers and up to 200 grams for the rest of the inhabitants cities. The bread of that time was called "surrogate" and consisted of 50 percent defective rye flour, 15 percent cellulose, 10 percent malt and the same amount of cake, 5 percent bran and soy flour ...

... According to an eyewitness who survived the occupation in Lviv, the German authorities issued to the population, subject to registration and receipt of an Ausweis with a mandatory photograph, cards and coupons for food. On them it was possible to get 350 grams of bread with cake, 50 grams of margarine, 50 grams of sugar or sweetener, 450 grams of potatoes, usually frozen, 250 grams of pearl barley or the same amount of beans per day. The potatoes were fried without oil, with a peel, usually grated, the beans were boiled and eaten, if they got rye flour, with dumplings. Collected nettles, sorrel, dandelions, clover, hare cabbage. They ate rose bushes, acacia flowers, tea was brewed at best from rose hips, at worst - from dried carrots, coffee - from chicory. Everything else was either bought on the Reichsmarks (who had them, who had a job and received real money for it), or exchanged on the black market, where you could find anything, including American cigarettes at the end of the occupation. For those who lived closer to the outskirts of the city, life was facilitated by vegetable gardens, but there was always a shortage of inventory: the owner of a shovel was considered a very rich person, since he rented a shovel and received payment with beets, onions, and radishes. By the way, the tops from radishes (from beets are still included in the recipes of many salads in haute cuisine) were necessarily scalded and eaten.

Many, especially those who lived near the airfield, had German officers lodged, who sometimes gave their "owners" (no payment was supposed to be paid) pieces of chocolate, remnants of schnapps in a bottle, pieces of dry and very hard sausage. A doctor who lived in one of the apartments brought medicines and dressings from the hospital. The Polish partisans who fought with the Bandera and Germans, having learned about such a guest, asked for more and more medicines and dressings, and the doctor, who undoubtedly guessed where the bandages and sulfonamides were going, nevertheless, fulfilled almost everything ...

In the USSR, cards were introduced from August 41, but in Moscow - on July 16, when the trade department of the Moscow City Council signed order No. 289 "On the introduction of cards for certain products and manufactured goods in the city of Moscow." Four days before the first bombing.

After the outbreak of the war, difficulties with food began to be felt immediately. Oil, cheese, meat were gone. In Moscow, cards were issued at the place of residence, work or study. From food products, cards were introduced for bread, cereals, sugar, butter, meat, fish, confectionery, and for manufactured goods - for soap, shoes, fabrics, sewing, knitwear and hosiery. Supply rates were established depending on the availability (taking into account production) of certain goods and were differentiated by population groups: 1) workers and those equated to them, 2) employees and those equated to them, 3) dependents, 4) children under 12 years old. Work cards were issued depending on the nature and importance of the work performed. But there were also exceptions. Once in the category of "shock workers" and "Stakhanovites", one could get additional coupons. They were also received by hot shop workers, donors, sick and pregnant women.

Hold out in evacuation

Those who left Moscow to evacuate told how they received the same quota as those who remained, but they were also given special "voyage" cards (they were also issued to business travelers), according to which they could get food along the way. The main wealth was, of course, bread. But having arrived from hunger to a relatively nourishing place, the evacuees ended up in another world. So, bazaars in Alma-Ata were bursting. But the sellers preferred natural exchange, and the evacuees quickly ran out of things suitable for this.

Alma-Ata is not without reason translated as “grandfather of apples”. Apple orchards, after the appearance of a huge mass of evacuees, were subjected to real raids. Unaccustomed to so many apples, the thieves suffered from indigestion. The watchmen chased them, forcing them to return the stolen, but sometimes, looking at the miserable, trembling with hunger figures, they allowed them to leave with apples, saying: “Come again, just do not steal, do not break branches, but ask. We - will give! "

Students of the evacuated institutes ate in canteens, where at the entrance they had to pass a pass, receive a spoon and a coupon, according to which they were given a soup made of flour with a few drops of cottonseed oil and a piece of bread for lunch. The licked spoon was returned and the pass was returned. The students of the Architectural Institute and the Aviation Institute, who were good at drawing, were engaged in forging coupons, and it was not uncommon to see someone who quickly and quickly ate soup from several bowls at once. The main delicacy was second-grade wheat flour donuts with sugar beet molasses, which grew in abundance in the region.

Those who worked at defense enterprises, in addition to "work cards", had the right to an additional lunch on a special coupon. The main thing in this dinner was 200 grams of bread, and in the summer - nettle cabbage soup with beet tops, oatmeal, in winter - oatmeal and soup. The most difficult thing was to bring an extra lunch after work home, to children, to those relatives who were not the happy owner of a "work card". It required tight-fitting pots and pans. Some craftsmen made vessels from production waste. One of the fifteen-year-old workers caught by the foreman had to go to court for making such vessels, but the special officer, seeing this worker standing in front of the machine on a stool, took pity on the violator of the labor code and limited himself to confiscating the vessels that had already been made.

When, at the end of 1943, the institutes began to return to Moscow, a piece of ghee and a loaf were given out on the road. gray bread... It was impossible to hold out on this all the way, and the students did their best. The most cunning bought salt in the Aral Sea, which still existed at that time, and sold it in the European part, beyond the Volga. Or exchanged for bacon, bread. The menu in Moscow canteens did not differ in variety and usually consisted of nettle cabbage soup and yeast balls.

