But the pace and scale of the recovery was astounding. Cities were thoughtfully rebuilt: they were not only rebuilt, but acquired infrastructure and architectural features that were not there before the war.
Murmansk
Germany planned to capture Murmansk at the very beginning of the war in one week. The targets were the bases of the Northern Fleet, the railway and the Murmansk port - the only ice-free harbor in the Arctic, which received Allied ships with ammunition, equipment, food and raw materials.
But all the attempts to attack Murmansk, undertaken during the war, failed, the Germans did not even manage to get close to the city - the front passed about 80 kilometers. The city was constantly bombed by planes taking off from airfields in occupied Norway and Finland. There were days when Murmansk withstood 15-18 air raids a day. According to rough estimates, there were about 800 of them during the war. 185 thousand bombs were dropped on the city.
Murmansk after the bombing, 1942. Photo © Evgeny Khaldey / TASS Photo Chronicle
What was Murmansk like before 1941? Young, developing, relatively small - at the beginning of the war the city was not even 25 years old. Almost all of it was low-rise and wooden, from buildings to sidewalks. The first brick house was built only in 1927, by 1941 several dozen more were built. Two years before the war, wooden sidewalks in Murmansk began to be replaced with asphalt in some places.
After the bombing in Murmansk, little survived - only the port buildings and only 3 city buildings. The city was particularly badly damaged in June 1942, when the Germans dropped incendiary bombs and land mines on it. A fire, fanned by a dry summer wind, destroyed wooden houses in the center and on the outskirts. After the war, only chimneys sticking out of the ground remained of the residential urban development. The surviving townspeople had to move into dugouts, which were hastily erected on the shore of Lake Pit'evoe, near the eastern outskirts.
In 1946, our family returned from Ukraine ... The city as such did not yet exist. In place of entire neighborhoods ... only brick ovens remained. Most of the stone houses ... are in ruins. Many dugouts have grown up. Potato fields appeared on the territory of the city - the need forced the townspeople to find ways to survive.
Vyacheslav Dranishnikov
from the book of memoirs "My Murmansk"
They began to partially restore Murmansk in 1944, when as a result of the Petsamo-Kirkenes offensive operation of the Soviet troops, the threat to the city was removed. But the main work began after the war, in 1945. Murmansk was included in the list of 15 cities of the USSR, which were raised from the ruins in the first place. 100 million rubles were allocated to restore the city.
Rats even walked the streets during the day, walked in all canteens between tables ... When we asked in the canteen why they didn’t kill rats, we were told that there are so many of them in the city, that if you start to kill them, you can poison people, because rats bring poison into food.
Galina Vishnevskaya
from memories
In 1947, the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR approved a general plan for the construction of Murmansk, designed for 15 years. Due to the lack of bricks, cement and construction equipment, very few stone buildings were erected at first. They built mainly 2-3-storey wooden houses, restored stone and brick ones. One of these buildings, built back in 1930 in the constructivist style popular at that time, was the Kirov House of Culture for Fishermen.
Palace of Culture. Kirov, destroyed in July 1942. Photo © RIA Novosti
During the war, the House of Culture was not closed; amateur concerts were held here, performances were played, and film shows were organized. During the raid that destroyed most of the city, an incendiary bomb hit the recreation center; only the gymnasium survived the fire: a stage was rebuilt there, the preserved things and a movie camera were dragged.
After the war, the House of Culture was completely restored, but according to a changed project.
Two or three new streets were leased in Murmansk every year, and about 50 houses per quarter. Already in 1949, the first large residential building with 100 apartments was built in the city center, followed by the same second one.
View of Lenin Avenue, 1966. Photo © Semyon Maisterman / TASS Photo Chronicle
By the beginning of the 1950s, Murmansk had been almost completely restored, the number of residential buildings was equal to the pre-war level, and ten years later their number had tripled. In the first 10 years of the post-war years, industrial enterprises, schools, kindergartens, clubs, cinemas and new houses of culture were completely rebuilt here.
Minsk
Two decades before the Great Patriotic War, Minsk was a successfully developing city. About 30 factories, schools, hospitals, residential areas have already been built here, tram lines and an airport have been operating, a state university and a library have been opened. The population of the city has reached 240 thousand people.
