Who is Tanya Savicheva? Diary of Tanya Savicheva. She never grew up
On July 1, 1944, the legendary girl, known throughout the world thanks to her blockade diary, passed away. During the evacuation, fourteen-year-old Tanya Savicheva died after a serious illness.
Many people probably associate this name with a photograph of a little six-year-old girl, which is exhibited in the museum along with her notes, in which the child noted when one of her relatives died in besieged Leningrad. It is often thought that Tanya herself died immediately after burying her entire family. But that's not true.
Tanya Savicheva was born, according to one version, on January 23, 1930 in the village of Dvorishchi near Gdov near Lake Peipus, but since all her brothers and sisters grew up in Leningrad, Leningrad is often mistakenly indicated as her place of birth. Her father was a Nepman, his name was Nikolai Rodionovich. Tanya’s mother’s name was Maria Ignatyevna, but after the wedding her surname remained her maiden name - Fedorova. Tanya was the eighth and last child in the family. Maria decided in advance that she would not stay in Leningrad for the birth and, being in the last month of pregnancy, went to Dvorishche to see her sister Kapitolina, whose husband was a doctor and helped give birth to Maria. She returned to Leningrad when Tanya was already several months old.
Three possible dates of Tanya’s birth are known from various sources: January 25, 1930 - this date is most often found, there is an opinion that it is found in many sources and is adjusted to Tatiana’s day; February 23, 1930 - this date is written on a memorial plaque in the courtyard of her house and January 23, 1930 - Liliya Nikitichna Markova in her article “The Siege Chronicle of Tanya Savicheva” claims that this particular date is the real date of birth of Tanya Savicheva.
As mentioned above, Tanya was the eighth and youngest child of the Savichevs. She had two sisters - Evgenia (born in 1909) and Nina (born November 23, 1918); and two brothers - Leonid "Leka" (born in 1917) and Mikhail (born in 1921). She also had two older sisters and a brother, whom she never saw because they died in infancy from scarlet fever in 1916, before she was born.
In the 1930s, Tanya’s father, as a Nepman, became “disenfranchised,” and in 1935 the NKVD evicted the Savichevs from Leningrad 101 kilometers away to the Luga area, but after some time the family was able to return to the city, but Nikolai was in exile fell ill and died of cancer on March 5, 1936 at the age of 52. He was buried at the Smolensk Orthodox Cemetery not far from the Chapel of Xenia the Blessed, where his three other children were buried earlier in 1916. Tanya lost her entire family during the period from...., as can be seen from the entries in her diary.
At the end of May 1941, Tanya Savicheva graduated from the third grade of school No. 35, which is located on the Kadetskaya line of Vasilyevsky Island in St. Petersburg. The Savichevs were going to spend the summer of 1941 in Dvorishchi with their sister Maria Capitolina, where Tanya was born. On June 21, her older brother Mikhail boarded a train heading to Kingisepp. Two weeks after her grandmother’s birthday, Tanya and her mother were supposed to go there; another brother and sister were going to join them as soon as they got time off from work. When Germany attacked the USSR, on June 22, their grandmother Evdokia turned 74 years old. Having learned about the beginning of the war, the Savichevs decided to stay in the city and help the army.
In those days, Tanya, along with her peers, helped clear attics of garbage and collected glass containers for fire bottles. When the Savichevs learned that Pskov was captured by the Germans on July 9, they considered Mikhail dead, since there was no news of him. But Tanya’s older brother was alive - he ended up in a partisan detachment.
In December 1941, transport completely stopped in Leningrad, and the city streets were completely covered with snow, which was not cleared all winter. One of Tanya’s sisters, Evgeniya, suffered greatly from poor health due to the fact that she often donated blood, and also because she had to walk almost seven kilometers along snow-covered streets from her home to the factory. Sometimes she stayed overnight at the plant to save energy to work two more shifts. One day Evgenia did not come to the plant and, worried about her absence, on the morning of Sunday, December 28, Nina took time off from the night shift and hurried to her sister on Mokhovaya Street, where 32-year-old Evgenia died in her arms. In order not to forget the date of Zhenya’s death, Tanya wrote it down in Nina’s notebook, which her brother Leonid had once given to her. Nina once turned half of the book into a draftsman’s reference book, filling it with information about gate valves, valves, valves, pipelines and other fittings for boilers. The other half of the book, with the alphabet, remained blank and Tanya decided to write on it. And then on the page under the letter “F” the first terrible entry appeared:
At first, Evgenia’s relatives wanted to bury her at the Serafimovskoye cemetery, but this turned out to be impossible due to the fact that all the approaches to the cemetery gates were littered with corpses that there was no one to bury, so she was buried where possible - at the Smolensk Lutheran cemetery. At the cemetery, Maria, bending over the coffin of her eldest daughter, uttered a phrase that became prophetic for their family: “Here we are burying you, Zhenechka. Who will bury us and how?”
At the beginning of January, Tanya’s grandmother, Evdokia Fedorova, was diagnosed with third degree nutritional dystrophy. This condition required urgent hospitalization, but Evdokia refused, citing the fact that Leningrad hospitals were already overcrowded. She died on January 25, two days after Tanya's birthday. In Nina’s book, on the page with the letter “B”, Tanya wrote:
The death certificate that Maria Ignatievna received from the district social security office has a different date - February 1, because before her death her grandmother asked not to throw away her ration card so that it could be used before the end of the month. Evdokia became the only member of the Savichev family whose burial place remained unknown. It is likely that she was buried in a mass grave at the Piskarevskoye cemetery.
On February 28, 1942, Nina was supposed to come home, but she never came. That day there was heavy shelling, and, apparently, the Savichevs considered Nina dead, not knowing that Nina, along with the entire enterprise where she worked, was hastily evacuated across Lake Ladoga to the “Great Land”. Almost no letters went to besieged Leningrad, and Nina, like Mikhail, could not convey any news to her relatives. Tanya never wrote down her sister and brother in her diary, perhaps hoping that they were alive.