Those who remained in Moscow raised money by selling books, collected potatoes in collective farms near Moscow, provided ten bags to the collective farm, the eleventh - to you. The sacks were huge, and not everyone managed to collect ten, working from dawn to dusk, but the main thing was to drag the eleventh, our own, to the station. Once, while collecting potatoes, boys from a Moscow school stole a goose, put it in a sack, covered it with potatoes, and brought it as their eleventh to Moscow. The goose, however, did not die in the sack, but being released, he staged a real "fight of geese" in the corridor of a communal Moscow apartment until he died with his neck rolled up by a one-legged war invalid ...

The lend-lease products became the help: first of all - stewed meat, lard (melted internal pork fat), egg powder, biscuits, marmalade, cigarettes. After the end of the war, the Special Trade base was opened in Moscow, to which things and goods from Germany were received for reparations. It was a great happiness to get a coupon for this base, basically what was received with the coupon was sold in the Central Market, the proceeds were spent in commercial stores. It was especially chic to treat the girl to popsicle ice cream, which was sold without cards, for money.

The cards were canceled by a decree of the Council of Ministers and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks dated December 14, 1947. The next day after their cancellation, urban (then - "French") rolls with butter and red caviar and sausages with green peas appeared in the buffet of the Architectural Institute.

Soldier's portion

Food provision and supplies for the warring parties, the Red Army and the Wehrmacht is a separate, deep and interesting topic. On the fronts, in field kitchens, potato pancakes were usually not prepared. However, the difference in the pay of the soldiers of the opposing armies adds important touches to the, so to speak, "food" picture of war. The daily allowance for the German army was practically on all counts higher than for the Soviet. For example, a Soviet soldier in combat units was supposed to receive 150 grams of meat per day, a German one - a hundred grams more, the Wehrmacht gave out potatoes at the rate of a kilogram per soldier, in the Soviet army - a pound.

In addition, the Wehrmacht had a rigid system of the so-called inviolable diet and "iron portion". The emergency ration consisted of hard bread crumbs (250 grams), soup concentrate, canned sausage and natural ground coffee, and the "iron portion" kept in a special "bread bag" consisted of a can of canned meat and a packet of hard bread crumbs, and it was only allowed to eat by order of the commander.

You cannot work productively on an empty stomach - an indisputable fact. It is not in vain that hunger is one of the first places in the hierarchy of needs of Abraham Maslow. And it is impossible to win a victory in a war without being properly reinforced (during the war, we note, about a hundred orders were issued, which only concerned the supply of the military). As, the cooks at the front were very much taken care of. We decided to recall how field kitchens worked during the Great Patriotic War, what the soldiers ate, what "military" dishes they especially loved.

Eating food during the war was important for the soldiers: not only that it allowed them to get enough, it was also a short rest, and the opportunity to talk with colleagues. If you will, these short minutes were, so to speak, a fleeting return to a peaceful life. Therefore, the field kitchens were actually the center of the life of the combat unit (however, the civilian population flocked there from time to time, especially children, who were willingly fed in the field kitchens). "The soldier's commandment: away from the authorities, closer to the kitchen," Lieutenant Aleksandrov (aka Grasshopper) thoughtfully remarked in the film "Only" Old Men Go to Battle ", and he told the sheer truth.

A field kitchen was needed to prepare food and organize meals for soldiers in field conditions, at remote sites, in military units. It often consisted of several boilers (up to four, but there could be only one). Kitchens were heated, of course, with wood, the water in the boiler boiled in about 40 minutes, a two-course lunch for a company of soldiers was prepared for about three hours, dinner - an hour and a half. Favorite dishes that were prepared in the field kitchen were kulesh (millet soup, with the addition of other ingredients, millet groats and lard), borscht, cabbage soup, stewed potatoes, buckwheat with meat (meat was mainly beef, it was used in boiled or stewed form). These dishes were ideal for outdoor use (in terms of calorie content, for example) and were easy enough to prepare in the field kitchen.

According to the appendix to the GKO decree? 662 of September 12, 1941, the norm? 1 daily allowance for the Red Army and the commanding staff of the combat units of the active army was as follows:

Bread: from October to March - 900 g, from April to September - 800 g Wheat flour 2nd grade - 20 g. Groats different - 140 g. Pasta - 30 g.
Meat - 150 g. Fish - 100 g. Combined fat and lard - 30 g.
Vegetable oil - 20 g. Sugar - 35 g. Tea - 1 g. Salt - 30 g.
Potatoes - 500 g. Cabbage - 170 g. Carrots - 45 g. Beets - 40 g. Onions - 30 g. Greens - 35 g.
Makhorka - 20 g. Matches - 3 boxes (per month). Soap - 200 g (per month).

The daily allowance for the Air Force flight personnel was increased: 800 g of bread, 190 g of cereals and pasta, 500 g of potatoes, 385 g of other vegetables, 390 g of meat and poultry, 90 g of fish, 80 g of sugar, as well as 200 g of fresh and 20 g of condensed milk, 20 g of cottage cheese, 10 g of sour cream, 0.5 eggs, 90 g of butter, 5 g of vegetable oil, 20 g of cheese, fruit extract and dried fruits. Non-smoking female military personnel were given an additional 200 g of chocolate or 300 g of sweets per month.

In the ration of submariners, 30 g of red wine was necessarily present, sauerkraut(30% of the total diet), pickles and raw onions, as this prevented scurvy and made up for the lack of oxygen. Bread was baked on land in small ships, and special ovens were installed on large ships. Crackers were also distributed, and condensed milk and butter were given a bit of a bite.

