How the Leningrad zoo survived the blockade. The beauty who survived the blockade

The blockade of Leningrad is one of the most terrible pages in the history of the city. harsh winter 1941-42s completed what was started by the forces of a merciless enemy. It was hard for everyone, the inhabitants were dying of hunger and cold, it seemed that there was nowhere to wait for help. However, even in those terrible times, there were people who, not sparing themselves, tried to save the unfortunate animals from the Leningrad Zoo.

VK. Buryak and Betty the elephant. 1932

Of course, even before the start of the siege, the zoo staff tried to save unique animals. About 80 animals were urgently taken to Kazan, including black panthers, tigers, polar bears, American tapir and a huge rhinoceros. However, it was not possible to take everyone away.

Entrance to the zoo. Postcard. 1920s.

About sixty inhabitants of the menagerie ended up in Belarus at the beginning of the war. They were brought to Vitebsk to demonstrate to local children. However, the plans of the people were ruined by the unexpected outbreak of the war. Fleeing from the bombing, the zoo staff tried to save as many animals as possible.

Among their wards was an American crocodile. Unfortunately, they could not take him out, because he needed special conditions for movement. Someone suggested letting the crocodile into the water Western Dvina, this idea was supported, and the heat-loving reptile set off for free swimming. About him future fate so no one knew.

In Leningrad itself, even before the start of the bombing, people were forced to shoot the remaining large predators. Of course, it was a pity for innocent animals, but leaving them meant endangering the inhabitants of the city: being freed as a result of the destruction of cages by shells, they could well go hunting.

Behemoth Beauty. 1935

In early September, the forty-first Leningrad was surrounded. By that time, bison, deer, Betty the elephant, Beauty the hippopotamus, trained bear cubs, fox cubs, tiger cubs, a seal, two donkeys, monkeys, ostriches, a black vulture and many small animals remained in the zoo. Oh, and it was not easy for them during the bombing!

Elephant ruins

Most of the animals rushed around the cages in horror, cubs growled in fear, hid in the corner of the bird, but the chamois, on the contrary, for some reason climbed the hill and stood there, waiting for the end of the shelling. Elephant Betty, barely hearing the sounds of a siren, hurriedly went to her house. She had no other refuge. Unfortunately, on September 8, right next to her enclosure, one of three high-explosive bombs dropped from a German bomber exploded, killing the caretaker and mortally wounding Batty herself. The poor thing died after 15 minutes right on the ruins of the elephant. She was buried at the zoo.

That terrible night smart cubs and funny foxes also died. The walls of the monkey house were destroyed, because of which the primates fled around the area. In the morning, the staff collected them, trembling with fear, throughout the city. The clumsy bison fell into the funnel. The people simply did not have the strength to pull him out of there, so they built a floor and lured him out with pieces of hay, spreading them from the bottom to the edge of the pit.

Elephant ruins. 1941

On another night, a goat and a couple of deer were wounded. An employee, Konovalova, dressed the animals, shared her own bread with them, and put them on their feet. However, the poor fellows were killed during another shelling, which also carried away tiger cubs and huge bison.

Bomb locations. 1941

The hippopotamus Beauty, who was brought to the zoo with Betty back in 1911, also had a hard time. Of course, she was much more fortunate than her unfortunate friend: she survived and lived a long life. happy life However, without the selfless help of Evdokia Dashina, the miracle would not have happened. The fact is that the skin of a hippopotamus must be constantly moistened with water, otherwise it quickly dries up and becomes covered with bloody cracks. And in the winter of forty-one, the city water supply did not work and Beauty's pool remained empty.

E.I. Dashina at the hippo Beauty. 1943

What to do? Every day, Evdokia Ivanovna brought a forty-bucket barrel of water on a sled from the Neva. The water was heated and poured over the poor hippopotamus. Cracks were smeared with camphor ointment, wasting up to a kilogram a day. Soon, Beauty's skin healed, and she was able to hide underwater with dignity during the bombing. She lived until 1951 and died of old age, without earning a single chronic illness. “Here it is, blockade hardening!” - later the veterinarians spoke with admiration.

A group of camels on the background of the American mountains. 1936

Of course, in those terrible years, the zoo was not funded, and the survival of the animals was completely dependent on its employees. In the first months of the war, they collected the corpses of horses killed by shells in the fields, risking their lives, removing vegetables from the fields. When this opportunity was lost, people mowed down the remaining grass with sickles in all possible points of the city, collected mountain ash and acorns. In the spring, the entire free territory was turned into vegetable gardens, where they grew cabbage, potatoes, oats and rutabagas.