During the evacuation, Nina became seriously ill, she was taken off the train and sent to the hospital, from where she ended up at a state farm in the Tver region. At the first opportunity, she sent her and Leonid’s mutual friend Vasily Krylov a letter with a request to visit her family. However, Krylov did not immediately receive the letter, because he was also in evacuation.
On June 21, 1941, Mikhail boarded the Leningrad-Kingisepp train and went to the village of Dvorishchi to visit Aunt Kapitolina. There the war found him. Mikhail joined a partisan detachment, spent several years in it, was seriously wounded and sent for treatment to already liberated Leningrad. He left the hospital disabled and walked on crutches. In 1944 he settled in the city of Slantsy, where he worked at the post office.
Leonid, working at the Admiralty Plant day and night, rarely came home, although the plant was not far from home - on the opposite bank of the Neva, across the Lieutenant Schmidt Bridge. Like Evgenia, in most cases he had to spend the night at the enterprise, often working two shifts in a row. There was even an entry in the book “History of the Admiralty Plant” under Leonid’s photograph: “Leonid Savichev worked very diligently, and was never late for a shift, although he was exhausted. But one day he didn’t come to the factory. And two days later the workshop was informed that Savichev had died...”
This is exactly what Leonida’s younger sister wrote in her notebook. He was also buried at the Piskarevskoye cemetery.
Less than a month later, Vasily was buried there, who died on April 13 at the age of 56, which Tanya wrote down on the page under the letter “D”:
On May 10, at the age of 71, Alexey Savichev dies from advanced dystrophy.
Tanya writes, for some reason missing the word “died”... Alexei was buried at the Piskarevskoye cemetery.
Tanya’s mother, Maria Savicheva, died three days later, on the morning of May 13. On the piece of paper under the letter “M” Tanya made a corresponding entry, also omitting the terrible word - “died”:
It is believed that with the death of her mother, Tanya lost hope that Mikhail and Nina were still alive, so corresponding entries appear on the pages with the letters “C”, “U” and “O”:
“The Savichevs have died”
"Everyone died"
“Only Tanya remains”
The first day when she was left alone, Tanya spent with her friend Vera Nikolaenko, who was a year older than Tanya. Vera's family lived on the floor above Tanya. Vera's mother, Agrippina Mikhailovna, sewed Maria's body into a gray blanket with a stripe, and her father, Afanasy Semenovich, brought a two-wheeled cart from the local kindergarten. On it, he and Vera together carried the body across the entire Vasilyevsky Island beyond the Smolenka River. Exhausted, Tanya couldn’t even go to her mother’s funeral. Maria Fedorova was buried at the Orthodox Smolensk cemetery.
The next morning, Tanya left her friend’s family to go to her grandmother’s niece Evdokia Petrovna Arsenyeva, who lived in a communal apartment on Proletarskaya Street. Evdokia received guardianship over Tanya. At that time, she worked one and a half shifts at the plant without rest and, leaving for work, sent the girl out into the street. Tanya by that time was already completely exhausted and, despite the fact that it was already May, like all Leningraders who suffered from dystrophy, she felt chills and walked around in winter clothes. It often happened that, upon returning home, Evdokia found Tanya sleeping right on the stairs.
At the very beginning of June 1942, Tanya was found by Vasily Krylov, who managed to return from evacuation to Leningrad and found Nina’s letter. Vasily told Tanya that Nina was alive. However, her health was already so compromised that Evdokia decided to withdraw her guardianship rights, because then there was a chance to send Tanya to be evacuated with the orphanage as an orphan.
In August 1942, as part of 125 children from orphanage No. 48 of the Smolninsky district, Tanya arrived in the village of Shatki, Gorky region, which was located 1,300 kilometers from Leningrad. Next, the children were sent to the village of Krasny Bor, located near Shatki, and placed in one of the high school buildings for a two-week quarantine. Despite the fact that all 125 children were physically exhausted, only five of them were infectious patients. Tanya was the only child who was sick with tuberculosis, which is why she was not allowed to see other children, and the only person who communicated with her was the nurse assigned to her, Nina Mikhailovna Seredkina. She did everything to ease Tanya’s suffering and to some extent she succeeded: after a while Tanya could walk on crutches, and later she moved around holding onto the wall with her hands.
But Tanya’s body was so damaged that at the beginning of March 1944 she was transported to a nursing home in the village of Ponetaevka, which was 25 kilometers from Krasny Bor. There, tuberculosis began to progress and two months later, on May 24, Tanya was transferred to the infectious diseases department of the Shatkovo district hospital, where she was cared for until the last day by nurse Anna Mikhailovna Zhurkina, who later said the following: “I remember this girl well. Thin face, wide open eyes. Day and night I did not leave Tanya, but the illness was inexorable, and it snatched her from my hands. I can’t remember this without tears..."
Progressive dystrophy, scurvy, nervous shock and bone tuberculosis, which Tanya suffered from in early childhood, completely undermined her health and on July 1, 1944, at the age of 14 and a half, Tanya Savicheva died from intestinal tuberculosis (according to another version, it was encephalitis). She was the only one who died of all the children from orphanage No. 48 who arrived at that time. Before her death, she was often tormented by headaches, and in her last days she became blind.
On the same day, Tanya, as if she were rootless, was buried by the hospital groom, and from the same year Zhurkina began to look after Tanya’s grave.
Nina lived in St. Petersburg until the last days of her life, where she died on February 6, 2013 at the age of 94 and was buried in a cemetery in the village of Vyritsa. At the time of her death she had a son, one granddaughter and one great-granddaughter.
After the war, Mikhail Savichev lived constantly in the city of Slantsy, Leningrad Region. He died in 1988.
Returning to Leningrad, Tanya’s sister Nina accidentally saw Evdokia’s familiar Palekh box, which Tanya had brought to her. Nina found her notebook in the box and took it away, not suspecting what was written there. Then Nina met Major L. L. Rakov (1904-1970), the former scientific secretary of the Hermitage. Seeing the mournful notes made by a child’s hand in a small notebook, Rakov suggested that Nina place the siege diary on display at the exhibition “Heroic Defense of Leningrad,” in the formation of which, from the end of 1943, on behalf of the Political Directorate of the Leningrad Front, he took part. This exhibition was then transformed into the Leningrad Defense Museum, which officially opened on January 27, 1946. But in 1953, this museum was closed, and Tanya Savicheva’s diary, along with numerous documents, including the “Books of registration of burials at the Piskarevsky cemetery,” ended up in the Museum of the History of Leningrad.
