Money as such was worth almost nothing. It was almost impossible to buy bread on the market of Leningrad during the described period for rubles. About two-thirds of the Leningraders who survived the blockade indicated in special questionnaires that the source of food, due to which they survived, were products traded in the market for things.
Eyewitness accounts give an impression of the markets in the besieged city: “The market itself is closed. Trade goes along Kuznechny Lane, from Marat to Vladimirskaya Square and further along Bolshaya Moskovskaya … Human skeletons, wrapped in who knows what, in various clothes hanging from them walk back and forth. They brought everything they could here with one desire - to exchange it for food."
One of the blockade women shares her impressions of the Haymarket, which cause confusion: “The Haymarket was very different from the small bazaar on Vladimirskaya. And not only by its size: it is located on a large area, with snow trampled and trampled by many feet. He was also distinguished by the crowd, not at all like a dystrophic sluggish bunch of Leningraders with expensive trifles in their hands, which no one needed during a famine - they did not give bread for them. Here one could see now such an unprecedented "business spirit" and a large number of dense, warmly dressed people, with quick eyes, quick movements, loud voices. When they spoke, steam came out of their mouths, as in peacetime! The dystrophics had such a transparent, imperceptible ".
AA Darova writes in her memoirs: “The covered Hay Market could not accommodate all those who trade and change, buy and simply“want”, and the hungry set up their own“hungry”market right on the square. This was not the trade of the 20th century, but a primitive, as at the dawn of mankind, exchange of goods and products. Exhausted by hunger and disease, stunned by the bombing, people adapted all human relationships to their stupid psyche, and above all trade, in its allowable Soviet power and inadmissible in the blockade. The blockade winter drove to the Haymarket not only crowds of dying and cynical well-fed merchants, but also a lot of criminals and just notorious bandits from all over the area. This often resulted in life's tragedies, when people lost everything at the hands of robbers, and sometimes lost their lives.
Numerous eyewitness accounts allow one very important observation - that the terms "seller" and "buyer" often mean the same participants in the trade. In this regard, one of the Leningraders recalls:
“Buyers are those who exchanged part of their sugar ration for butter or meat, others in vain looked for rice for bread for a sick loved one dying of hunger, so that rice broth, acting miraculously, could stop a new disease - hungry diarrhea.” BM Mikhailov writes the opposite: “The buyers are different. They are big-faced, gaze furtively around and hold their hands in their bosoms - there is bread or sugar, or maybe a piece of meat. I can't buy meat - isn't it human? I go to the "buyer".
- Sell it! - either I ask, or I beg him.
- What do you have?
I hastily disclose all my "riches" to him. He deliberately rummages through the bags.
- Do you have a clock?
- No.
- And the gold? "Bread turns and leaves."
The overwhelming majority of participants in transactions in the blockade markets were townspeople who received dependent rations that did not give a chance of survival. But the military also came for an additional source of food, workers with rather serious food standards, which, however, only allowed them to maintain life. Of course, there were significantly more food owners who wanted to satisfy the burning hunger or save loved ones from fatal dystrophy. This caused the emergence of speculators of all stripes who simply took over the city. Eyewitnesses of the lawlessness going on write:
Ordinary people suddenly discovered that they had little in common with the merchants who suddenly appeared on Sennaya Square. Some characters - straight from the pages of the works of Dostoevsky or Kuprin. Robbers, thieves, murderers, members of gangsters roamed the Leningrad streets and seemed to acquire great power when night fell. Cannibals and their accomplices. Thick, slippery, with a relentlessly steel-eyed, calculating. The most creepy personalities of these days, men and women. But they also had to be careful in their trading actions when they had a loaf of bread in their hands - the incredible value of those days. “The market usually sold bread, sometimes whole rolls. But the sellers took it out with a glance, held the roll tightly and hid it under their coat. They were not afraid of the police, they were desperately afraid of thieves and hungry bandits who could pull out a Finnish knife at any moment or just hit on the head, take away the bread and run away.
The next participants in the ruthless process of selling lives were the military, who are the most coveted trading partners in the Leningrad markets. Usually they were the richest and most solvent, however, they appeared in the markets with caution, as this was severely punished by their superiors.
The war correspondent P. N. Luknitsky cited an episode in this regard: "On the streets, women are increasingly touching my shoulder:" Comrade military, do you need wine? " And for a short: "No!" - a timid excuse: "I thought not to exchange bread, at least two hundred, three hundred grams …" Another siege soldier describes a case when his father, returning from the front, was forced to wear civilian clothes to exchange canned food and his ration concentrates for vodka.
The characters were terrible, which the Leningraders attributed to cannibals and sellers of human flesh. “In the Hay Market, people walked through the crowd as if in a dream. Pale as ghosts, thin as shadows … Only sometimes a man or woman appeared suddenly with a face full, ruddy, somehow soft and at the same time tough. The crowd shuddered in disgust. They said they were cannibals. " Terrible memories were born about this terrible time: “Cutlets were sold on Sennaya Square. The sellers said it was horse meat. But for a long time I have not seen not only horses but also cats in the city. Birds haven’t flown over the city for a long time”. EI Irinarhova writes: “They watched on Sennaya Square to see if they were selling suspicious cutlets or something else. Such goods were confiscated, and the sellers were taken away. " IA Fisenko describes the case of how she could not satisfy her hunger with broth, which had a specific smell and sweetish taste - her father poured a full pot into the trash. The girl's mother unknowingly exchanged a piece of human meat for a wedding ring. Different sources cite different data on the number of cannibals in besieged Leningrad, but, according to the calculations of the internal affairs bodies, only 0.4% of the criminals confessed to the terrible trade. One of them told how he and his father killed sleeping people, skinned corpses, salted meat and exchanged for food. And sometimes they themselves ate it.
The acute stratification of the city's inhabitants in terms of living standards aroused burning hatred towards the owners of illegally acquired products. Those who survived the blockade write: “Having a bag of cereals or flour, you can become a wealthy person. And such a bastard bred in abundance in the dying city. " “Many are leaving. Evacuation is also a refuge for speculators: for export by car - 3000 rubles per head, by plane - 6000 rubles. Undertakers make money, jackals make money. The speculators and blatmasters seem to me to be nothing more than corpse flies. What an abomination! " Employee of the plant. Stalin B. A. Belov records in his diary:
People walk like shadows, some swollen with hunger, others obese from stealing from other people's stomachs. Some were left with eyes, skin and bones, and a few days of life, while others had whole furnished apartments and wardrobes full of clothes. To whom the war - to whom the profit. This saying is in vogue these days. Some go to the market to buy two hundred grams of bread or exchange food for the last tights, others visit thrift stores, come out from there with porcelain vases, sets, furs - they think they will live a long time. Some are frayed, worn out, dilapidated, both in dress and in body, others shine with grease and flaunt silk rags.