After the war, no more than 20% of all capital buildings in Minsk remained, the rest turned into ruins. From the first days of the war, the city was bombed by the Germans, during the occupation - by Soviet troops. Then Minsk suffered greatly during its release. In 1944, the central regions were heaps of ruins - according to some sources, there were only about 70 surviving buildings.
Liberated Minsk, 1944. Photo © Photo chronicle TASS
After assessing the damage, the authorities considered whether it would be more expedient to build a new city a few kilometers from the old Minsk destroyed by the war. However, they decided to take up the restoration. A new structure was created - a trust for dismantling destroyed buildings and collecting building materials. Minsk was revived literally by the whole country: workers' brigades arrived from all the Union republics. Each resident of the city had to work 15 hours a month to dismantle rubble and prepare rubble. The collected building materials - bricks, stone, fittings - were accepted at nine storage points.
When they were digging the foundations for 41 schools under construction, they unearthed a German ammunition depot. What sappers! There were no sappers in sight ... The entire warehouse was taken apart and hidden in sheds, basements, attics ... From the artillery shells, tubular powder was obtained, which, if set on fire and quickly pressed against a brick with its flared end, soared into the sky cleaner than rockets ... front-line memories of our parents, and we, as if regretting that we were late to be born for the great war, played with the toys we inherited from this war ...
Oleg Belousov
from the book of memories "This is my city"
Almost immediately after the liberation of Minsk, in 1944, a special commission was formed, which included prominent Soviet architects, including Alexei Shchusev (the author of the project for the Lenin Mausoleum and Kazansky Railway Station in Moscow). They assessed the state of the city, made recommendations for restoration, and then participated in creating the city's layout. In 1946, a new General Plan of Minsk was adopted.
New Minsk was supposed to become an example of a republican capital - a modern, large, with a pronounced administrative center, with wide streets and parks. According to the new General Plan, the territory of the city was almost doubled - from 7.7 to 13 thousand hectares. Since the center was virtually destroyed, it was easier for urban planners to radically straighten and significantly widen the streets. It was decided to build up the center with 4-6-storey monumental buildings, and make the adjacent areas low-rise. Minsk has acquired a visiting card - its main avenue. Then it was Sovetskaya Street, now it is Independence Avenue. The first building on the main street of the city was the building of the Ministry of State Security of the BSSR.
At one time, the opinion was born that the central avenue, cutting my city from west to east, is a mediocre monument from the time of the Stalinist false empire. I don't know what to do with the Empire style, but the fact that it is a monument of the era is for sure. It grew up quickly, it was almost entirely rebuilt by German prisoners of war, all the houses on it were beautiful, brand new, with stucco tweaks. And only one place gave me a cold feeling of fear. It was a high, iron gate in the KGB building, which still overlook the avenue.
Oleg Belousov
from the book of memoirs "This is my city", 2005
The avenue ended on Lenin Square (now it is Independence Square). The pre-war monument to Lenin was thrown by the Germans from the pedestal, cut up and taken to Germany for melting. The pedestal itself was preserved and after the liberation of Minsk in Leningrad, an exact copy of the monument was cast, which was erected in place on May 1, 1945. Another building that has survived on the square since the pre-war period is the House of the Government of Belarus. A monument to constructivism, in the early 1930s it was the tallest building in Minsk. Before the retreat, the Germans mined the Government House, but the building survived.
Leninsky Prospect and Victory Square, 1967. Photo © Vladimir Lupeiko / TASS photo chronicle
Simultaneously with the restoration, several large residential areas were erected, including factory settlements. To provide this gigantic construction site with materials, it was necessary to restore and create new construction industries. Already in 1949, Minsk factories produced 102 million bricks, twice the pre-war figures.
In general, the industry began to develop here immediately after the liberation of the city - and quite successfully. On January 1, 1945, 21 enterprises operated in Minsk, by the end of 1945 - 56, together they produced 24% of the volume of all pre-war industrial production. They began to build new factories: automobile and tractor. The population gradually grew: if in 1945 there were 120 thousand people in Minsk, then in 1947 it was already 240 thousand, in 1950 - 274 thousand people.