The diary is now on display in the Leningrad History Museum, and a copy of it is in the window of one of the pavilions of the Piskarevsky Memorial Cemetery. In the near future, it is planned to show the original for the first time in thirty-five years, but in a closed form.
Savicheva, Tatyana NikolaevnaTatyana Nikolaevna Savicheva
Type of activity:
Leningrad schoolgirl
Date of birth:
Dvorishchi, Gdov, Pskov region, USSR
Citizenship:
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics USSR
Date of death:
Shatki, Gorky region, USSR
Father:
Nikolai Rodionovich Savichev
Mother:
Maria Ignatievna Savicheva (Fedorova)
Tatyana Nikolaevna Savicheva (January 23, 1930, Dvorishchi, Gdovsky district, Pskov region - July 1, 1944, Shatki, Gorky region) - a Leningrad schoolgirl who, from the beginning of the siege of Leningrad, began keeping a diary in a notebook left by her older sister Nina. This diary has only 9 pages and six of them contain the dates of death of loved ones. Tanya Savicheva's diary became one of the symbols of the Great Patriotic War.
Tanya Savicheva was born on January 23, 1930 in the village of Dvorishchi near Gdov, but, like her brothers and sisters, she grew up in Leningrad.
Tanya was the fifth and youngest child of Maria and Nikolai. She had two sisters and two brothers: Zhenya (born in 1909), Leonid "Leka" (born in 1917), Nina (born November 23, 1918) and Misha (born in 1921). Many years later, Nina Savicheva recalled the appearance of a fifth child in their family as follows:
“Tanyusha was the youngest. In the evenings we gathered around the large dining table. Mom put the basket in which Tanya was sleeping in the center, and we watched, afraid to take another breath and wake up the baby. »
In the memory of Nina and Misha, Tanya remained as very shy and not childishly serious:
“Tanya was a golden girl. Curious, with a light, even character. She knew how to listen very well. We told her everything - about work, about sports, about friends. »
From her mother she inherited a fairly good “angelic” voice, which predicted a good singing career for her in the future. She had a particularly good relationship with her uncle Vasily, and since he and his brother had a small library in their apartment, Tanya asked all questions about life to him. The two of them often walked along the Neva.
[edit] Blockade
By the beginning of the war, the Savichevs still lived in the same house No. 13/6 on the 2nd line of Vasilievsky Island. Tanya, together with her mother, Nina, Leonid, Misha and grandmother Evdokia Grigorievna Fedorova (nee Arsenyeva, born in 1867), lived on the first floor in apartment No. 1. At the end of May 1941, Tanya Savicheva graduated from the third grade of school No. 35 on the Sezdovskaya line (now the Cadet Line) of Vasilyevsky Island and was supposed to go to the fourth in September.
On November 3, the new school year began in Leningrad with a great delay. A total of 103 schools were opened, with 30 thousand students studying. Tanya went to her school No. 35 until, with the onset of winter, classes in Leningrad schools gradually stopped.
[edit] Zhenya
Zhenya was the first to die. By December 1941, transport completely stopped working in Leningrad, the streets were completely covered with snow. To get to the plant, Zhenya had to walk almost seven kilometers from home. Sometimes she stayed overnight at the plant to save strength and work two shifts, but she was no longer in good health. At the end of December, Zhenya did not come to the plant. Concerned about her absence, Nina on the morning of Sunday, December 28, asked for time off from the night shift and hurried to her sister on Mokhovaya. She managed to arrive just in time for Zhenya to die in her arms. She was 32 years old. Apparently Tanya was afraid that during the blockade they would gradually forget the date of Zhenya’s death and decided to write it down. To do this, she took Nina’s notebook, which Leka had once given her. Nina turned half of the book into a draftsman’s reference book, filling it with data on valves, valves, valves, pipelines and other fittings for boilers, and the other half, with the alphabet, remained blank. Tanya decided to write on it, because perhaps she thought that it would be more convenient to find the recording later.
“I still remember that New Year. None of us waited until midnight; we went to bed hungry and were glad that the house was warm. The neighbor lit the stove with books from his library. He then gave Tanya a huge volume of “Myths of Ancient Greece”. Just then, secretly from everyone, my sister took my notebook. »
Even Nina and Misha themselves believed for a long time that Tanya made notes with a blue chemical pencil, which Nina used to line her eyes. And only in 2009, experts from the State Museum of the History of St. Petersburg, preparing the diary for a closed exhibition, established with certainty that Tanya made notes not with a chemical pencil, but with an ordinary colored pencil.
They wanted to bury Zhenya at the Serafimovskoye cemetery, because it was not far from the house, but it turned out that there was nothing to count on, because all the approaches to the gate were littered with corpses, which no one had the strength to bury at that time. Therefore, they decided to take Zhenya by truck to Decembrist Island and bury him at the Smolensk Lutheran Cemetery. With the help of her ex-husband Yuri, they managed to get the coffin. According to Nina’s recollections, already at the cemetery, Maria Ignatievna, bending over the coffin of her eldest daughter, uttered a phrase that became fatal for their family: “Here we are burying you, Zhenechka. Who will bury us and how?”
[edit] Grandmother
On January 19, 1942, a decree was issued to open canteens for children aged eight to twelve years. Tanya wore them until January 22. On January 23, 1942, she turned twelve years old, as a result of which, by the standards of the besieged city, there were “no more children” in the Savichev family and from now on Tanya received the same ration of bread as an adult.
