In Honor of Past Defenders of the Fatherland

Apparently, last month was the 65th anniversary of the breaking of the Siege of Leningrad. It is difficult to overestimate the impact of the siege, or the Blockade, as it is called in Russian, on the city. The signs advising citizens which side of the street to avoid when the city was being shelled remain in one or two places on Nevsky Prospekt as a reminder. Survivors, or perhaps today their descendants, still lay flowers beneath them.

Even in the 1980s, infrastructure problems and dolgostroi issues were being blamed on the wounds the city suffered during the Great Patriotic War, and of course the devastation of some of the tourist attractions surrounding St. Petersburg was still being restored in this century.

Anyway, I thought I'd post, somewhat belatedly for the anniversary noted above but right on time for Defenders of the Fatherland Day, a photo of my own blockade relic. Not that I was a survivor of those hellish 900 days. No, my connection is a bit more tenuous and involves this document:


This is the certificate issued to recipients of the medal "For the Defense of Leningrad," received on March 6, 1944 by one Ivan Vasil'evich Nikiforov, if I'm making out the handwriting correctly. Although it now seems impossible, my memory of how I acquired this item is that it was tossed on the trash heap in the courtyard of the building where we lived in downtown Leningrad, along with the rest of the belongings of its deceased recipient.

Archival photos from wartime Leningrad can be viewed here.