6 June 2014. A Poem by Olga Berggolts. Здесь лежат ленинградцы (Here Lay Leningraders)

Bread During the War

Andrei Drozdov

2005

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Здесь лежат ленинградцы

Здесь горожане — мужчины, женщины, дети.
Рядом с ними солдаты-красноармейцы.
Всею жизнью своею
Они защищали тебя, Ленинград,
Колыбель революции.
Их имён благородных мы здесь перечислить не сможем,
Так их много под вечной охраной гранита.
Но знай, внимающий этим камням:
Никто не забыт и ничто не забыто.

******

Here Lay Leningraders

Here are city dwellers, men, women, and children
Next to them, Red Army soldiers.
They defended you, Leningrad,
The cradle of the Revolution
With all their lives.
We cannot list their noble names here,
There are so many of them under the eternal protection of granite.
But know this, those who regard these stones:
No one is forgotten, nothing is forgotten.

Olga Berggolts

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Just as Leningrad was under siege in the VOV, Slavyansk is under siege today. Just as the Nazis wanted to exterminate their foes, the same is true of the Uniate fascist fanatics. Hero-Slavyansk still stands. By the way, Никто не забыт и ничто не забыто (No one is forgotten, nothing is forgotten) is one of the most recognised phrases in Russian. A similar saying is “They all had faces, they all had names”… and Westerners accuse us of lacking emotion.

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27 January 2014. RIA-Novosti Infographics. The Siege of Leningrad

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Seventy years ago, on 27 January 1944, the Red Army completely lifted the Fascist Siege of Leningrad (now St Petersburg). The siege lasted for 872 days.

27 January 2014

RIA-Novosti

http://en.ria.ru/infographics/20140127/186755901/The-Siege-of-Leningrad.html

There was no original Russian text available for this infographic, sorry about that

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Putin Pays Respects to Brother and to Other Victims of Leningrad Siege

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Здесь лежат ленинградцы

Здесь горожане — мужчины, женщины, дети.
Рядом с ними солдаты-красноармейцы.
Всею жизнью своею
Они защищали тебя, Ленинград,
Колыбель революции.
Их имён благородных мы здесь перечислить не сможем,
Так их много под вечной охраной гранита.
Но знай, внимающий этим камням:
Никто не забыт и ничто не забыто.

******

Here Lay Leningraders

Here are city dwellers, men, women, and children
Next to them, Red Army soldiers.
They defended you, Leningrad,
The cradle of the Revolution
With all their lives.
We cannot list their noble names here,
There are so many of them under the eternal protection of granite.
But know this, those who regard these stones:
No one is forgotten, nothing is forgotten.

Olga Berggolts

******

On Monday, President Putin honoured the victims of the Siege of Leningrad, including his brother, at a ceremony in St Petersburg. Putin walked with several dozen siege survivors in a procession through the Piskaryovskoye Memorial Cemetery as part of a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the lifting of the Siege of Leningrad (the name for Piter at the time). Following the procession, Putin laid flowers and made the sign of the cross at the mass grave where his older brother was interred. Putin’s brother died in childhood during the devastating siege. Putin, born in Leningrad seven years after the end of the war, laid a wreath in the Russian national colours at the Mother-Motherland monument, which stands opposite the eternal flame commemorating those who died during the siege. The Siege of Leningrad during the VOV lasted from September 1941 to January 1944; it was one of the longest and deadliest in history. Estimates state that about 750,000 civilians starved and froze to death, many of them buried in mass graves at the Piskaryovskoye Cemetery. St Petersburg marks two anniversaries of the siege every January… the partial breaking of the siege on 18 January 1943, and the full lifting of the siege on 27 January 1944.

27 January 2014

RIA-Novosti

http://en.ria.ru/russia/20140127/186958249/Putin-Pays-Respects-to-Brother-Victims-of-Leningrad-Siege–.html

Editor’s Note:

THIS is why Russia remembers… the human toll exacted to kick out the Fascists and their collaborators was immense. It’s why Russia won’t “rehabilitate” the Vlasovtsy or Krasnovtsy… they fought willingly for the Fascists. It’s why Russia won’t “rehabilitate” the KONR pigs… they stabbed the Motherland in the back. We should watch our backs… some elements in the ROCOR are still led by Vlasovtsy… they say that they’re on our side now, but I, for one, don’t trust them one little bit. Do take a care with all those who were loud supporters of Langley in the Cold War… after all, does a leopard change its spots truly?

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8 May 2012. Lest We Forget… Tomorrow is Victory Day… 67 Years Since the Great Victory

Then… Soviet sniper Lieutenant Lyudmila Pavlichenko (1916-74)… life went on… youth remained youth. There were 2,000 women who served as snipers in the Red Army during the Second Great Patriotic War (the First was against Napoleon)… only one in four lived to see the first Victory Day.

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Now… Retired Colonel of Armoured Troops Lyudmila Kalinina (1915- )… their ranks thin with each passing year… all too soon, there’ll be none left… say, THANK YOU. Without these people, we’d have grown up under the dark shadow of Fascism… if we had grown up at all. Ponder that…

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Each year… fewer and fewer… if you see a World War II vet, thank them for having rid the world of manifest evil. Be vigilant… demagogues pop up, especially at times of stress and disorder. It’s our duty to smack ’em down… HARD. You can’t be kind with the rightwing… Hitler and the Nazis taught us that. Honour the vets… fight for freedom as they did (yes, Virginia, the New Deal WAS socialistic)… don’t accept torture and aggression as normal. Otherwise, the long night WILL fall… the lights WILL go out in our time… and a barbaric “conservative” nightmare WILL crush out all humanity and all that’s worth living for.

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