Wikipedia image, photo by Sergei Strunnikov.

Happy New Year from OneTubeRadio.com!

We’ve had a tough couple of years, but it wasn’t “Siege of Leningrad” tough. The picture shown above was taken 80 years ago today at the Leningrad Children’s Hospital, where the children were celebrating the new year 1942.  Despite their predicament of being surrounded by the German army, these young comrades seem stoic and determined to endure.

While these children were all born before the start of the siege, the fierce battle surprisingly marked the beginning of a baby boom within the city. In 1943, the number of marriages in the city were up 13%, leading to a 1944 birth rate that was 23.6% higher than the pre-war level. From the start of the siege, special efforts were made to ensure nutrition for infants, and surprisingly, infant mortality actually declined in 1942.

You can read more about this aspect of the siege of Leningrad at the Russian Wikipedia.  Google should provide a good translation of the fascinating article.