The book by St. Petersburg historian Sergei Yarov is a heart-wrenching and frank account of the lives of Leningraders during the most difficult days of the siege. Using hundreds of sources, including previously unpublished ones, the author shows the daily hardships and deprivations of the residents of the besieged city, their suffering, pain and attempts to withstand and survive in unimaginable conditions. Despite everything, these people - swollen, exhausted, exhausted by hunger and cold, who had forgotten how to cry - retained their humanity. The testimonies of eyewitnesses, those who died and those who survived, create an impressive fresco of martyrdom. This is the siege, seen through the eyes of the participants in those terrible events.