The beginning of the war Leningraders, like most residents of the Soviet Union, met "peacefully." The border passed far in the southwest, from Finland now reliably defended the impassable Karelian Isthmus, and from the sea - the powerful Red Banner Baltic Fleet. Anyway, the war, if it could have begun, should have been fought on the territory of the enemy and certainly not at the walls of his hometown. So Stalin promised, so sang in pre-war songs, so the newspapers wrote in June forty-first.