Volgograd (Stalingrad)
Before the war, Stalingrad was a real example of a developing industrial city. In the 1920s and 1930s, more than 50 enterprises operated here, including a tractor and hardware factories, a shipyard, and a state district power station was commissioned.
New residential areas appeared, a whole chain of neighboring villages was added to the city. By the beginning of the war, there were more than 40 thousand buildings in Stalingrad: mostly small private buildings, but in the center there were many new houses with several floors.
After the Battle of Stalingrad, which lasted 200 days and nights, the city was almost destroyed to the ground. The southern part was badly damaged by aerial bombs and artillery shells, while the central and northern regions suffered from bombing and fierce street fighting. No more than 20% of the housing stock was preserved, all enterprises and city services were destroyed.
During a raid by enemy aircraft, 1942. Photo © Stepan Kurunin / TASS photo chronicle
Stalingrad is a city that stretches along the banks of the Volga for almost 20 kilometers and is only 2 kilometers wide. We have seen destroyed cities before, but most of them were bombed. This was a completely different case. In the bombed city, some walls still remain intact; and this city was destroyed by rocket and artillery fire. The battle for him lasted for months: he changed hands several times, and there were almost no walls left. And those that remained standing were punctured, riddled with machine-gun fire.
John Steinbeck
from the book "Russian Diary"
At the Tehran Conference in 1943, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill suggested to Joseph Stalin not to rebuild the city - to leave it as a kind of memorial. But the country needed Stalingrad, and they decided to raise it from the ruins, leaving only the destroyed Gergardt mill as a monument.
In 1943, a general plan for the restoration of the city was approved. Before dismantling the rubble, sapper units cleared the ruins. The war continued, so it was important that the enterprises started working as soon as possible - they were rebuilt in the first place. The Battle of Stalingrad ended on February 2, 1943, and on April 22, the tractor plant produced the first tank. In July, the Krasny Oktyabr metallurgical plant started operating. Five years later, production exceeded pre-war levels.
The housing stock was helped to restore the local population, which at that time was already small. It was then that the so-called women's Cherkasov movement was born in Stalingrad - by the name of its initiator, kindergarten worker Alexandra Cherkasova, which then spread throughout the country. Women united in brigades and worked on parsing debris, clearing the city and building sites in their free time from their main work. It was they who first of all restored the famous "Pavlov's house" in the center of Stalingrad. Here, in the four-story residential building of the Regional Consumer Union, which before the war was considered one of the most prestigious in the city, during the Battle of Stalingrad for 58 days a group of Soviet soldiers held the defense. All this time civilians were in the basement. The defense of the house was commanded by Yakov Pavlov.
Yakov Pavlov in front of a destroyed house, 1942. Photo © RIA Novosti
By the end of 1943, more than 800 Cherkasov brigades were working in Stalingrad, they were restoring the central embankment, the teacher's college, the Drama Theater, the Musical Comedy Theater, the Mamayev Kurgan and the river port.
All adults several times a month on weekends had to work for free on the dismantling of the ruins, the brick was used again, this work was called "Cherkasov movement", the people said "cherkasit". The Germans also worked on the dismantling of the ruins.
From the memories of the townspeople
The housing stock was fully rebuilt in the 1950s and nearly doubled in the 1960s. As a gift, the GDR built a planetarium for the city. And in 1967 the memorial complex Mamayev Kurgan was opened.
Lenin Square, 1972. Photo © Nikolay Surovtsev / TASS photo chronicle
Kiev
Not a single European capital greeted Hitler's troops like Kiev. Kiev could no longer defend itself, it was abandoned and, it seemed, fell flat under the enemy. But he burned himself before the eyes of the enemies and took many of them to the grave. They entered, as they used to enter Western European capitals, getting ready to feast, but instead got so hit in the face that the very earth caught fire under their feet.
