The speculators in the Leningrad market had a very ambiguous position. On the one hand, they sometimes took the last crumbs from the needy (children, the elderly, the sick), but on the other hand, they provided vital calories to residents dying of dystrophy. And Leningraders understood this perfectly well when they bought scarce products on the market for fabulous money.
Natural selection in the grimace of civilization: it was not the strongest who survived, but the wealthiest, who had the opportunity to redeem their lives from speculators. As soon as material values in the family ran out, the chances of staying alive, especially in the "mortal" time, tended to zero. Over time, this ferris wheel only gained momentum: the more demand was in the food markets of Leningrad, the larger the tribe of thieves with speculators became, and the higher was the death rate from dystrophy in hospitals, orphanages and similar institutions.
An excerpt from the numerous diaries of the blockade:
“And many suddenly realized that trade is not only a source of profit and easy enrichment (for the state or capitalists), but that it also has a humane beginning. The marauders and speculators delivered at least a little bit of any food to the hungry market, with the exception of fats and vegetables, and by doing so, without knowing it, they were doing a good deed, beyond the strength of the state, which wavered under the blows of an unsuccessful war. People brought gold, furs and all kinds of jewelry to the market - and they received a piece of bread for it, like a piece of life."
This statement cannot remain without comment. Obviously, the author does not take into account or does not want to take into account the fact that speculators have withdrawn such products from the daily diet of other people. Rather, speculators simply reduced the mortality rate among those Leningraders who could pay for their services by increasing it elsewhere. As already mentioned, other places where people stole were food warehouses, hospitals, orphanages and kindergartens, and canteens. In this light, the statement of the director of the Archive of the USSR Academy of Sciences G. A. Knyazev, dated 1942, looks interesting:
“There are a lot of speculators taking advantage of the moment, and there are a lot of them, no matter how caught, there are a lot. Dialectically, they are also "saviors" for many. To get 300-400 rubles for a stolen kilogram of bread, and at one time even 575 rubles, for gold - butter, for a dress or a fur coat - one and a half kilograms of bread … After all, this is a double robbery. They steal food and take from others for nothing all the most valuable. Many, like our neighbors, exchanged everything they could. There is nothing more to change. This means that they will soon lay down and take the turn of the "evacuees forever."
The market, which has become the last chance for salvation for many, has not always presented life-saving products. G. Butman recalls the terrible years of his childhood:
“After my brother died, we soon all became dystrophic. We exchanged things for a piece of bread. But the further, the more difficult it was to implement. Mom several times went to the flea market to exchange her son's chrome boots for a piece of bread. We were waiting for her, sitting by the window, when she will appear and what is her face, did she manage to make this exchange."
N. Filippova, who also survived the blockade as a child, testifies:
“Sometimes my mother went to the bazaar and brought a glass of millet for a skirt, it was a holiday.” The real "currency" of the blockade time was makhorka. So, one of the blockade men recalls: “Mom went to the hospital to see my dad. I crawled under a pile of blankets … and waited … what my mother would bring. Then I did not fully understand that the main treasure that my mother brought from the hospital was a pack of soldier's makhorka, which my father, as a non-smoker, gave us. On Sennaya Square, the Red Army men, who did not have enough smoke for extra makhorka, gave their crackers … - real army, brown … What would happen to us if Dad was a smoking man?"
Barter relations in the market concerned not only scarce goods and jewelry, but also food products, on which food was also exchanged. Obviously, eating only bread and water for many months forced a person to look for alternatives. M. Mashkova writes in his diary in April 1942:
“Exceptional luck, I had a change in a bakery 350 gr. bread on millet, immediately cooked porridge, real thick, ate with pleasure. " Or other exchange options: “… on the market I exchanged a quarter of vodka and half a liter of kerosene for duranda (cake after squeezing vegetable oil). I exchanged it very successfully, I got 125 g of bread”. In general, Leningraders noted successful episodes of exchange or purchase in the markets of the besieged city as unusual luck. We were glad that we were able to buy a couple of kilograms of frozen rutabagas or, much more pleasant, a kilogram of horse meat. In this regard, the joy of I. Zhilinsky from the Oktyabrskaya Railway, who wrote: “Hurray! MI brought 3 kilos of bread for the crepe de Chine dress."