At the beginning of January, Evdokia Grigorievna was given a terrible diagnosis: third degree of nutritional dystrophy. This condition required urgent hospitalization, but the grandmother refused, citing the fact that Leningrad hospitals were already overcrowded. On January 25, two days after Tanya’s birthday, she passed away. In Nina’s book, on the page with the letter “B”, Tanya writes:
“Grandmother died on January 25th. 3 p.m. 1942 »
Before her death, my grandmother asked very much not to throw away her card, because it could be used before the end of the month. Many people in Leningrad did this, and for some time this supported the life of the relatives and friends of the deceased. To prevent such “illegal use” of these cards, re-registration was subsequently introduced in the middle of each month. Therefore, the Death Certificate that Maria Ignatyevna received at the District Social Security Service has a different date - February 1st. Nina Savicheva does not remember where exactly she was buried. By that time, she and Leka had long been in barracks at the factory and were almost never at home. Perhaps Evdokia Grigorievna was buried in a mass grave at the Piskarevskoye Memorial Cemetery.
[edit] Leka
February 28, 1942 Nina was supposed to come home, but she never came. That day there was heavy shelling and, apparently, the Savichevs considered Nina dead, not knowing that Nina, along with the entire enterprise where she worked, was hastily evacuated across Lake Ladoga to the mainland. Letters almost never went to besieged Leningrad, and Nina, like Misha, could not convey any news to her family. Tanya did not write her sister down in her diary, perhaps because she still hoped that she was alive.
Leka literally lived at the Admiralty Plant, working there day and night. It was rare to visit relatives, although the plant was not far from home - on the opposite bank of the Neva, across the Lieutenant Schmidt Bridge. In most cases, he had to spend the night at the plant, often working two shifts in a row. In the book “History of the Admiralty Plant” there is a photo of Leonid, and under it the inscription:
“Leonid Savichev worked very diligently, and was never late for a shift, although he was exhausted. But one day he didn’t come to the factory. And two days later the workshop was informed that Savichev had died...”
Leka died of dystrophy on March 17 in a factory hospital. He was 24 years old. Tanya opens her notebook on the letter “L” and writes, hastily combining two words into one:
"Lyoka died on March 17 at 5 o'clock in 1942"
Leka, along with the factory workers who died at the same time in the hospital, was buried by the factory employees - they were taken to the Piskarevskoye memorial cemetery.
[edit] Uncle Vasya
In April 1942, with the warming, the threat of death from cold disappeared from besieged Leningrad, but the threat from hunger did not recede, as a result of which a whole epidemic had begun in the city by that time: nutritional dystrophy, scurvy, intestinal diseases and tuberculosis claimed the lives of thousands of Leningraders. And the Savichevs were no exception. On April 13, at the age of 56, Vasily died. Tanya opens her notebook to the letter “B” and makes a corresponding entry, which is not very correct and confusing:
"Uncle Vasya died on April 13, 2 a.m. 1942"
[edit] Uncle Lyosha
On April 25, evacuation along the Road of Life was stopped. On May 4, 1942, 137 schools opened in Leningrad. Almost 64 thousand children returned to school. A medical examination showed that out of every hundred, only four did not suffer from scurvy and dystrophy.
Tanya did not return to her school No. 35, because now she was responsible for caring for her mother and uncle Lyosha, who by that time had already completely undermined their health. Even hospitalization could not save him. Alexey died at the age of 71 on May 10. The page with the letter “L” was already occupied by Leka and therefore Tanya writes on the spread, on the left. But either she no longer had enough strength, or grief completely overwhelmed the soul of the suffering girl, because on this page Tanya skips the word “died”:
"Uncle Lesha May 10 at 4 pm 1942"
[edit] Mother
Well, was it possible to imagine that three days after the death of Uncle Lyosha, Tanya would be left completely alone? Maria Ignatievna was 52 years old when on the morning of May 13 she passed away. Perhaps Tanya simply didn’t have the courage to write “mom died,” so on the sheet of paper with the letter “M” she writes:
"Mom on May 13 at 7.30 am 1942"
With the death of her mother, Tanya completely lost hope of victory and that Misha and Nina would ever return home. On the letter "C" she writes:
"The Savichevs have died"
Tanya finally considers Misha and Nina dead and therefore writes on the letter “U”:
"Everyone Died"
And finally, on “O”:
"Tanya is the only one left"
[edit] “Only Tanya remains”
Tanya spent her first terrible day with her friend Vera Afanasyevna Nikolaenko, who lived with her parents on the floor below the Savichevs. Vera was a year older than Tanya and the girls talked like neighbors.
“Tanya knocked on our door this morning. She said that her mother had just died and she was left all alone. She asked me to help transport the body. She was crying and looked very sick. »
Vera's mother Agrippina Mikhailovna Nikolaenko sewed Maria Ignatievna's body into a gray blanket with a stripe. Vera's father Afanasy Semyonovich, who was wounded at the front, was treated in a hospital in Leningrad and had the opportunity to come home often, went to a kindergarten that was nearby and asked for a two-wheeled cart there. On it, he and Vera together carried the body across the entire Vasilievsky Island beyond the Smolenka River.
“Tanya couldn’t come with us - she was completely weak. I remember the cart bouncing on the paving stones, especially when we walked along Maly Prospekt. The body wrapped in a blanket was leaning to one side, and I supported it. Behind the bridge over Smolenka there was a huge hangar. Corpses were brought there from all over Vasilyevsky Island. We brought the body there and left it. I remember there was a mountain of corpses there. When they entered there, a terrible groan was heard. It was air coming out of the throat of someone dead... I became very scared. »
The corpses from this hangar were buried in mass graves at the Smolensk Orthodox Cemetery, so Tanya’s mother lies there. When the newspaper “Arguments and Facts” in January 2004 published an article about Nina and Misha entitled “Not all of the Savichevs died,” Vera’s son called its editorial office and said that his mother was burying Tanya Savicheva’s mother. The editors called her and found out all the details. After which Vera met with Nina. Nina was very surprised when she learned that her mother was buried at the Smolensk cemetery, because before that she was sure that her mother, along with her uncles, grandmother and brother, were buried in mass graves at the Piskarevsky cemetery. The State Memorial Museum of the Defense and Siege of Leningrad at one time even told her the numbers of these graves. However, the staff of the archive of the Piskarevsky cemetery established with accuracy that Maria Ignatievna Savicheva was buried at the Smolensk Orthodox cemetery, right next to the grave of her husband. True, during registration they made a mistake: for some reason the middle name Ignatievna was replaced with Mikhailovna. She is listed under this name in the cemetery’s electronic Memory Book.