Anatoly Kuznetsov
from the book "Babi Yar"
Kiev began to bomb at dawn on June 22, 1941, and on July 11, German troops approached the city. The defense lasted 78 days, but on September 19 Soviet troops left Kiev. The Germans entered it on the same day and began to occupy buildings on the main street - Khreshchatyk, many of them were empty. A few days later, these houses began to explode: before leaving, the engineering units of the 37th Soviet Army, together with the NKVD units, mined the city. The German commandant's office took off in the building of the Detsky Mir store, the Continental hotel, the circus, the Ginzburg skyscraper - a 12-storey building about 60 meters high for a long time was the tallest in the USSR - and other buildings. A huge fire began on Khreshchatyk and adjacent streets, which eventually engulfed the entire center of Kiev. The city exploded for 4 days and burned for several more days - the fire could not be extinguished, since the water supply was out of order.
Ginzburg's ruined house
They say that just before the occupation, it was decided to destroy the valuable equipment of the Dnieper waterworks. But then they took pity on him, dismantled him and took him out of the city by train. On the way, the train was bombed by German planes, but the station worker accompanying the cargo managed to save the units and bury them in the ground. The equipment returned to the station after the liberation of the city, although by that time the water supply system was almost completely destroyed: the occupation of Kiev lasted until November 1943. Leaving the city, the Nazis started a fire and blew up many infrastructure facilities.
As a result, in 778 days of occupation Kiev lost the city center and the districts of Darnitsa, Trukhanov Island, Predmostnaya and Nikolskaya Slobodki were burned. Mills, bakeries, power plants, sewerage, railway transport facilities, communications - post office, telegraph, automatic telephone exchange, bridges across the Dnieper, most important administrative buildings, a conservatory, a circus, the Theater of the Young Spectator, several universities, the House of Defense, buildings of the city committee and regional party committee, city council. The factories "Bolshevik", "Red Excavator", a locomotive repair plant, factories - textile, spinning and knitting, sewing and two shoe factories, track facilities of the railway junction "Kiev-Darnitsa", all stationary buildings and a depot at the station "Kiev-I" , tram and trolleybus fleets. In total, during the occupation, 940 administrative and public buildings, 1742 communal buildings and 3.6 thousand private ones were destroyed.
Now Kiev is almost entirely in ruins. Here the Germans showed what they are capable of. All institutions, all libraries, all theaters, even the circus - everything was destroyed, and not by cannon fire, not in a battle, but by fire and explosives ... It was not a battle, but the insane destruction of all cultural institutions of the city and almost all beautiful buildings that were built in the last thousand years. German culture has done a good job here. One of the small victories of justice is that German prisoners help clear these ruins.
John Steinbeck
from the book "Russian Diary"
The city was liberated in November, but there was winter ahead, so the large-scale restoration of the city was undertaken only with the first heat. Many of the surviving buildings and objects were mined - the help of sappers was required. Already in March, people from the rear regions began to arrive in Kiev to restore the city. There was a catastrophic lack of workers - rural residents, visitors from other cities, as well as captured enemy soldiers were mobilized to restore Kiev. On March 1, 1944, they began to dismantle the rubble on Khreshchatyk, but the official date for the start of complex work is May 1.
Military parade on Khreshchatyk, 1958. Photo © Photo chronicle TASS
In January 1944, state and party institutions returned to Kiev. By 1946, communal services were restored, kindergartens and schools, and industrial enterprises began to work. In 1948, the construction of the Dashava-Kiev gas pipeline was completed, a year later two bridges were built and the construction of the subway began.
But the main work was carried out in the destroyed city center. It was decided to completely restore it, preserving the layout, but the streets were expanded - for example, the width of Khreshchatyk increased to 75 meters. New buildings were built on the main street, forming a single ensemble in the spirit of Stalin's monumental classicism. In the early 1960s, on the site of the Ginzburg skyscraper, the dominant feature of the city center was built - the Moscow Hotel (now the Ukraine Hotel), a stripped-down Stalinist skyscraper.
