page_title: Effect of siege on Leningrad
section_title: Food shortages
hierarchical_section_title: Effect of siege on Leningrad / Food shortages
caption_attribution_description: Больная дистрофией. Музей блокады Ленинграда
context_page_description: The 872-day Siege of Leningrad, Russia, resulted from the failure of the German Army Group North to capture Leningrad in the Eastern Front during World War II. The siege lasted from September 8, 1941, to January 27, 1944, and was one of the longest and most destructive sieges in history, devastating the city of Leningrad.
context_section_description: Rations were reduced on September 2: manual workers had 600 grams of bread daily; state employees, 400 grams; and children and dependents (other civilians), 300 grams per day.
  After heavy German bombing in August, September, and October 1941, all main food warehouses were destroyed and burned in massive fires. Huge amounts of stored food reserves, such as grain, flour and sugar, as well as other stored food, were completely destroyed. In one instance, melted sugar from the warehouses had flowed through the floors into the surrounding soil. Desperate citizens began digging up the frozen earth in an attempt to extract the sugar. This soil was on sale in the 'Haymarket' to housewives who tried to melt the earth to separate the sugar or to others who merely mixed this earth with flour. The fires continued all over the city, because the Germans were bombing Leningrad non-stop for many months using various kinds of incendiary and high-explosive devices during 1941, 1942, and 1943.
  In the first days of the siege, people finished all leftovers in "commercial" restaurants, which used up to 12% of all fats and up to 10% of all meat the city consumed. Soon all restaurants closed, food rationing became the only way to save lives, money became obsolete. The carnage in the city from shelling and starvation (especially in the first winter) was appalling.  At least nine of the staff at the seedbank set up by Nikolai I. Vavilov starved to death surrounded by edible seeds so that its more than 200,000 items would be available to future generations.
  It was calculated that the provisions both for army and civilians would last as follows (on September 12, 1941):
  Grain and flour (35 days)
  Groats and pasta (31 days)
  Meat and livestock (33 day)
  Fats (45 days)
  Sugar and confectionery (60 days)
  On the same day, another reduction of food took place: the workers received 500 grams of bread; employees and children, 300 grams; and dependants, 250 grams. Rations of meat and groats were also reduced, but the issue of sugar, confectionery and fats was increased instead. The army and the Baltic Fleet had some emergency rations, but these were not sufficient, and were used up in weeks. The flotilla of Lake Ladoga was not well equipped for war, and was almost destroyed in bombing by the German Luftwaffe. Several barges with grain were sunk in Lake Ladoga in September 1941 alone, later recovered from the water by divers. 
  This grain was delivered to Leningrad at night, and was used for baking bread. When the city ran out of reserves of malt flour, other substitutes, such as finished cellulose and cotton-cake, were used. Oats meant for horses were also used, while the horses were fed wood leaves. When 2,000 tons of mutton guts had been found in the seaport, a food grade galantine was made of them. When the meat became unavailable, it was replaced by that galantine and by stinking calf skins, which many survivors remembered until the end of their lives. During the first year of the siege, the city survived five food reductions: two reductions in September 1941, one in October, and two reductions in November. The latter reduced the daily food consumption to 250 grams daily for manual workers and 125 grams for other civilians. 
  The effects of starvation led to the consumption of zoo animals and household pets. Much of the wallpaper paste in the buildings was made from potato starches. People began to strip the walls of rooms, removing the paste, and boiling it to make soup. Old leathers were also boiled and eaten. The extreme hunger drove some to eat the corpses of the dead who had been largely preserved by the below freezing temperatures. Reports of cannibalism began to appear in the winter of 1941–42 after all food sources were exhausted. Meat patties, made from minced human flesh went on sale in the 'Haymarket' in November 1941, leading to the banning of ground meat sales in the city. Many bodies brought to cemeteries in the city were missing parts. Starvation-level food rationing was eased by new vegetable gardens that covered most open ground in the city b
caption: A victim of starvation in Leningrad suffering from dystrophia in 1941
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