[edit] Evacuation
So, Evdokia Petrovna Arsenyeva ultimately relinquished custody of Tanya and registered her in orphanage No. 48 of the Smolninsky district, which was then preparing for evacuation to the Shatkovsky district of the Gorky region (from 1990 Nizhny Novgorod region), which was 1,300 kilometers from Leningrad. Orphanages in besieged Leningrad were formed and staffed with teachers under the strict control of the NKVD, after which they were transported to the mainland. The train in which Tanya was was repeatedly bombed, and only in August 1942 finally arrived in the village of Shatki. One of the founders of the Shatka museum dedicated to Tanya Savicheva, history teacher Irina Nikolaeva, later recalled:
“A lot of people came out to meet this train at the station. The wounded were constantly brought to Shatki, but this time people were warned that in one of the carriages there would be children from besieged Leningrad. The train stopped, but no one came out of the opened door of the large carriage. Most of the children simply could not get out of bed. Those who decided to look inside could not come to their senses for a long time. The sight of the children was terrible - bones, skin and wild melancholy in their huge eyes. The women raised an incredible cry. “They’re still alive!” - the NKVD officers accompanying the train reassured them. Almost immediately, people began to carry food to that carriage and give away their last. As a result, the children were sent under escort to a room prepared for an orphanage. Human kindness and the smallest piece of bread from starvation could easily kill them. »
Despite the shortage of food and medicine, Gorky residents were able to take out Leningrad children. As follows from the report on the living conditions of the orphanage residents, all 125 children were physically exhausted, but there were only five infectious patients. One baby suffered from stomatitis, three had scabies, and another had tuberculosis. It so happened that this only tuberculosis patient turned out to be Tanya Savicheva.
Tanya was not allowed to see other children, and the only person who communicated with her was the nurse assigned to her, Nina Mikhailovna Seredkina. She did everything to ease Tanya’s suffering and, according to the recollections of Irina Nikolaeva, she succeeded to some extent:
“After some time, Tanya was able to walk on crutches, and later she moved around holding onto the wall with her hands. »
But Tanya was still so weak that at the beginning of March 1944 she had to be sent to the Ponetaevsky Home for the Invalids, although she did not get better there either. Due to health reasons, she was the most seriously ill patient, and therefore, two months later, Tanya was transferred to the infectious diseases department of the Shatkovo district hospital. Of all the children from orphanage No. 48 who arrived at that time, only Tanya Savicheva could not be saved. She was often tormented by headaches, and shortly before her death she became blind. Tanya Savicheva died on July 1, 1944 at the age of 14 and a half years from intestinal tuberculosis.
[edit] Diary of Tanya Savicheva
Diary pages.
* December 28, 1941. Zhenya died at 12 o'clock in the morning.
* Grandmother died on January 25, 1942, at 3 o’clock in the afternoon.
* Leka died on March 17 at 5 am.
* Uncle Vasya died on April 13 at 2 am.
* Uncle Lyosha May 10 at 4 pm.
* Mom - May 13 at 730 am.
* The Savichevs died.
* Everyone died.
* Tanya is the only one left.
Tanya Savicheva's diary appeared at the Nuremberg trials as one of the indictment documents against Nazi criminals. Nevertheless, the winner of the gold medal “Personality of St. Petersburg” Markova Lilia Nikitichna in the online newspaper “Petersburg Family” questions this fact. She believes that if this were so, then the diary would have remained in Nuremberg, and would not have been exhibited at the State Museum of the History of St. Petersburg.
The diary itself is today exhibited in the Museum of the History of Leningrad, and a copy of it is in the window of one of the pavilions of the Piskarevsky Memorial Cemetery. In the near future, it is planned to show the original for the first time in thirty-five years, but in a closed form.
[edit] Memory
Tanya Savicheva is a Leningrad schoolgirl who, from the beginning of the siege of Leningrad, began keeping a diary in a notebook left by her older sister Nina. This diary has only 9 pages and six of them contain the dates of death of loved ones. Tanya Savicheva's diary became one of the symbols of the Great Patriotic War.
Tanya was the fifth and youngest child of Maria and Nikolai. She had two sisters and two brothers: Zhenya, Leonid “Leka”, Nina and Misha.
Zhenya was the first to die. By December 1941, transport completely stopped working in Leningrad, the streets were completely covered with snow. To get to the plant, Zhenya had to walk almost seven kilometers from home. Sometimes she stayed overnight at the plant to save strength and work two shifts, but she was no longer in good health. At the end of December, Zhenya did not come to the plant. Concerned about her absence, Nina on the morning of Sunday, December 28, asked for time off from the night shift and hurried to her sister on Mokhovaya. She managed to arrive just in time for Zhenya to die in her arms. She was 32 years old. Apparently Tanya was afraid that during the blockade they would gradually forget the date of Zhenya’s death and decided to write it down. To do this, she took Nina’s notebook, which Leka had once given her.
On the letter “F” Tanya writes: “Zhenya died on December 28 at 12.30 in the morning 1941.”
Tanya in a group photo
They wanted to bury Zhenya at the Serafimovskoye cemetery, because it was not far from the house, but it turned out that there was nothing to count on, because all the approaches to the gate were littered with corpses, which no one had the strength to bury at that time. Therefore, they decided to take Zhenya by truck to Decembrist Island and bury him at the Smolensk Lutheran Cemetery. With the help of her ex-husband Yuri, they managed to get the coffin. According to Nina’s recollections, already at the cemetery, Maria Ignatievna, bending over the coffin of her eldest daughter, uttered a phrase that became fatal for their family: “Here we are burying you, Zhenechka. Who will bury us and how?”