Black vulture Verochka. 1946

But only vegetarian animals can be saved this way, but what about the rest? If the cubs, indignant, still ate minced vegetables and herbs, then the cubs and the vulture completely abandoned such a diet. For their sake, they found the skins of rabbits that were lying around, stuffed them with a mixture of grass, oilcake and porridge, and smeared the carcasses on the outside with fish oil. So it was possible not to let finicky predators die of hunger.

Antelope Nilgai Lighthouse. 1946

For birds of prey, fish was added to such a mixture. The vultures agreed to eat only soaked salted fish. But the golden eagle turned out to be the most intractable, for the sake of which people had to catch rats.

It is known that an adult hippo per day should receive from 36 to 40 kg of feed. Of course, in the blockade years there could be no talk of such a "feast". The beauty was given 4-6 kg of a mixture of grass, vegetables and cake, adding 30 kg of steamed sawdust there, just to fill her stomach.

Youth playground. 30s.

In November 1941, a replenishment took place in the zoo: a baby was born to the hamadryas Elsa. The mother did not have milk, but the local maternity hospital provided a little donor milk daily, thanks to which the hamadryel was able to survive.

Surprisingly, however, the Leningrad Zoo was closed only in the winter of 41-42. Already in the spring, exhausted employees cleared the paths and repaired the enclosures in order to let the first visitors in in the summer. 162 animals were exhibited. During the summer, about 7,400 Leningraders came to see them, which proved the need for such a peaceful institution in those terrible years.

The Lenzoosad team. Spring 1945.

Many ministers spent the night right in the zoo, not wanting to leave their charges even for a moment. There were not many of them - only two dozen, but this was enough to save many lives. 16 people were awarded the medal "For the Defense of Leningrad", and it was decided not to rename the zoo itself in order to preserve the memory of the feat of the blockade workers.

The blockade of Leningrad is one of the most terrible pages in the history of the city. The harsh winter of 1941-42. completed what was started by the forces of a merciless enemy. It was hard for everyone, the inhabitants were dying of hunger and cold, it seemed that there was nowhere to wait for help. However, even in those terrible times, there were people who, not sparing themselves, tried to save the unfortunate animals from the Leningrad Zoo.

How is it possible to keep more than one hundred and sixty animals and birds in the city, on the streets of which enemy shells were constantly exploding, where the electricity supply was completely cut off, which led to the shutdown of water supply and sewerage, where there was simply nothing to feed them?
Of course, even before the start of the siege, the zoo staff tried to save unique animals. About 80 animals were urgently taken to Kazan, including black panthers, tigers, polar bears, American tapir and a huge rhinoceros. However, it was not possible to take everyone away.

Among their wards was an American crocodile. Unfortunately, they could not take him out, because he needed special conditions for movement. Someone suggested releasing the crocodile into the waters of the Western Dvina, this idea was supported, and the heat-loving reptile set off for free swimming. Nobody knew about his further fate.

That terrible night also killed smart cubs and funny foxes. The walls of the monkey house were destroyed, because of which the primates fled around the area. In the morning, the staff collected them, trembling with fear, throughout the city. The clumsy bison fell into the funnel. The people simply did not have the strength to pull him out of there, so they built a floor and lured him out with pieces of hay, spreading them from the bottom to the edge of the pit.

The hippopotamus Beauty, who was brought to the zoo with Betty back in 1911, also had a hard time. Of course, she was much more fortunate than her unfortunate friend: she survived and lived a long happy life, but without the selfless help of Evdokia Dashina, the miracle would not have happened. The fact is that the skin of a hippopotamus must be constantly moistened with water, otherwise it quickly dries up and becomes covered with bloody cracks. And in the winter of forty-one, the city water supply did not work and Beauty's pool remained empty.

In besieged Leningrad, not only people fought death, but also animals that were in the city. Moreover, living beings helped each other to save life, showing the most perfect qualities and abilities.

The legendary cat, which disappeared at the beginning of the blockade, was found by the owners who returned from evacuation a few years later in a Leningrad apartment - a true story that is told to children in a patriotic education class at the Military Medical Museum. Chernysh, who faithfully served as a rat catcher, lost half of his tail, an ear and all his teeth in the war. The hostess and dentistry saved the blockade cat.

