On January 18, when the day of the 80th anniversary of the breaking of the siege of Leningrad is celebrated, Vladimir Putin laid flowers at the "Frontier Stone" monument on the Nevsky Piglet - a bridgehead on the left bank of the Neva, which has become a symbol of the resilience and courage of Soviet soldiers in the battle for Leningrad.
📹 Владимир Путин 18 января, когда отмечается день 80-летия прорыва блокады Ленинграда, возложил цветы к монументу "Рубежный камень" на Невском пятачке — плацдарме на левом берегу Невы, который стал символом стойкости и мужества советских солдат в битве за Ленинград. Видео: Kremlin. ru
t.me
Vladimir Putin - about the blockade, his parents in the war and his dead brother:
The war began, the father wrote a statement to the front. They sent him to the NKVD sabotage detachment. They were thrown into the near rear to carry out acts of sabotage, but they almost immediately fell into an ambush. Someone betrayed them. They were pursued through the forest, and he survived because he sat for several hours in a swamp and breathed through a reed.
Moreover, he heard how German soldiers passed nearby, how dogs yapped. They brought me a file on this group from the archives of the Ministry of Defense. Of the 28 people, four crossed the front line back to ours. 24 died.
And then they were sent to the Nevsky Piglet. It was probably the hottest place in the entire blockade. Our troops held a small bridgehead, it was assumed that this would be a bridgehead for breaking the blockade. The dominating heights were all around him, they were shooting through him. It's still solid metal.
And my father told how he was wounded there. All his life he lived with shrapnel in his leg: all of them were never taken out. The foot never flexed afterwards. He and his friend made a sortie to the rear of the Germans, crawled and crawled ... And then it was both funny and sad: they got close to the German pillbox, a healthy man came out of there, looked at them ... but they could not get up, because they were at gunpoint. “A man,” he says, “he looked at us carefully, took out a grenade, then a second one and threw these grenades at us.” Life is such a simple thing and cruel.
It was already winter, the Neva was iced over, it was necessary to somehow get over to the other side. There were few who wanted to drag him to the other side, because there the Neva was in full view and was shot through by both artillery and machine guns. There was almost no chance to reach that shore. But quite by chance, his housemate in Peterhof turned out to be nearby. And this neighbor dragged him without hesitation. Both of them made it there alive. The neighbor waited for him in the hospital, made sure that he had been operated on, and said: “Well, now you will live, and I went to die.”
And went back. And then I asked my father: “Well, did he die?” They got lost, and the father still believed that the neighbor was dead. And somewhere in the 60s, he suddenly came home, sat on a chair and cried. He met this savior. In the shop. In Leningrad. By chance. I went to the grocery store and saw him. It’s necessary that both of them went to this particular store at that very moment. One chance in a million...
And my mother told me how she came to her father in the hospital. They had a small child, he was three years old. And the hunger, the blockade ... And her father gave her his hospital ration. Secretly from doctors and nurses. And she hid him, carried him home and fed the child. Well, then he began to faint in the hospital, the doctors understood everything and stopped letting her in.
And then the baby was taken from her. They did this in secret order in order to save children from starvation. Collected in orphanages for evacuation. The parents weren't even asked. He fell ill there and did not survive. And they were not even told where he was buried. And so people I didn’t know worked in the archives and found documents for my brother.
And this is really my brother. Not only the address where he was taken from coincided. Matched first name, last name, patronymic, year of birth. And the place of burial was indicated: Piskarevsky cemetery and even a specific site.
And the father, when the child was taken away and the mother was left alone, and he was allowed to walk, stood on crutches and went home. When I approached the house, I saw that the orderlies were carrying corpses out of the entrance. And I saw my mother. He approached, and it seemed to him that she was breathing. And he says to the orderlies: “She’s still alive!” - "On the way it will come, it will not survive." He said that he attacked them with crutches and forced her to lift her back to the apartment. And he left her. She stayed alive. And lived until 1999. And he died at the end of 1998.
And there was no family where someone would not die, but they did not have hatred for the enemy, that's amazing. To be honest, I still don't fully understand this. Mom said: “Well, what kind of hatred can there be for these soldiers? They are simple people. They were just driven to the front." These are the words I remember from my childhood.
- 18.01.2023
glasnarod.ru