The first winter of the siege of Leningrad was the worst. The ring closed on September 8, and the city was not ready for this. There was no heating in the apartments, there was nowhere to take firewood, and the thermometer began to drop below minus twenty degrees since November. No electricity, no water, no transport, only constant bombing and shelling. And, of course, the very "one hundred and twenty-five blockade grams with fire and blood in half," which were very conventionally called bread. In December, there were two weeks when the cards were not bought at all.