Memories of soldiers

"The battalion commander's assistant for food supplies took them out. He brought them from somewhere in a truck. He distributed them among the companies, and I had a horse-drawn field kitchen with three boilers. At the front near Iasi, we sat on the defensive for several months, and the kitchen was sheltered. in the hollow. Also three boilers: the first, the second and the third hot water... But nobody took the boiling water. We dug from the frontline three-kilometer trenches to this kitchen. These trenches were used. It was impossible to stick out, the Germans as soon as they saw the helmet, they immediately hit us with shells and mines. They were not given the opportunity to lean out. I never went to that kitchen, but only sent soldiers, "says infantryman Pavel Avksentievich Gnatkov.

"We were fed just fine. Of course, there were no chops in our diet, but there were always cereals and soups. There and there meat. I’ll tell you more, we also received money for each flight. And I know that there were tankers. , and the infantry was also fed excellently. Yes, sometimes there were interruptions in the delivery of food, but they are constantly on the move. Sometimes, the field kitchen did not keep up with them, and even during the battle there was no time for feeding. We were better in this regard ", - recalls bomber pilot Alexei Nikiforovich Rapota.

"There could be interruptions with food. True, only when, indeed, we were far ahead. We broke through far ahead, the kitchen was behind or did not have time to cook, or the territory was such that it was impossible to drive through. We managed anyway. , who is responsible for feeding, will give in advance something. I didn’t have to really go hungry. Dry rations were given when it was not possible to feed, as expected, hot food, or if they were going on a hike somewhere. - then they put a piece of bacon, then a piece of bread. And an additional ration, it was given to the officers. There was tobacco, cookies, canned food of all sorts. I once ate too much canned food, it was "pink salmon in its own juice." for a long time later I could not eat it, "says infantryman Igor Pavlovich Vorovsky.

"The food was delivered to us by the field kitchen. In the spring, it was very difficult with the delivery of food, especially when they attacked in the Kalinin region, in swampy places. Then the food was dropped on the" corn plants "with the help of parachutes. Basically there were crackers and canned food, but they are not for us either. we always got it: sometimes the boxes were carried away to a no-man's land or to the Germans, or into an impenetrable swamp. hide grain from the Germans. We looked for it like this: we walked around the gardens and poked with bayonets into the ground. Sometimes the bayonet fell into the hole in which the inhabitants kept cereals. We made porridge from them, "says Yuri Ilyich Komov.

"I used to be hungry. But this is when the kitchen will lag behind! And so - a field kitchen is assigned to each battery. So we fed normally. But it happened that the rear lagged behind. We went ahead. We'll stop for a halt. The battalion commander calls and says:" Come to the kitchen. "You come. The chef had time to cook something for lunch - good, didn't have time - that means you eat dry rations. It happened that we shot chickens and other animals. And if you find a German warehouse, it was not forbidden to take canned food or else They didn’t pay much attention to it, they didn’t consider it to be marauding. The soldier must be fed, ”notes the artilleryman Apollon Grigorievich Zarubin.

“If we were standing somewhere in the second line, we were fed badly. Up to the point that I personally unloaded frozen potatoes from the wagons. And not only potatoes: there were also carrots and frozen beets. At the front they tried to feed them better. that there was always bad food, even a little, but they brought it in. And it became easier in the tank corps, dry rations were issued for three days, or even five in case of a breakthrough. The T-34 will pass, the truck will get stuck. I also want to add: in 1942, we lived in the tank forces on the same Lend-Lease dry ration. So American help came to the rescue. Lend-Lease became a big help to the front, "says tanker Nikolai Petrovich Vershinin.

From the memoirs of World War II veterans: "Our cook made various soups, and sometimes the second dishes, which he called" vegetable confusion "- were unusually tasty. At the end of the war in the spring of 1944, maize (corn) cereals arrived, sent by the allies. No one knew what to do with it. They began to add it to the bread, which made it fragile, quickly stale and caused criticism from the soldiers. The soldiers grumbled at the cooks, the cooks scolded the allies who melted us maize, with which the devil himself would not understand. Only our cook did not grieving - he took a half-month ration, sent an outfit to the steppe, asking to collect almost everything - quinoa, alfalfa, shepherd's bag, sorrel, wild garlic, and prepared delicious and beautiful-looking corn pies - cakes with herbs, bright, yellow on the outside and burning green inside. They were soft, fragrant, fresh, like spring itself and better than any other means reminded the soldiers of home, the imminent end of the war and a peaceful life. ovar made hominy (steeply brewed porridge from corn flour, for use instead of bread, hominy is made thicker, and can be cut into pieces). Almost the entire battalion got acquainted with this national Moldovan dish. The soldiers regretted that they had sent too little maize, and would not mind exchanging wheat flour for it. Our chef tried to make even simple acorn coffee tastier and more aromatic by adding various herbs. "

Today Russia celebrates the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Leningrad from the Nazi blockade. More terrible than the bombing and shelling at that time was famine, which mowed thousands of people down. You can read all the horror of those terrible days under the cut.

There was a boy in front of me, maybe nine years old. He was covered with some kind of handkerchief, then a wadded blanket was pulled over, the boy stood frozen. Coldly. Some of the people left, some were replaced by others, but the boy did not leave. I ask this boy: “Why don’t you go to warm up?” And he: “It's cold at home anyway.” I say: “Why are you living alone?” - “No, with a mother.” - “So, mother can't go?” - “No, she can't. She's dead. " I say: “How dead ?!” - “The mother died, I feel sorry for her. Now I figured it out. Now I only put her in bed for the day, and at night I put her by the stove. She's dead anyway. And then it's cold from her. "

"Blockade Book" Ales Adamovich, Daniil Granin

"The Blockade Book" by Ales Adamovich and Daniil Granin. I once bought it at the best second-hand bookseller in St. Petersburg on Liteiny. The book is not a desktop, but always in sight. The modest gray cover with black letters contains a living, terrible, great document that has collected the memories of eyewitnesses who survived the blockade of Leningrad, and the authors themselves, who became participants in those events. It's hard to read it, but I would like everyone to do it ...