Lassa Selivanova, tour guide of the Military Medical Museum: Vera Ivanovna had a neighbor at the Research Institute of Dentistry. And he says: Let's figure it out! They made an injection, inserted two pins into the upper and lower jaws and put the first prostheses on the cat.

But the dogs - orderlies during the war carried 700 thousand wounded from the battlefield. The legendary shepherd dog Alma found fighters under the snow, helped to get medicines, alcohol and crackers from her bag in order to get to the medical battalion. 300 people owe their lives to this dog. The Leningrad Zoo retained its name in memory of the employees who rescued animals during the blockade. The bombing buried the elephant Betty under the ruins, destroyed the monkey house. But the miracle of the cold and hungry December 41st was a baby born to a surviving female hamadryas Elsa.

Dmitry Vasiliev, an employee of the Leningrad Zoo: The monkey did not have milk, and an order came from above to the nearest Baby House to deliver a bottle of milk for the monkey - not goat or cow ... And they delivered it, and the cub survived and survived the blockade.

To feed the predators, the cake was sewn up into dummies of rabbit skins, for the smell they added fish fat. Hippo Beauty, who got into the zoo in 1911, survived the revolution, civil war and died of old age at 51. During the blockade, the pet of the children was saved by the zookeeper Evdokia Dashina.

Dmitry Vasiliev, an employee of the Leningrad Zoo: The hippopotamus is an animal that eats a lot. It must be kept warm, and the skin must be washed, otherwise it will begin to dry, crack, bleed, and the hippo will die. They brought 40-50 buckets of water a day from the Neva, fortunately, it is nearby. They warmed it, washed the hippopotamus by hand. They fed him in the first winter with steamed sawdust, to which some kind of hay, a little straw, cake, bran were added to give it a taste. 30-40 kg of steamed sawdust.

Throughout the blockade, the Animal Theater did not close at the zoo, where trained wolves worked, and roosters and dogs entertained children in hospitals. But the iconic animals for the city were cats. There were more and more rats, and cats in Leningrad disappeared.

Vadim Gennadyevich Kondratyev, creator of the Museum of Cats: One old woman - she was considered crazy - she fed wild cats and it turned out that during the blockade, the mother killed the cat, and they ate it. And so the cat, killed by this woman, saved their lives. And he feels guilty and tries to feed these homeless cats.

One of the few cats that survived the blockade in Leningrad was the cat Maxim, the favorite of Vera Vologdina. This story is told with pride at the Cat Museum.

Vadim Kondratiev, founder of the Museum of Cats: We had a cat Maxim. uncle, in Peaceful time calm person, demanded to give it for any money. We locked the room. They came home from work one day, and the cat climbed into the parrot's cage (how? - unknown) and warmed it with its warmth. Uncle lagged behind, was shocked. So this cat Maxim lived to be 57 years old. Imagine how old he is. And the teachers brought whole classes to us on an excursion - probably, it was the only cat in Leningrad.

In April 1943, four carriages of cats were brought to Leningrad from Kostroma and Yaroslavl to fight the rats that were besieging the city. Troopers were also launched into the cellars of the Hermitage, where cats have guarded masterpieces from rodents for centuries. Now, when the Hermitage cats retire, they themselves become carefully guarded exhibits in the Museum of Cats. The former employee of the Hermitage, Fyodor, retired earlier, at the Cat Museum they treated him and are ready to give him only in very reliable hands.

Anna Kondratieva, Director of the Cat Museum: A very affectionate, playful young cat who played hard and ended up in a technical room. Damaged paws. We thought we would have to amputate the legs. But we saved them - now he has such a ballet gait, it does not interfere with his life, but on the contrary, he can jump onto the table.

The careful attitude of St. Petersburg residents to animals, since the time of the blockade, is a special tradition that obliges people to preserve humanity even in the most difficult circumstances.

In 1941, animals from the Leningrad Zoo began to be evacuated to Kazan. But the blockade ring is closed, most of animals remained in the besieged city.

Bombed menagerie

The Leningrad Zoo has always, and especially in the pre-war years, been the best in the country. Almost all the animals of the world lived here. Hippos, elephants, lions, bears, deer, monkeys did not have time to take out. Today, the exhibition “Zoo in besieged Leningrad” tells about those difficult years. Foreigners come here too. Europeans then and now are perplexed: why did Leningraders make titanic efforts, and in a starving city, where a crust of bread was worth its weight in gold, they nursed animals? They do not understand that thanks to the zoo, Leningrad residents felt like full-fledged people, this island wildlife reminded the exhausted townspeople of a peaceful, calm life. Therefore, even in the most hungry years, no one even thought of killing animals, eating them.

