The book recreates the most dramatic time in the history of the famous museum - the years of the Great Patriotic War and the legendary defense of Leningrad. Restoring the events of those years, the authors show the "civil garrison" of the Hermitage, ordinary museum workers and world-famous scientists who, in one formation, not afraid of bombs and artillery shells, overcoming hunger and cold, truly heroically saved and saved for the Soviet people and all mankind one of the greatest museums in the world.