A Grandmother's Gruel

They ate the wallpaper. The glue had been made from flour and the tiny shreds of paper in the gruel they created were at least plant-based. Nutrition sources had started out better but also got considerably worse. First they ate grass, mushrooms, and leaves from trees. Then came the pets. Neighbors traded their animals with each other so they did not have to eat their own. After that they boiled the soles of shoes and other leather objects to extract any possible sustenance. Next came the wallpaper mush flavored with what little salt or sugar that remained. Eventually their bread was almost entirely sawdust with so little actual flour it barely qualified as bread at all.

Our twenty-something guide Katya's grandmother told her these stories of how their family subsisted during the Siege of Leningrad from 1941 to1944 and she shared them with us. The day had been long and exhausting as we toured room after gilded room in the spectacular Baroque palace of Catherine the Great. We managed to delight in the verdant Lower Gardens of the Peterhof Palace even though it was cluttered with temporary stages and spotlights the size of Volkswagens in preparation for a G20 event to be held there in a few days. Katya was as tired as we were, her "dear guests" as she called us, but she couldn't let the 45 minute ride back to St. Petersburg go by without sharing more about her country. Now that we all knew each other a little better, maybe she felt more comfortable sharing personal stories, stories that made an iconic Russian event come alive.

As I listened I could begin to empathize with the horrors of starvation and get a glimmer of the desperation the residents felt as the German army encircled St. Petersburg, then called Leningrad, completely cutting it off from outside resources, help or support of any kind. The siege lasted 900 days during which the entire city was in survival mode. Cabbage fields replaced the square outside the magnificent St. Isaac's Cathedral. Potatoes were grown a few blocks away near the world-renown Hermitage museum and carrots somewhere else. Root crops that keep well, what few there were, helped tide people over through those long, frigid Russian winters. Between the shelling, the brutal weather, and the starvation, two million residents died. Katya's grandmother survived because she worked in a kitchen but her infant daughter, Katya's aunt, did not.

For four days I walked and rode buses through miles of city streets, and glided in boats through winding canals and rivers, exploring the historic center of St Petersburg, learning about its origins, growth and current life as a proud, vibrant city. We were lucky to enjoy four of the less than thirty days of sunshine the city gets in a year! My curiosity relishes being fed by fresh experiences in any new place but I confess that historical narratives served up for tourists have always evoked in me a "meh" response at best, a mental shrug. But Katya's story felt like a shove against my chest, a pressure on my heart that my shoulders curved around in a reflex of protection. My eyes stung and I had to look out the window at the BMWs and semis on the modern highway to reground myself. Something shifted in me as a traveller and I once again appreciated why I write. It's the transformative power of story. That's what history is or, in this case, what her-story is. I know I won't be able to serve myself a bowl of hot cereal made from 100% oats on the ship's breakfast buffet without remembering Katya and her grandmother, and feeling grateful for all three.