The most resistant to the hardships of the war were bears. Tigers and lions endured the stress the hardest. Almost all of them died from heart failure during the bombing, they could not survive the terrible noise and bright flashes. By the way, the zoo was badly damaged precisely from the bombs. And it is no coincidence. Nearby, on Hare Island, there was an anti-aircraft battery that shot down German planes. The Nazis bombed Petropavlovka to destroy this point of resistance. Many shells hit the zoo. This killed the favorite of all Leningrad children, the elephant Betty, in whose pavilion an air bomb fell. The caretaker of the animal was killed, and Betty was covered in debris. For three days, exhausted zoo employees and all those who were able to work raked the rubble. People cried when they heard the mournful sounds that the huge animal made. But the elephant could not be saved.

A similar tragedy happened to deer. A shell hit their enclosure, many animals were injured by shrapnel. For several days they were nursed and treated. However, a little later - again a direct hit, the deer died ...

Milk for hamadryas

We had a unique Hippo Beauty, before the war she was considered the most large female in Europe, - says Svetlana Alexandrova, deputy head of the educational department of the St. Petersburg Zoo. - Do not believe it, she survived the revolution, the First and Second World Wars and died only in the 50s. Of course, the animal survived the blockade only thanks to the heroic zoo worker Evdokia Ivanovna Dashina. What it cost this woman to go out, only God knows. Judge for yourself: to bathe a hippopotamus, it took 400 liters of water, which had to be carried on a cart or sled from the Neva!

Of course, the animals were starving just like people. There was practically no food, the predators had the hardest time. Herbivores were fed with sawdust, acorns, cake, hay, and porridge was cooked from all this. There was no meat at all. I had to go for tricks. Employees took the skins of small rodents, stuffed them with porridge and fed the predators. They thought they were eating meat. And, for example, a cub of a hamadryas, who was born in 1942, was saved by drinking human milk. Because of the stress after the bombing, his mother's milk immediately dried up, the zoo workers had to go to the maternity hospital and ask the mothers for milk for the baby.

There were also comical moments. One air bomb landed in an enclosure with monkeys, and the cunning animals immediately fled. They were caught all over Leningrad and returned back.

The zoo was open throughout the blockade. It closed only during the most violent attacks, the rest of the time adults and children came here. The city continued to live. Moreover, the zoo staff constantly traveled to military units with small concerts. Trained animals showed performances for the soldiers.

In 1942, roots and vegetables were planted throughout the zoo. Then the seeds were distributed to the starving townspeople.

In 1940, 446 animals were kept in the Leningrad Zoo. In 1941, 225 animals died, in 1943 there were only 98 left. And at the end of the war, the military began to bring here wolf cubs, lynxes, elk cubs, fox cubs from nearby forests, and the enclosures began to fill up again. Bear cub Grishka was brought in 1941. Together with all Leningraders, he survived the blockade, bombing and famine. Even during the war, visitors to the zoo fell in love with him very much, jokingly calling him a blockade bear cub. This almost played a cruel joke with the pet, because after the end of the Great Patriotic War, every visitor tried to feed the bear, but he was unable to refuse and ate heavily.

Myth 13

People who cut meat from the corpses of the townspeople who died a natural death were sentenced to be shot.

Fact. In fact, they shot only those cannibals who killed people for the sake of their food. According to official figures, 1,400 of them were shot during the entire blockade. It is clear that there were several more such non-humans - not all of them were found and their crime proved. By the way, there were also acquittals.

As for the "corpse eaters", there were 1533 of them during the war, again according to official data. For them, not an exceptional measure of punishment was supposed, but a prison term. As a rule, it was from 5 to 10 years. Corpses for food were found both on the streets of Leningrad and in cemeteries. Some graveyards were naturally ruined. Children's bodies were especially valued. In January 1942, cannibalism reached its peak: then 178 "corpse eaters" were arrested, 45 of them quickly died in prison.

A striking statistical regularity also appeared - a typical portrait of a besieged cannibal - a middle-aged woman, poorly educated. By the way, a special group was engaged in cannibals, consisting not only of Chekists and police operatives, but also psychiatrists.

It is curious that, despite the obvious mental deviations of the "corpse eaters", none of them was sent for compulsory treatment. All were convicted criminally. However, psychiatrists, based on observations and conversations with cannibals, prepared several scientific works, which was labeled "top secret".

