St. Petersburg was under seige by the Nazi army in the south and Finnish from the north from September 1941 to January 1944. Despite being surrounded with supplies cut off and constant bombing, my guide shared with pride that St. Petersburg is the only major European city that has never been occupied.
The city was hit with 148,478 artillery shells during the siege. Many buildings were destroyed. Some have been rebuilt or restored, but there are marks left throughout including this wall of the Spilt Blood Church which was left unrestored as a reminder.
One story my guide shared was of the five students from this monument outside Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral. To save the gilded churches from aerial bombs, they worked to paint the gilding black and cover portions of the churches with clothes to distrort their use as landmarks for planes. One shell fell in the church but did not explode. When they went to attempt to disarm the shell, they opened it and found no explosives, only a note of encouragement and support signed from their socialist brothers from Germany. Because of that, Russians from this area did not consider Germans their enemies, but rather the Nazis. It was an inportant distinction.
No comments:
Post a Comment