From an interview with Danil Granin:

“During the blockade, the marauders were shot on the spot, but also, I know, cannibals were used without trial or investigation. Is it possible to condemn these distraught with hunger, lost their human appearance, unhappy, whom the tongue does not dare to call people, and how frequent were the cases when, for lack of other food, they ate their own kind?

Hunger, I can tell you, deprives the restraining barriers: morality disappears, moral prohibitions go away. Hunger is an incredible feeling that does not let go for a moment, but to the surprise of me and Adamovich, while working on this book, we realized: Leningrad was not dehumanized, and this is a miracle! Yes, cannibalism did take place ...

- ... ate children?

There were worse things.

Hmm, what could be worse? Well, for example?

I don't even want to say ... (Pause). Imagine that one of our own children was fed to another, and there was something that we never wrote about. Nobody forbade anything, but ... We couldn't ...

Was there any amazing experience of surviving the blockade that shook you to the core?

Yes, the mother fed the children with her blood by cutting her veins. "

“... In each apartment the dead were lying. And we were not afraid of anything. Before, will you go? After all, it's unpleasant when the dead ... Here our family died out, and so they lay. And when they have already removed it to the barn! " (M.Ya.Babich)

“Dystrophics have no fear. Corpses were dumped at the Academy of Arts on the descent to the Neva. I calmly climbed over this mountain of corpses ... It would seem that the weaker the person, the more terrible he is, but no, the fear disappeared. What would have happened to me if it were in peacetime - would have died from horror. And now: there is no light on the stairs - I'm afraid. As soon as people ate, fear appeared ”(Nina Ilyinichna Laksha).

Pavel Filippovich Gubchevsky, researcher of the Hermitage:

- What kind did the halls look like?

- Empty frames! It was a wise order from Orbeli: to leave all frames in place. Thanks to this, the Hermitage restored its exposition eighteen days after the paintings returned from evacuation! And in the war they hung like that, empty eye sockets-frames, along which I made several excursions.

- On empty frames?

- On empty frames.

The Unknown Passer is an example of the massive altruism of the blockade.

He was exposed in extreme days, in extreme circumstances, but the more certain is his nature.

How many there were - unknown passers-by! They disappeared, returning the person to life; dragging them away from the deadly edge, they disappeared without a trace, even their appearance did not have time to be imprinted in the faded consciousness. It seemed that to them, unknown passers-by, they had no obligations, no kindred feelings, they did not expect either fame or payment. Compassion? But there was death all around, and they walked by the corpses indifferently, marveling at their hardness.

Most say to themselves: the death of the closest, dearest people did not reach the heart, some kind of protective system in the body worked, nothing was perceived, there was no strength to respond to the grief.

A blockade apartment cannot be depicted in any museum, in any model or panorama, just as it is impossible to depict frost, melancholy, hunger ...

The blockaders themselves, remembering, note broken windows, furniture sawn for firewood - the most abrupt, unusual. But then only children and visitors who came from the front were really amazed by the view of the apartment. As it was, for example, with Vladimir Yakovlevich Alexandrov:

“- You knock for a long, long time - nothing is heard. And you already have the complete impression that everyone died there. Then some shuffling starts, the door opens. In an apartment where the temperature is equal to the temperature environment, appears wrapped up God knows what the creature is. You hand him a bag with some breadcrumbs, biscuits or something else. And what was amazing? Lack of emotional outburst.

And even if the products?

Even groceries. After all, many starving people already had appetite atrophy. "

Hospital doctor:

- I remember they brought twins ... Here the parents sent them a small package: three cookies and three sweets. Sonechka and Seryozhenka - that was the name of these children. The boy gave himself and her a cookie, then the cookies were divided in half.

There are crumbs left, he gives the crumbs to his sister. And his sister throws him this phrase: "Seryozhenka, it is hard for men to endure the war, you will eat these crumbs." They were three years old.

Three years?!

They barely spoke, yes, three years, such crumbs! Moreover, the girl was then taken away, but the boy remained. I don't know if they survived or not ... "

The amplitude of human passions during the blockade increased enormously - from the most painful falls to the highest manifestations of consciousness, love, devotion.

“… Among the children with whom I left was the boy of our employee - Igor, a charming boy, a handsome man. His mother took care of him very tenderly, with terrible love. Even in the first evacuation she said: “Maria Vasilievna, you also give your children goat milk. I take goat's milk for Igor. " And my children were accommodated even in another barracks, and I tried not to give them anything, not a single gram beyond what was supposed to be. And then this Igor lost his cards. And now, in April, I somehow walk past the Eliseevsky store (here dystrophies have already begun to creep out into the sun) and see - a boy is sitting, a terrible, edematous skeleton. “Igor? What's the matter?" - I say. “Maria Vasilievna, my mother kicked me out. Mom told me that she would not give me another piece of bread ”. - "How so? It can't be! " He was in serious condition. We barely climbed with him to my fifth floor, I barely dragged him. By this time my children had already gone to Kindergarten and still held on. He was so terrible, so pathetic! And all the time he said: “I don’t judge my mother. She's doing the right thing. It’s my fault, it’s me who lost my card. ” - “I say, I’ll put you in a school” (which was supposed to open). And my son whispers: "Mom, give him what I brought from kindergarten."