Named after

Kosinova street.Semyon Kirillovich was born in the fateful 1917 for the country in the Kursk region. In 1935 he entered the Tambov Red Banner Military Infantry School, after graduation he became the commander of a rifle platoon. Later he decided to become a military pilot and entered the Kharkov Military Aviation School. The young pilot met the Great Patriotic War on the Belarusian front - he bombarded enemy columns. Since September 1941, Kosinov has been fighting on the Leningrad front, somehow he made 32 sorties in a month. On December 16, 1941, the crew of I.S. The aircraft was hit while approaching the target. anti-aircraft artillery. Despite the damage to the aircraft, Kosinov accurately dropped bombs on the target. When the flames could not be brought down, the crew decided to go for a ram. The burning plane crashed into the thick of enemy equipment. All crew members were killed. January 16, 1942 Kosinov was posthumously awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union. A little earlier, but also after his death, Semyon Kirillovich was awarded the Order of the Red Star. By order of the Minister of Defense of June 27, 1964, the Hero of the Soviet Union, Lieutenant Kosinov S.K., was forever enlisted in the lists of the Guards Sevastopol Red Banner Regiment missile troops strategic purpose, which, by succession during formation, was given honorary titles and the order of the former 125th (later - 15th Guards) Bomber Aviation Regiment. The street in the Kirovsky district of Leningrad received its name in 1950.

“How many people would Beauty feed? Five, ten? Her meat would be enough for a week, well, for two ... And then what? She wouldn't have saved anyone's life. But she, having survived, gave something more: joy, faith that life goes on. After all, the zoo worked throughout the blockade, and Leningrad children specially came to look at it. At least here they learned to smile again,” says zoo employee Dmitry Vasiliev. - Hippo (Vasilyev for some reason uses this elegant literary name instead of the commonly used “behemoth”) The beauty was brought to the St. Petersburg Zoo in 1911. She survived two revolutions, the change of owners of the zoo, the blockade and died only in 1951.”

Rescuing Beauty was a seemingly impossible task. And the problem was not only in the huge volumes of food that the two-ton hippo needed. The main thing was to protect her skin, because the plumbing did not work, and without regular warm baths, the delicate skin of hippos quickly coarsens, cracks, an infection gets there, and the animal dies of sepsis.

“During the blockade, instead of the usual 40 kilograms of feed, she received 4-6 kg of a mixture of vegetables, grass, hay and cake, and another 30 kg of steamed sawdust to fill her stomach. Zoo employees daily dragged 50 buckets of water from an ice hole in the frozen Neva, heated it on the wreckage of a roller coaster that had burned down in the neighborhood, in the garden of the People's House, washed Beauty by hand, and then rubbed her skin with fat and camphor oil, "says Dmitry Vasiliev. - Is it a feat? Don't know. I tend to think it was just a normal job after all. ordinary people”.

Leningrad Zoo at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War had in his collection about 500 species of animals. In 1940, he turned 75 years old, and he was a real cultural and scientific asset of Leningrad. Therefore, after the start of the war, the first and only train equipped for transporting animals from the banks of the Neva to Kazan were evacuated 80 of the most valuable animals: Milli's black rhinoceros, tigers, black panthers, polar bears, American tapir. Pelicans, large parrots, kangaroos, some monkeys, reptiles left. Those involved in the evacuation were going to return for the rest, but did not have time. The blockade of Leningrad began.

“One of the most terrible images of the war was seen by young Leningrad children who helped in the zoo in August 1941,” says Dmitry Vasiliev. - Then an order was issued to kill all large predatory animals. There was a risk that tigers and lions, frightened by explosions and bombings, would run out of wooden enclosures and rush to the streets of Leningrad. The future employee of the zoo, and in 1941, Olga Podleskikh, a young naturalist, said that she realized the horror of the war when in August, as usual, she came to the zoo and saw a whole mountain of corpses of shot lions, leopards and wolves in pools of blood ... According to her, it was then that they, the children, realized that the war was not somewhere far away, but here it was, nearby.”

Dmitry Vasiliev says that a collection of predators was destroyed, the number of which exceeds even the current one. But then there were no options. Even if the animals had not escaped, they would still not have been able to feed them. True, they could feed others ... But they did not think about this in August 1941.

