Think back to your Modern World History class in high school and take from the file everything you remember about World War II. Maybe you remember a photo of a grand London falling to pieces as Nazi airplanes drop bombs. Perhaps the story of the victory on the beach of Normandy. Do you remember the Siege of Leningrad?
Leningrad (St. Petersburg) was bombed relentlessly by Axis forces for 900 days and 900 nights and, at the end of nearly three years, the people of Leningrad stood firm. Although the city lost hundreds of thousands of citizens to bombs, starvation and illness, Hitler never reached Moscow and never defeated the intensely proud nation.
The story is remarkable, but the memorial to the event, Piskarevskoye Cemetery is powerful beyond words. Roughly 420,000 civilians and 50,000 soldiers are buried in 186 mass graves in the cemetery, marked only by marble stones with the year in which the grave was filled.
The following is the beginning of my journal entry the day I visited Piskarevskoye Cemetery:
“I knew about the Siege of Leningrad, but I had no idea of the details. For 900 days and 900 nights Axis forces bombed Leningrad, destroying 70% of the city and killing hundreds of thousands. Still more died of starvation. Each person was rationed 125 grams of bread a day, nothing more. Many tried to get by with the addition of potatoes grown in the lawn of the Kazan Cathedral. Leningraders tried to make everything as normal as possible – there were concerts at the Philharmonia and work and school continued. Daily the radio played. It could not broadcast music or speech, but it broadcasted the sound of a metronome to let the people know that the city was still alive.”
After grasping the magnitude of the site’s history, walking through the cemetery and memorial is an emotional journey.
Piskarevskoye Cemetery is located on Проспект Непокорённых, the Avenue of the Unconquered. The entrance to the memorial is a marble walkway with a simple everlasting flame inside an open dark marble box set upon a red marble platform, a tribute to the proud spirit of Leningrad.
You then descend marble steps, as if into the 900 day struggle of the city, onto a sidewalk laced with red roses. The walk boasts an air of quiet triumph, almost defiance, with graves on either side of the walkway as far as you can see. You can walk between the graves, through the trees and to the end of the quiet fields to reflect on the story. It’s hard not to feel as if those buried there are still speaking to the strength of Russia.
The walk takes you to a platform where Mother Motherland (Mother Russia) extends her arms to receive Leningrad’s patriots.
The stone wall behind the statue bears sculptures of Leningraders suffering and Leningraders staying strong. In the center of this wall is carved the most moving part of the memorial: a poem, addressed to “you who are looking at these stones.”
Here lie Leningraders,
Here are townsfolk, men, women, children.
By their sides are Red Army soldiers.
With their entire lives
They defended you, Leningrad,
The cradle of the Revolution.
We cannot enumerate all their noble names here,
So many are there under the eternal granite guard.
But know, you who are looking at these stones
No one is forgotten, nothing is forgotten.
Enemies, clad in armour and in iron, were bursting into the city,
But workers, schoolchildren, teachers and home guards stood up with the army
And like one, they all said
Death will sooner fear us, than we will fear death.
The hungry, harsh, dark winter of forty-one
And forty-two is not forgotten.
Neither the shells’ ferocity
Nor the terror of bombardments in forty-three.
The entire city’s earth was covered. Not one of your lives, comrades, is forgot.
Under the uninterrupted fire from heaven, earth and water,
You did you everyday heroic deed
With honour, and simply.
And together with your Fatherland,
You all prevailed in victory.
So let the thankful people,
The Motherland and hero city Leningrad
Eternally lower their standards
On this sad and solemn meadow.
Driving away from Piskarevskoye you can see a billboard on which is written these words:
“I remember. I am proud.”
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