I fed him and went with him to Chekhov Street. We enter. There is terrible dirt in the room. This dystrophied, disheveled woman lies. Seeing her son, she immediately shouted: “Igor, I will not give you a piece of bread. Get out! " The room has a stench, dirt, darkness. I say: “What are you doing ?! After all, there are only three or four days left - he will go to school, get better. " - "Nothing! You are standing on your feet, but I am not. I won't give him anything! I’m lying, I’m hungry ... ”This is such a transformation from a tender mother into such a beast! But Igor did not leave. He stayed with her, and then I found out that he had died.

I met her a few years later. She was blooming, already healthy. She saw me, rushed to me, shouted: "What have I done!" I told her: "Well, now what to talk about it!" “No, I can't take it anymore. All thoughts are about him. " After a while, she committed suicide. "

The fate of the animals of besieged Leningrad is also part of the city's tragedy. Human tragedy. Otherwise, you cannot explain why not one or two, but almost every tenth siege soldier remembers, talks about the death of an elephant in a zoo from a bomb.

Many, very many remember the besieged Leningrad through this state: it is especially uncomfortable, creepy for a person and he is closer to death, disappearance from the fact that cats, dogs, even birds have disappeared! ..

“Below, below us, in the apartment of the late president, four women are stubbornly fighting for the life - his three daughters and a granddaughter,” G.A. Knyazev notes. - Until now, their cat, which they pulled out to save in every alarm, is still alive.

An acquaintance, a student, came to see them the other day. He saw the cat and begged to give it to him. He stuck straight: "Give it back, give it back." They barely got rid of him. And his eyes lit up. The poor women were even frightened. Now worried that he will sneak up to them and steal their cat.

O loving woman's heart! Fate has deprived the student of Nekhorosheva of natural motherhood, and she rushes about like a child, with a cat, Losev rushes about with her dog. Here are two examples of these rocks in my radius. All the rest have been eaten long ago! "

Residents of besieged Leningrad with their pets

“The following incident occurred in one of the orphanages of the Kuibyshevsky district. On March 12, all staff gathered in the boys' room to watch the two children fight. As it turned out later, it was started by them on a "principled boyish question." And before that there were "fights", but only verbal and for bread. "

Head of the house comrade Vasilyeva says: “This is the most gratifying fact over the past six months. At first the children were lying, then they began to argue, then they got up from their beds, and now - an unprecedented thing - they are fighting. Earlier I would have been dismissed from work for such a case, but now we, educators, stood looking at the fight and rejoiced. It means that our little people have come to life. "

V surgical department City Children's Hospital named after Dr.Rauchfus, New Year 1941/42 g.

There is a widespread myth that these days the war can be watched live. In fact, where the carnage begins, there is never television. There was no television in Grozny in either of the two wars, in Sarajevo, in Srebrenica, in Kosovo, there was no television, and in Syrian Aleppo there was none either. Where it is really bloody and dirty, television comes when everything is over to film mass graves or show from a safe distance how something burns and explodes. The real war is much more terrible than our (those who were not in the war) ideas about it. So, what to do if the war starts and you are in the city.

As always in life, there are different options. Today we will not consider the option that provides that you have decided to join the armed forces and participate in hostilities. Today, only about civilians ..

The main advice in the event of a war is to get out of the city as soon as possible.

Already on the first day of hostilities in the city, most likely, there will be no electricity, no water, no gas, no heat, no mobile phone network, no wi-fi, nothing that supports city life. All these things, of course, will not disappear at the same time, but in any case it will happen rather quickly.

The problem of survival begins immediately. How many days will there be enough food in your home? That's right, a few. Shops and gas stations will stop working on the first day, and they will be looted around the same time.

Those who will have what to eat, what to drink, change for what is lacking, or, for example, for the right to pass through the checkpoint, will survive. If you go to the store, it is better to take your friends with you. Firstly, you will be able to carry more products, and secondly, there is a hope that the loot will not be taken away from you on the way back. In the early days of the war, society, by inertia, retains some signs of culture, and banditry, looting, and the permissiveness of degenerates are not yet so widespread, but everything is rapidly moving towards that, and therefore you need weapons.

One thing to understand. There is no such thing as private property in a war zone. No one is interested in what was recorded in the Land Register or registered in the register of enterprises before the war. Now everything has been canceled because the war. You only own what you can protect. If armed uncles enter your apartment and say that they will now have a machine gunner's nest or a sniper position here, do not argue.

Just get out of there, even if you are not required to. You do not want to be near when this machine gunner is "covered" by the enemy. Don't tell your uncles that this is private property or anything like that. Uncles are nervous, because they are being shot at, they have weapons, they are full of adrenaline and courage, do not quarrel with them.

The good news is that no one else also has private property, except those who have weapons and who can defend their own with weapons in hand. In other words, if the owner does not have a weapon, this is not his car, if the owner does not have a weapon, it is not his food supplies, and so on. A man with a weapon is always right. Never quarrel with a person who has a weapon. The cost of living in a war zone is getting very cheap. Remember this. Anyone can kill you, and he will get nothing for it. No one will ever look for a killer.

Therefore, you need a weapon, otherwise you will soon have no food, no drink, no wedding ring, no warm clothes, nothing that can help you survive.