At the beginning of January, Evdokia Grigorievna was given a terrible diagnosis: third degree of nutritional dystrophy. This condition required urgent hospitalization, but the grandmother refused, citing the fact that Leningrad hospitals were already overcrowded. On January 25, two days after Tanya’s birthday, she passed away. On the page with the letter “B” Tanya writes: “Grandmother died on January 25th. 3 p.m. 1942 »
Before her death, my grandmother asked very much not to throw away her card, because it could be used before the end of the month. Many people in Leningrad did this, and for some time this supported the life of the relatives and friends of the deceased. To prevent such “illegal use” of these cards, re-registration was subsequently introduced in the middle of each month. Therefore, the Death Certificate has a different date - February 1st.
Tanya and NinaFebruary 28, 1942 Nina was supposed to come home, but she never came. That day there was heavy shelling and, apparently, the Savichevs considered Nina dead, not knowing that Nina, along with the entire enterprise where she worked, was hastily evacuated across Lake Ladoga to the mainland. Letters almost never went to besieged Leningrad, and Nina, like Misha, could not convey any news to her family. Tanya did not write her sister down in her diary, perhaps because she still hoped that she was alive.
Leka literally lived at the Admiralty Plant, working there day and night. It was rare to visit relatives, although the plant was not far from home - on the opposite bank of the Neva, across the Lieutenant Schmidt Bridge. In most cases, he had to spend the night at the plant, often working two shifts in a row. Leka died of dystrophy on March 17 in a factory hospital. He was 24 years old. Tanya opens the notebook on the letter “L” and writes, hastily combining two words into one: “Leka died on March 17 at 5 o’clock in 1942.”
On April 13, at the age of 56, Vasily died. Tanya opens the notebook to the letter “B” and makes a corresponding entry, which turns out not very correct and confusing:
“Uncle Vasya died on April 13, 2 a.m. 1942.”
Tanya never returned to her school No. 35, because now she was taking care of her mother and Uncle Lyosha, who by that time had already completely undermined their health. Even hospitalization could not save him. Alexey died at the age of 71 on May 10. The page with the letter “L” was already occupied by Leka and therefore Tanya writes on the spread, on the left. But either she no longer had enough strength, or grief completely overwhelmed the soul of the suffering girl, because on this page Tanya skips the word “died”: “Uncle Lesha on May 10 at 4 p.m. 1942.”
Maria Ignatievna was 52 years old when on the morning of May 13 she passed away. Perhaps Tanya simply didn’t have the courage to write “mom died,” so on the sheet with the letter “M” she writes: “Mom on May 13 at 7.30 a.m. 1942.”
With the death of her mother, Tanya completely lost hope of victory and that Misha and Nina would ever return home. On the letter “S” she writes: “The Savichevs are dead”
Tanya finally considers Misha and Nina dead and therefore writes on the letter “U”:
"Everyone died"
And finally, on “O”: “Only Tanya remains”
Tanya was registered in orphanage No. 48, which was then preparing for evacuation. As follows from the examination report of the children at the orphanage, all 125 children were physically exhausted, but only five were infectiously ill. One baby suffered from stomatitis, three had scabies, and another had tuberculosis. It so happened that this only tuberculosis patient turned out to be Tanya Savicheva.
Despite treatment in the village of Shatki, Tanya was still so weak that at the beginning of March 1944 she had to be sent to the Ponetaevsky Home for the Invalids, although she did not get better there either. Due to health reasons, she was the most seriously ill patient, and therefore, two months later, Tanya was transferred to the infectious diseases department of the Shatkovo district hospital. Of all the children from orphanage No. 48 who arrived at that time, only Tanya Savicheva could not be saved. She was often tormented by headaches, and shortly before her death she became blind. Tanya Savicheva died on July 1, 1944 at the age of 14 and a half years from intestinal tuberculosis.
Tanya Savicheva's diary appeared at the Nuremberg trials as one of the indictment documents against Nazi criminals.
The Great Patriotic War was going on. In 1941, the Nazi invaders surrounded the city of Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) and began bombing and shelling it. Hitler said that Leningrad should be razed to the ground and all its inhabitants destroyed. It was almost impossible to get into the city, only in winter, food arrived across the ice of Lake Ladoga, of which there was very little, the path along which the food arrived in the city was called the “ROAD OF LIFE”.
Our troops heroically defended the city, and in Leningrad itself, despite hunger, cold and constant bombing, the factories did not stop for a minute, people worked in two and three shifts. In difficult conditions, the city was dying, but did not give up. Residents of Leningrad were dying of hunger, a piece of bread was divided among several people, sometimes they ate it once a day. It was very scary to look at the exhausted people. The whole country was worried that Leningrad was under siege.
At this time, a girl named Tanya Savicheva lived in Leningrad - a schoolgirl who, from the very beginning of the siege of Leningrad, began keeping a diary in a notebook. On six pages of this diary, the dates of death of Tanya’s loved ones.
When the war ended, the whole country learned about the little girl's diary. Her entire family, six people, died of hunger. Tanya wrote: “Grandma died on January 25th”, “Uncle Alyosha May 10th...”, “Mom May 13th...”, “Everyone died. Only Tanya left". Tanya was saved from starvation. She was taken out of Leningradai and began to be treated for complete exhaustion, but it was already too late; neither medicine nor food helped. Hunger, cold and the death of her relatives completely destroyed her health, and after some time, when Tanya arrived at the hospital, she died. But she left this little diary for us.
The siege of Leningrad lasted from September 8, 1941 to January 27, 1944. More than six hundred thousand people died from starvation in the besieged city. The symbol of these 872 days was a small notebook. On each of its pages, in large childish handwriting, there is only one sentence: a statement of the death of loved ones. On May 13, 1942, the last entry was made: “The Savichevs have died. Everyone died. Tanya is the only one left." About the tragedy of one family as a tragedy of a nation - in the material of RT.
There were eight children in the family of Nikolai Rodionovich and Maria Ignatievna Savichev, Tanya was the youngest. Only her sister Zhenya and brother Leonid were included in her mournful diary. Two other children, Nina and Mikhail, were considered missing, and three more died in infancy.
Tanya's father, Nikolai Rodionovich, died shortly before the war, in 1936. Even before the revolution, he opened a bakery, bakery and cinema, which brought in a good income. After the Soviet government curtailed the new economic policy, Nikolai Savichev lost his enterprises and was expelled from Leningrad. However, to their misfortune, the family was still able to return to their hometown.