Items made of precious metals confiscated by officers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs from criminals in besieged Leningrad
As great was the joy of a bargain purchase, so heavy was the disappointment of a bad deal:
“Tonya promised to come today and bring alcohol. We will exchange it for crackers. Ah, and there will be a holiday!"
However, the very next day he writes dejectedly:
"She did not come, there was no alcohol - the dream of breadcrumbs vanished like smoke."
The following diary entries indicate blockade food prices:
“I was so weak that I could hardly get out of bed. To support our strength, my favorite pocket watch was used and, moreover, of course, the only one. Our make-up artist exchanged them for 900 grams of butter and 1 kg of meat, - writes the Leningrad actor F. A. Gryaznov in February 1942. “Pavel Bure’s watches at pre-war prices were eaten for 50 rubles, but at this time the exchange was wonderful, everyone was surprised.”
The teacher A. Bardovsky shares with the diary in December 1941:
“Grachev traded for us somewhere daddy's diamond for rice - 1 kilo! God! What an evening it was!"
We can only guess how those who did not have a diamond and a Bure watch survived …
Another paragraph from the memoirs of Leningraders:
“Today there is absolutely nothing to eat except the last 200 grams of bread. Nadia went to the market. If anything gets there, we'll be happy. How to live on? … Nadya exchanged for a pack of tobacco and 20 rubles - about one and a half kilograms of potatoes. I gave my 200 grams of bread for 100 grams of cocoa. So, while we live”.
Remembering the speculators with unkind words and openly hating them, the unfortunate Leningraders were forced to seek a meeting with them in the hope of a saving exchange. Often this ended in disappointment:
“I made a mistake the other day - I didn't know modern prices. A speculator came to the neighbors and gave six kilos of potatoes for my yellow Torgsin shoes. I refused. It turns out that potatoes are worth their weight in gold now: one kilo is a hundred rubles, and there is none, but bread is 500 rubles."
This is an excerpt from a letter from the wife of the violinist B. Zvetnovsky, dated February 1942. An employee of the Public Library S. Mashkova writes:
“Holguin the speculator all the time beckoned me: a kilo of condensed milk 1200 rubles, but I never saw him. For a bar of chocolate she paid 250 rubles, for a kilo of meat (broth for Kolya) - 500 rubles."
Mashkova describes a speculator who worked with Olga Fedorovna Berggolts herself.
And again, familiar to us Marusya with her seemingly limitless possibilities:
“Today there is no bread - there were no pastries in all the bakeries. And it must happen that on such a difficult day there was a happy accident: as if at someone's behest Marusya appeared. For a cut for a dress, a chiffon blouse and some little things, she brought four kilograms of rice. Cooked a large pot of rice porridge. Marusya wants to buy a gold watch. It's a shame that I don't have them."
The military journalist P. Luknitsky communicated quite closely with representatives of the Leningrad bureaucracy, in particular with TASS economic manager L. Shulgin. On this occasion, he writes:
“His whole disgusting appearance was revealed to me to the end, when, on the way through Ladoga, he suddenly decided to open up to me and began to tell me that he had never starved in all the months of the blockade, fed his relatives nourishingly and that he dreamed of a time like this after the war, when, they say, the Soviet government “will revise the attitude towards private property and private property trade will be allowed to some extent, and then he, Shulgin, will acquire a hundred-ton sailboat with a motor and will go from port to port, buying goods and selling them in order to live richly and securely … "For the first time during the war and the blockade, I heard such a conversation, for the first time I came face to face with such a parasitic type."
To end the bleak story about the laws and customs of the market in besieged Leningrad is worth the words of one of the residents of the city:
“The Maltsevsky market made me think about many things. Sedov once in a close circle said: "The strongest will survive in Leningrad." But are those whom I saw in the market with shifty and greedy eyes really the strongest? Will it not turn out that the most honest and devoted will perish in the first place, and those who are not dear to the country, not dear to our system, the most shameless and unceremonious will remain?"