Classically, weapons are obtained by robbing a police station. Usually, a black market immediately appears, soldiers earn money by selling something from the army stocks, someone sells something from weapons legally obtained in peacetime. Remember you also need ammo. If there is an opportunity to exchange your mom's jewelry for Kalashnikov, do it.

Best of all, if you manage to get some kind of pistol at the same time. If you run into a patrol, the Kalashnikov must be returned immediately, but you can hope that after you give the machine gun, they will no longer search you, and the pistol will remain with you.

If you are forward-thinking, you already have an arsenal legally obtained in peacetime. In wartime, this will immediately become a gold mine. I have friends who have an arsenal at home with which you can fight for a year and a half.

It is very important to decide where and how you go. Perhaps you still need to stay where you are.

Those with a battery-operated radio at home are in a much better situation than others. Some stations will certainly work, and some information about what is happening can be obtained.

You need to assess the geographic and strategic importance of your location. How important from the point of view of city control can be your street, your yard, your house, in which direction the fights will go, whether someone will control this area, whether there will be resistance here, what kind of character, and so on.

If there is a mortar position nearby, run away immediately, the enemy will definitely destroy it. And he will not shoot from a machine gun. If a sniper is on the roof of your house, run from there. In Grozny, tanks worked in such houses. Nobody wants to hunt for a sniper. It is easier to demolish the two upper floors in such a house.

Understand that you do not want to be where the tanks will go and where the tank's barrel will be directed. The power of a tank shot is incredible. Only one fragments from a tank hitting a building inflict mortal wounds within a radius of a hundred meters or more to everyone who did not find shelter. In some conflicts, in order to stop the tanks, powerful high-explosive charges were used in the city to destroy houses in the path of the tanks and thus stop them, drive them to a dead end. Once again, you want to be very far from the tanks and those trying to stop them. Remember in cistern the toilet has water on which you can survive for a week or even longer.

Never rinse it off. It is no different in quality from tap water, but the water no longer flows from the tap, and the shops no longer work and are robbed. This water reserve is of great importance.

It is difficult to survive in the city. The areas of apartment buildings generally become a trap, among other things, the sewage system that does not work, waste, corpses in the summer increase the risk of various diseases, and in the winter, in turn, it is impossible to warm the apartments. It is very difficult to prepare warm food. The water brought from the river must be boiled, it cannot be drunk just like that in such conditions. If you manage to get kerosene from the army, you can make improvised tiles, you can burn furniture, but sooner or later it is better to leave.

If you hit the road, you need to understand the army mindset.

The most important thing that everyone confirms is to look civil. If for some reason you put on camouflage, dress like Rambo and go outside, enjoy this moment, because, in fact, you are already dead. You will not even know whether the sniper or the soldiers of which side will remove you. In war, the one who looks like a soldier is a soldier, and one who looks like a civilian is possibly a soldier too. You want to look as harmless as possible. Best of all, homeless people, with children in their hands and a white flag in a conspicuous place.

Hide the assault rifle under your jacket, if you got a Kalashnikov with a folding stock - ideally, if not, hide it anyway.

On the one hand, civilian soldiers are not interested. In Chechnya, even despite the intense fighting, those who did not suspect that they were soldiers in disguise - old men, women with children, etc., could almost calmly move around the city. Soldiers do not want to "shine" their position unnecessarily or waste ammunition to shoot a civilian who is simply fleeing the city. This is on the one hand. On the other hand, in the case of ethnic, religious conflicts, this is not always the case. This was not the case in Yugoslavia. In any case, if you run into a machine gunner's nest, which is still being made and dug in, a group of saboteurs, they may decide that you are a risk, or an enemy spy disguised as a civilian, and therefore begin to "work" for you.

Therefore, if you see a soldier in the yard or in an empty house, in no case do not approach. Even if they look friendly, even if they smile and invite you in, leave. It is very likely that they want to call you only in order to quietly silence you. This is a war, everyone is nervous, many are paranoid, many with a pathological propensity for violence, which they finally unleashed, in many conflicts experienced units tried to "work out" civilians who could open their position. Remember that once a war has started, the Geneva Convention is not a set of laws, but only a description of the desired behavior. During the war, all kinds of degenerates, moral monsters and psychopaths suddenly surface on the crest of the war and finally begin to live at their own discretion. You don't want to meet them and get in touch with them in any way, not even eye contact.

Do not go near hospitals, where all sides are taking their wounded, and the shooting can start at any moment, some side will want to seize this strategic object only for themselves, and the losers will decide that if not me, then no one, and call artillery or aviation. Avoid former government agencies, any important infrastructure facilities - stations, communication centers, television centers, etc. Don't go anywhere at night. The night is ruled by an army, bandits and marauders.

Army units in the city very often have a poor understanding of what is happening and where the enemy is now.

Almost always, at some point, their own people shoot at their own people, and everyone always shoots at unwary civilians.

Remember, while you are in the city, there is a chance to steal fuel.

Gas stations are not working. Fuel cannot be obtained otherwise than from the army, but you do not want to contact the army, and they do not seek to help you, but in the countryside there will not even be a place to steal.

Go on the road during daylight hours (many advise to go at dawn, when the night posts are already tired, and the morning ones have not yet woken up, slowly and calmly, as civilians do. By your behavior, let everyone clearly understand that you are civilians who want Take your time. The principle of creating a route is simple. The fewer patrols, the fewer checkpoints, the fewer contacts, the better. It is clear that the central streets, central intersections, bridges are better controlled, as they have strategic importance. that you know the city.