The first victim of the war in the Savichev family was Zhenya, the eldest child of Nikolai Rodionovich and Maria Ignatievna. She was born in 1909, managed to get married and divorced. After marriage, Zhenya left her father’s house on the 2nd line of Vasilyevsky Island and moved to Mokhovaya. She continued to live in the new apartment after the divorce. Here Evgenia Nikolaevna Savicheva died on December 28, 1941.
Zhenya worked in the archives of the Nevsky Machine-Building Plant. She, like hundreds of thousands of other rear workers, performed a real feat every day - not only worked overtime (sometimes two shifts in a row), but during this difficult, hungry time she donated blood for the soldiers of the Red Army.
This was one of the reasons for her death in the winter of 1941. Leningrad was hit by severe frosts, which the townspeople had to endure without heating, electricity or public transport. Zhenya, exhausted from work and constant blood donation, covered the 7 km long path between home and the factory twice a day. She walked in the terrible cold and in a blizzard, invariably falling into deep snowdrifts that no one cleared away. Sometimes Zhenya stayed overnight at the plant, but this did not bring her any rest: the eldest of the Savichev children took on an extra shift.
Zhenya did not come to work only once, at the very end of December 1941. Her sister Nina, who worked at the same plant as a designer, began to worry. On Sunday morning, December 28, she took time off from her shift and ran to Mokhovaya. Nina Savicheva found her sister already dying.
Zhenya was very afraid that dirt would get into her eyes if she was buried without a coffin, so the Savichevs gave two loaves of bread and cigarettes from their meager supplies to find a coffin and bury Zhenya at the Smolensk cemetery.
On the day of the funeral, Maria Ignatievna Savicheva said over her daughter’s grave: “Here we are burying you, Zhenechka. Who will bury us and how?” On the day of Zhenya’s death, her sister Tanya began her mournful diary. She took Nina's notebook and flipped through the pages where her older sister described the structure of steam boilers. On each sheet of notebook there was a letter of the alphabet. Tanya found the letter “zh” in the empty half of the book and wrote in blue pencil: “Zhenya died on December 28. at 12.30 o'clock. morning 1941." The short sentence took up the entire page: the girl wrote in large, uneven handwriting, placing one or two words on a line.
On June 22, 1941, Maria Ignatievna’s mother, Evdokia Grigorievna Fedorova, turned 74 years old. In early January, Tanya’s grandmother was diagnosed with the last degree of nutritional dystrophy. This meant that Evdokia Grigorievna’s weight loss exceeded 30%, and she had no chance of surviving without urgent hospitalization. But she refused the hospital, saying that all the wards were already full. Evdokia Grigorievna died on January 25, 1942 - two days after Tanya’s 12th birthday. The exact burial place of Evdokia Grigorievna is unknown - by this time the dead were rarely buried separately, most often they ended up in mass graves. Most likely, Evdokia Grigorievna ended up in one of these graves at the Piskarevskoye cemetery.
Before her death, the grandmother asked not to bury her until the beginning of February - thus, the Savichevs retained Evdokia Grigorievna’s January food card, which could be used to receive food for the few days remaining in January.
People dying during the Leningrad siege often bequeathed their cards to relatives. To stop the distribution of food to the dead, the city authorities introduced additional registration in the middle of each month.
On January 25, another entry appeared in Tanya’s diary: “Grandmother died on January 25. 3 p.m. 1942.” The official date of death of Evdokia Grigorievna Fedorova was February 1, 1942 - the day when her food card expired.
Tanya's older brother Leonid (or Leka, as his relatives called him) was the same age as the revolution and had a corresponding character. He rushed to the military registration and enlistment office immediately after he learned about the start of the war, but he was not taken to the front - his myopia was too severe. And in the rear, Leonid was much more useful: the eldest son in the Savichev family was a talented engineer. If it were not for his father’s exile, he could have received a higher education and achieved success in his chosen field, but the son of the “dispossessed” was allowed to graduate only from a factory school. According to the memoirs of Nina Savicheva, Leonid once made a receiver and promised his sister that someday she would be able to sit at home and watch performances from any theater in the world. Nina actually lived to see this time.
In addition, the young man was musically gifted. The Savichev family encouraged music lessons, so Leonid and his friends even had their own string orchestra. Perhaps this hobby would have grown into something more if not for the siege of Leningrad.
The fate of Leonid largely repeats the fate of Zhenya Savicheva. Also a factory, also grueling work, never ending day or night. At his native Admiralty plant, young Savichev was highly valued: the young man was not only capable, but diligent and diligent. Like his sister Zhenya, he did not come to work only once - on the day when he ended up in a factory hospital with dystrophy. The younger sister, making mistakes in her diary out of grief and weakness, will write: “Leka died on March 17 at 5 o’clock in the morning in 1942.” Leonid Savichev was only 24 years old.
Tanya's father, Nikolai Rodionovich, had five brothers and a sister. Three brothers lived in the same house on the 2nd line of Vasilievsky Island, but on a higher floor. Two of them - Vasily and Alexey - survived to see the war. During the difficult times of blockade, all the Savichevs decided to live in the same apartment to help each other.
In 1941, Vasily Savichev was 56 years old. During the First World War, he fought and received a military award, then, together with his brothers, he ran a bakery. After the Savichevs’ enterprise was closed, he became the director of the “Bukinist” store, where he worked until the end of his days.
Vasily Savichev, like his nephew Leonid, aspired to go to the front, but, despite his combat experience, he was not accepted as a volunteer due to his age.
Uncle Vasya, like other family members, adored little Tanya. In the terrible winter of 1941-1942, he lit the stove with his library, but did not touch one book, “Myths of Ancient Greece” - he gave it to his niece. “Uncle Vasya died on April 13, 2 a.m. 1942,” Tanya will write, confusing prepositions and cases. By an evil irony of fate, it was at this time that hope began to glimmer in the souls of Leningraders: the bread quota was increased, bathhouses were opened, and trams began to operate. “Uncle Lyosha May 10 at 4 p.m. 1942.”
