The siege

• Book: The Siege
• Location: St Petersburg (Leningrad)
• Author: Helen Dunmore

I have read many books set in Russia which focus on the glittering world of the Csars and the grey tense world of the revolution. This book opened up part of a whole era I had never read about before and I was fascinated by it. The German high command did not want to occupy the city of Leningrad during the war as they did not want to become responsible for the food supply chain so instead the plan was to surround the city and simply starve the people. This book follows a girl called Anna through the years of starvation and death. Scenes such as the one where a piece of leather was boiled to provide a ‘soup’ were powerful and gave me an insight into just how acute the food situation was. The Russians managed to keep a thin corridor open across lake Lagoda which became known as the ice road as it froze in winter. This corridor however was not enough to prevent whole scale death through starvation. Anna’s story is told well with detail that allows you to really feel the atmosphere and the desperate situation the people were in.
I found this all in all to be an excellent book which I would recommend wholeheartedly.

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