If you need to spend the night in the city because there is no longer your home, or you are stuck on the road, it is better to stay under open air somewhere on the sidelines than to enter empty buildings in which there were battles or there was an army. Here each door can be equipped with a grenade. In such places, do not open the refrigerator, do not lift the toilet lid, and if a kitten meows in the closet or behind a door, do not save him, this is a classic trap.

The streets are often safer. In the capture of cities, nothing else has been invented except for two eternal strategies. The first is to first demolish half the city with artillery and aircraft, and then the direct seizure of house after house, from the first house on one side to the last on the other, as was done in World War II, including in Berlin. The second option is that tanks and armored personnel carriers first try to seize strategic points, fortify on them and thus create control over the city, as, for example, in Grozny during the first Chechen war. In the case of this strategy, there is a risk that the army units at these strategic points will be surrounded and destroyed, which the Chechens, by the way, did with the Russian army, turning the first capture of Grozny into perhaps the most shameful defeat of the Russian army in modern history. At the same time, the Americans in Baghdad acted that way. After the bombing, they simply drove into the city and began to fortify. Perhaps they knew that there would be no strong resistance or relied on their advantage in strength.

Be that as it may, in the first case, the cleaning of houses begins immediately. To make the attackers feel safe, they do not leave enemies behind, every house will be checked. And in the second case, too, sooner or later, the search for opponents will begin with a search of suspicious houses, districts and streets. It makes no difference whether it is Russians or Americans.

In cities where guerrilla warfare is going on, mopping-up operations are harsh. Clearing abandoned buildings is the most dangerous thing for soldiers, and they hate it, so it's best not to be in such a building. If not the instruction, then the army wisdom says that if you don't want surprises, first throw a grenade into the room and only then go to see who “lives” here. And it will not be a noise grenade like in peacetime operations. However, the grenade is not the most dangerous. Hurry up to jump back for nice sofa while reducing your "area" facing the explosion to a minimum, stretch out on the floor or hide your head and body behind a large backpack, behind some kind of flower pot, and, if you are not completely naked, there is a great chance to survive. Another thing is that you can never know which frostbitten idiots will now enter the room. Therefore, it is better to sit on the side of the street with a white rag and allow everyone to command you than to imagine that you will climb into some abandoned basement, hide in an abandoned house and be safe there.

If there are victims on the streets, remember that it is strictly forbidden to touch or turn them over. The grenade under the corpse, too, unfortunately, has become a sad classic in all recent conflicts. If you can remove the weapon or cartridges from the deceased without turning it over, do it, but you do not need to search it more thoroughly. If the dead man has a communication system, contrary to what was seen in the films, do not take it. Most likely, you will not hear anything understandable and useful for you here. Moreover, you are civilians. You have to look like a civilian. There will be a walkie-talkie, there will be a desire to tinker with it. A civilian with a walkie-talkie is no longer a civilian. And hide the weapon, of course.

All modern cities have a roundabout path. Usually there is the border of the environment. For motorized rifle brigades, the standard behavior is to disperse along the roundabout routes and block the city. There will be checkpoints, control and the like.

Approach them slowly and with your hands up. Do not think to somehow sneak through the forest, short dashes or something like that. In military conditions, every suspicious movement in the forest is a sufficient reason for a machine gun to start working. Pay attention to the soldiers' weapons visible in the photographs from Crimea. There are a lot of Pecheneg machine guns and a lot of modernized Dragunov sniper rifles with a short barrel and a folding stock, as well as "Vintorez" and classic Kalashnikov machine guns, as well as automatic rifles. Many copies of this weapon, as can be seen in the photographs of journalists, are equipped with the most modern sights (Aimpoint Micro T-1 and Eotech 512, which cost from $ 500 - $ 700 per copy). You don't want these people to start shooting in your direction. Go to the checkpoint with your hands up. Most likely, they will simply rob you, take away everything valuable and let you pass.

Now you are out of town. They say that every Latvian has his own country house. Happy are those who really have it. If there is also a cellar in this house with potatoes, other foods, pickles and preserves, then you will most likely survive. The main task is to protect your home from bandits, looters who want to take all this away from you. It is not difficult to defend against one or two bandits, but it is already difficult to withstand a dozen. Moreover, they have already trained during this time. They know how to assess your strength, go around from the flanks, and so on. However, you have time at your disposal to prepare traps, obstacles, barricades for them and turn your family and friends into a small military squad. Again, weapons are very necessary, if they are not, we recall the Middle Ages and we will have different strategies. The bandit, who was poured with a bucket of gasoline and who understands that he can now flare up, is likely to be "on pause" at some point. Your defense must be aggressive and strong so that the marauders decide to go to another, easier target. The army, most likely, is not interested in your country house, so there is a chance to wait out the active hostilities and then see what happens next.

Now comes the most important thing.

If in peacetime you make at least some elementary preparations for a rainy day, it will be very helpful if such a day comes.

First, consider all evacuation routes and methods, considering backup options. Best of all, make sure that there is a place in the village. If not for yourself, then with some friends, relatives, acquaintances. They do not need to object, together it will be easier to defend their place from bandits and marauders. Here it is necessary to store elementary supplies of food, fuel, medicines. Pasta is a great invention of mankind, unlike flour and various cereals, worms do not start in them, they have a long shelf life and a high the nutritional value... If you can find high-quality canned food, it's fine in general, they will be more expensive than money, and if there are chickens and a cow on your farm, and there is a river nearby where you can fish, then this is generally a five-star place to wait out the war. Don't forget to just arrange shifts. Someone needs to stay awake at night and so on.