Alexey Savichev was much older than his brothers Nikolai and Vasily - by the beginning of the war he was 71 years old. Despite his advanced age, Alexei Rodionovich wanted to be in combat. Of course, he was not accepted as a volunteer.
Alexey Savichev did the same work as the rest, much younger members of the family. He built barricades, dug trenches, and was on duty on rooftops. Like thousands of other Leningraders, he died from the last stage of dystrophy. In the entry about the death of Uncle Lyosha, the exhausted, seriously ill and completely exhausted Tanya missed the word “died”. It probably became unbearable for the child, overwhelmed by suffering.
In the spring of 1942, Maria Ignatievna was already seriously ill with scurvy. Tanya ran to the market, tried to get onions for her mother - the girl did not believe that her always kind, strong and resilient mother could die and leave her alone. But Maria Ignatievna herself understood that this would soon happen, and after her death she ordered her daughter to go to a distant relative, Aunt Dusya.
After the collapse of her husband’s enterprises, Maria Ignatievna began working at the May 1 Sewing Artel, where she soon became the best embroiderer. She loved music very much. The house had a wide variety of instruments, from banjos to pianos, and the Savichevs organized home concerts. The boys, Mikhail and Leonid, played, the girls, Nina and Tanya, sang. With the war, all entertainment ended: Maria Ignatievna began sewing uniforms for front-line soldiers and going on defensive duty.
The entry about the death of my beloved mother is the most confusing in the diary. Tanya again misses the word “died” and gets confused with prepositions. On May 13, 1942, broken by scurvy, dystrophy and tuberculosis, Tanya Savicheva left her home. For one day, she was sheltered by her neighbors - the Nikolaenko family. They buried Maria Ignatievna.
“The Savichevs died. Everyone died"
Tanya knew nothing about the fate of her sister Nina and brother Mikhail. Nina disappeared on the last day of winter 1942. She worked with Zhenya, and the path from the factory to home was just as difficult for her. Nina increasingly spent the night at work, and on February 28 she disappeared. That day there was heavy shelling in the city, and Nina’s relatives considered her dead. In fact, the girl found herself in evacuation: the entire plant was urgently sent across Lake Ladoga, and she did not have time to send a message to her family. Nina was ill for a long time, then she worked in the Kalinin region and could not find out anything about her family - no letters were sent to besieged Leningrad. But the girl did not stop writing and waiting that one fine day the answer would come.
Nina Nikolaevna Savicheva returned to Leningrad in August 1945. The war had already ended, but it was still very difficult to get into the city legally, so Nina was “smuggled” in a truck. Only then did she find out what happened to her family.
Mikhail was the only member of the family who did not end up in the blockade. The day before the start of the war, he left for Kingisepp. Mikhail found himself in German-occupied territory and went into the forest to join the partisans. He fought for a long time, until January 1944. After being seriously wounded, he was sent to liberated Leningrad. The war left him disabled; he walked on crutches. Returning to his hometown, Mikhail began making inquiries about his relatives. He managed to find out everything about the fate of his family before Nina. Having learned that none of his relatives were in Leningrad anymore, he left the city forever and moved to Slantsy, in the Leningrad region. He got a job at the post office, where he worked all his life.
“Only Tanya remains”
Tanya could not bury her mother - she was too weak. The neighbors’ daughter Vera recalls Maria Ignatievna’s final journey this way:
“Behind the bridge over Smolenka there was a huge hangar. Corpses were brought there from all over Vasilyevsky Island. We brought the body there and left it. I remember there was a mountain of corpses there. When they entered there, a terrible groan was heard. It was air coming out of the throat of someone dead... I became very scared.”
The next morning, Tanya, taking all the valuables from the house, went to Aunt Dusya. Evdokia Petrovna Arsenyeva was the niece of Tanya’s grandmother. A difficult childhood made her withdrawn and unsociable, but she took Tanya in with her. Evdokia Petrovna transported many of the Savichevs’ things for safekeeping and tried to get Tanya out. But in vain. The only chance of salvation for the girl was evacuation and urgent medical care. Evdokia Petrovna relieved herself of guardianship and placed Tanya in orphanage No. 48.
In the Gorky region, children were released. 125 young passengers arrived in the village of Krasny Bor, 124 of them survived the war. Only Tanya Savicheva died.
Almost all the children suffered from the consequences of a severe hunger strike, but did not suffer from infectious diseases. Of the 125 people, three suffered from scabies, one from stomatitis, but these ailments were not considered fatal. The only seriously ill child was Tanya Savicheva: as a child she suffered from spinal tuberculosis, which again made itself felt.
The girl was isolated from other children; only one person could be near her - nurse Nina Mikhailovna Seredkina. From the outside it might seem that Tanya was recovering - she gradually began to walk with crutches, and then began to do without them altogether, holding on to the wall. But in fact, the disease only progressed. In May 1944, Tanya Savicheva was transferred to the Shatkovo regional hospital, from where she would never leave.
“I remember this girl well,” recalls Shatkovo Hospital nurse Anna Zhurkina. - Thin face, wide open eyes. Day and night I did not leave Tanya’s side, but the illness was inexorable, and it snatched her from my hands. I can’t remember this without tears..."
This happened on July 1, 1944. Short entry, “Savicheva T. N. Ponetaevka. Intestinal tuberculosis. She died on 07/01/44,” and an abandoned grave is all that remains after the death of Tanya Savicheva. Only many years later, her diary will spread throughout the world, her image will be recreated in monuments, and her grave will be discovered.
She never grew up
There is a legend that Tanya Savicheva’s diary was used in the Nuremberg trials as one of the main prosecution documents, but this is unlikely to be the case: all documents from the Nuremberg trials are stored in a special archive, and Tanya Savicheva’s diary is exhibited in the Museum of the History of Leningrad. But unofficially, it did become one of the main indictments of World War II. It is tearfully remembered in the same way as Anne Frank's diary or Sadako Sasaki's cranes. The memory of Tanya Savicheva’s diary is perpetuated so that no one forgets about the hundreds of thousands of children who were deprived of the right to become adults.