“Then it was worse. September 4, 1941 was the first shelling of Leningrad from long-range guns. September 6 - First air raid. On September 8, during the second bombardment, shells hit the zoo, - says the keeper. - Of course, the Germans did not need the zoo itself, but it was located close to the Peter and Paul Fortress, on the beach of which our anti-aircraft guns were stationed. Near - all central part Leningrad. Therefore, bombs also fell on the zoo, several buildings with animals, cash desks, youth rooms, a monkey house built back in 1911 were broken. He burned down with the monkeys. A few managed to escape, they were then caught all over the city…”.

The bomb also hit the elephant house, where the famous elephant Betty lived since the beginning of the century. Vasiliev says that the current stories that she was eaten are nothing more than legends. “It was the beginning of September 41st, no one had yet thought about the blockade and hunger. She was simply buried on the current Goat Hill,” they say at the zoo.

In September, coal and oil reserves began to run out. In October, heat and electricity stopped flowing into houses, all factories stopped, except for those working for defense. Trams stopped running in November. In December, the sewerage and water pipes froze. And the animals remained in the zoo, many of which are tropical, in need of warmth, water and light. And almost the entire team, both women and men, went to the front. In addition, in addition to the usual human compassion for the smaller brothers, one should also remember those times when failure to comply with work discipline was punished by camps or death. And the animals of the Leningrad Zoo were state property, material values, and for each - as for a company car or a machine tool - the employee answered with his head. But the animals continued to die. Each corpse was strict accountability. Even a dead deer or a bird could not be fed to starving predators without an acceptance certificate. Ungulates were fed steamed and boiled sawdust, fish oil was added to small predators.

The hardest thing was with birds of prey - they refused to eat gruel. Then they guessed to wrap the sawdust in the skins of animals, and the birds, tearing the skin, ate them too.

Animals died not only from hunger, but also from stress. From the constant roar of the bombing, they had heart attacks, strokes. This is how two tigers and cubs died… Somehow a shell hit a corral with a buffalo. The buffalo was not hurt, but the beast broke out of fear from the fence and collapsed into a funnel. People began to make footbridges, take out some boards - and pulled him out.

The zoo staff shared everything they could with the wards. And the worst thing is that they couldn't even. “I don't know whether to tell this story on tours. She's really scary," Dmitry Vasiliev says thoughtfully. - Three hamadryas baboons remained in the zoo. And in the most terrible winter of 1941-42, one of them decides to give birth ... "Upstairs" they learned, they gave the order: to leave the cub at any cost. But the emaciated mother had no milk. Then they began to bring the monkey every day with milk from the Leningrad maternity hospital, expressed in a bottle. Can you guess whose milk it was? And the cub survived the blockade.” Whether those children who did not get milk survived it is unknown.

In Leningrad this winter, according to official figures, 600 cases of cannibalism were recorded. Ate all domestic and street dogs, cats, rats. And in the zoo - a bunch of meat in the form of a hippopotamus, birds, animals ...

“The zoo was guarded by armed guards. I fully admit that there were attempts to penetrate, steal animals and birds. But I don't really know about them. I also admit that the employees of the zoo survived, because there was something to eat from the killed or dead animals,” says Dmitry Vasiliev. “But for them it was a job, a regular job. As a besieged ballerina came to the theater, took off her boots and danced, so they fed and nursed their animals, did their job.”

“Yes, but you can’t eat the theater and you can’t feed the children with it. And here, on the one hand, there are children dying of hunger, on the other, meat of birds and animals ... ”- I express my thoughts aloud.

“The zoo worked throughout the blockade, it was closed only in the first winter of 1941-42. Already in the spring of 1942, he began to prepare to receive visitors. Since the autumn of 1942, the collection of the zoo began to replenish with trophies. Soldiers brought wolves and cubs from the front line. In the Chelyuskintsev Park (now the Udelny Park), the employees of the zoo began to plant vegetable gardens, all the lawns were also given over to growing greens. On July 8, Leningraders came here to look at the remaining 162 animals. All the years of the siege, the animal theater of animal trainers Raevsky and Rukavishnikova “Croton” worked in the zoo. They, with their cubs, dogs, monkeys, foxes, goats, staged performances in orphanages, hospitals, and delighted children in the zoo. Who can measure how many this joy helped to survive, the hope that life goes on?..”.

After the war, 16 employees of the zoo were awarded medals "For the Defense of Leningrad". People and animals survived one of the most terrible events in world history. Unlike their colleagues from the zoo in Berlin or, for example, Koenigsberg. But even now, not a single visit to the exposition of the blockade zoo is complete without questions from contemporaries: was it worth saving the life of the hippo Beauty or a newborn baboon, if this could lead to someone's starvation?