While you are in the city - always try to keep the gas tank in the car as full as possible. During Chechen war Snickers was especially popular. Small, light, on four or six bars, a soldier can live a whole day. Comes in handy along the way.

Rear and front bread According to the instructions of the government, the production of bread for the population was established in conditions of a huge shortage of raw materials. The Moscow Technological Institute of the Food Industry has developed a recipe for working bread, which ...

Rear and front bread

On the instructions of the government, the production of bread for the population was established in conditions of a huge shortage of raw materials. The Moscow Technological Institute of the Food Industry developed a recipe for working bread, which, by special orders, orders, instructions, was communicated to the heads of public catering enterprises. In conditions of insufficient provision of flour, potatoes and other additives were widely used in baking bread.

Front-line bread was often baked in the open air. A soldier of the Donbass miners' division I. Sergeev said: “I’ll talk about a combat bakery. Bread made up 80% of the soldier's total food. Somehow it was necessary to give bread to the shelves for four hours. We drove onto the site, cleared the deep snow, and right there, among the snowdrifts, they laid down the stove on the site. They flooded it, dried it and baked bread. "

Dried steamed roach

My grandmother told me how they ate dried vobla. For us, this is a fish intended for beer. And my grandmother said that the vobla (they called it a ram for some reason) was also given out on cards. She was sooo dry and sooo salty.

They put the fish in a saucepan without cleaning it, poured it with boiling water, and covered it with a lid. The fish had to stand until it cooled completely. (Probably, it is better to do it in the evening, otherwise you will not have enough patience.) Then the potatoes were cooked, a fish was taken out of the saucepan, steamed, soft and no longer salted. They cleaned it and ate it with potatoes. I've tried it. Grandmother once did something. You know, it's really delicious!

Pea soup.

In the evening, peas were poured with water in the cauldron. Sometimes peas were poured along with pearl barley. The next day, the peas were transferred to the military field kitchen and boiled. While the peas were boiling, onions and carrots were fried in a saucepan in lard. If it was not possible to do the frying, they laid it like this. As the peas were ready, potatoes were added, then fried and, last of all, the stew was laid.

"Makalovka" Option number 1 (ideal)

The frozen stew was very finely chopped or crumbled, onions were fried in a pan (if available, you can add carrots), after which the stew, a little water was added, and brought to a boil. They ate like this: meat and “gusseed” were divided according to the number of eaters, and pieces of bread were dipped into the broth in turn, that's why the dish is called that.

Option number 2

They took fat or raw bacon, added to fried onions (as in the first recipe), diluted with water, and brought to a boil. They ate the same way as in option 1.

The recipe for the first option is familiar to me (they tried it for a change in the campaigns), but its name and the fact that it was invented during the war (most likely earlier) did not even occur to me.

Nikolai Pavlovich noted that by the end of the war, food at the front had become better and more satisfying, although as he put it “now empty, now thickly,” in his words, it happened that for several days food was not brought up, especially during an offensive or protracted battles, and then the rations laid out for the past days were handed out.

Children of war

The war was fierce and bloody. Grief came to every home and every family. Fathers and brothers went to the front, and the children were left alone, - A.S. Vidina shares her memories. “In the early days of the war, they had enough to eat. And then they went with their mother to collect spikelets, rotten potatoes in order to somehow feed themselves. And the boys for the most part stood at the machines. They did not reach the handle of the machine and substituted the boxes. They made shells 24 hours a day. Sometimes we spent the night on these boxes. "

The children of the war matured very quickly and began to help not only their parents, but also the front. Women left without husbands did everything for the front: knitting mittens, sewing underwear. Children did not lag behind them. They sent parcels, in which they put their drawings telling about peaceful life, paper, pencils. And when a soldier received such a package from children, he cried ... But this also inspired him: the soldier with redoubled energy went into battle, to attack the fascists who had taken away childhood from the kids.

Former head teacher of school №2 VS Bolotskikh told how they were evacuated at the beginning of the war. She and her parents did not get into the first echelon. Later, everyone found out that he had been bombed. With the second echelon, the family was evacuated to Udmurtia “The life of the evacuated children was very, very difficult.

If the locals still had something, then we ate cakes with sawdust, - said Valentina Sergeevna. She told what was the favorite dish of the children of the war: grated unpeeled raw potatoes were thrown into boiling water. This one was so yummy! "

And once again about the soldier's porridge, food and dreams ... Memories of World War II veterans:

G. KUZNETSOV:

“When I came to the regiment on July 15, 1941, our cook, Uncle Vanya, at a table knocked out of planks in the forest, fed me a whole pot of buckwheat porridge with bacon. I have never eaten anything tastier "

I. SHILO:

“During the war, I always dreamed that we would eat our fill of black bread: then there was always not enough of it. And there were two more desires: to warm up (it was always chilly in a soldier's overcoat near the cannon) and sleep "

V. SHINDIN, Chairman of the Council of Veterans of the Great Patriotic War:

"Two dishes from the front-line kitchen will forever remain the most delicious: buckwheat porridge with stewed meat and navy-style pasta."

* * *

The main holiday of modern Russia is approaching. For a generation that knows the Great Patriotic War only from films, it is associated more with guns and shells. I would like to recall the main weapon of our Victory.

During the war, when hunger was as familiar as death and the unrealizable dream of sleep, and the most insignificant thing in today's imagination could serve as a priceless gift - a piece of bread, a glass of barley flour, or, for example, egg, food very often became the equivalent of human life and was valued on a par with military weapons ...