Novorossiysk
German aviation began bombing Novorossiysk in the summer of 1941: Hitler planned to seize the entire eastern coast of the Black Sea, deprive the USSR of its Black Sea ports and fleet. In August 1942, the Germans approached the city. It was not possible to contain them on the distant approaches, and heavy fighting took place directly on the streets of Novorossiysk. But the enemy was not allowed beyond the outskirts of the enemy, and Novorossiysk was never taken. On September 10, 1943, the Novorossiysk offensive operation of the Soviet troops began, and a few days later the city was completely cleared of the Nazis. The battles for Novorossiysk, which lasted 393 days, turned the city into ruins.
It is not clear how someone from the civilian population survived. There were only mountains of ash and smoking ruins everywhere.
Konstantin Kindigilyan
In October 1946, together with five brigades of young people like me, we were dropped off in the area of \u200b\u200bthe present seaport. Then it was a bare coast ... We were in the form of artisans, and many Novorossiys took our uniforms for the clothes of prisoners. When they realized that we were working people and we had to rebuild Novorossiysk, the townspeople rushed to us, took apples wrapped in newspaper hamsa out of their pockets. The grandmothers held out plums and bunches of grapes. This hospitality was especially remembered, because from 1946 to 1949 famine reigned in Novorossiysk ... Then people were literally saved by the sea, in particular the hamsa, of which there were a lot. Thanks to her, many survived.
Konstantin Kindigilyan
builder, participant of restoration workThe Cement Workers' Palace of Culture, abandoned as a war monument, 1978. Photo © Evgeny Shulepov / TASS photo chronicle
But the project was not lucky: there was no money for its implementation. Only the central alley became an embodied part of the general plan - a small section of the park highway planned by Iofan. Nevertheless, the city was nevertheless rebuilt - according to a more modest project. It was decided to keep the industrial and residential zones of Novorossiysk where they were before the war, but the layout of the streets was redrawn, and the city's quarters became taller and larger. In addition, a new water pipeline of about 70 kilometers was laid.
War is hell on earth. The 21st century has just begun, and the world is shuddering with news from the fields of modern battles in different parts of the world. The world remains unstable and unpredictable, and people cannot stop in their thirst for power and profit. Therefore, it is not surprising that memorials are being created here and there to remind of the terrible price that everyone pays for unleashed military conflicts.
Everyone knows about the Russian city and its fate during the Second World War. At that time it was called Stalingrad. It was under Nazi siege, with some of the bloodiest battles in human history taking place on its streets. In five months, about 2 million people were injured, killed or taken prisoner. The city was almost razed to the ground. An exception was the building of the steam mill, "Grudinin's Mill", built in 1903. It was the only surviving building in the city, although the word "surviving" is debatable. The dilapidated building still stands in the same place. The roof, walls and ceilings between the floors are destroyed. The fact that the building survived is simply a miracle or the merit of the engineers and builders of tsarist Russia. At the end of World War II, it was decided to leave the building unreported as a monument in honor of the victory of Soviet soldiers. Today it is part of the city's panorama dedicated to the Battle of Stalingrad.
At 8:15 am on August 6, 1945, a strategic bomber began bombing Hiroshima, dropping an atomic bomb on the city. 70,000 people died in one moment. Another 70,000 died from injuries, burns and radiation. The tragedy in Hiroshima was the most massive destruction of people as a result of an attack during the Second World War. Although all the buildings were reduced to ash, the exhibition hall building miraculously remained standing. Miraculously, since it was at the epicenter of the blow. The bomb exploded 160 meters away. All the people inside the building were immediately killed. The walls were half destroyed. When the ashes cleared away, it turned out that the house was standing. Today this building is a Peace Memorial and is recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site.
In 1999, the Balkan War broke out between Serbia and the province of Kosovo. The war was caused by genocide and the response from the war in Bosnia, when NATO troops joined the conflict resolution through massive air attacks. For two months Serbia was bombed. The capital, Belgrade, was badly damaged. The destroyed buildings still stand as a reminder of the tragedy. Their ruins are not turned into memorials or museums, they just tower over the peaceful city and bustling streets, casting ominous shadows on passers-by. The government, despite the attempts of ordinary people to turn these buildings into monuments, is inactive. Therefore, the whole city looks like a memorial park for the victims of the war.
After the destroyed houses of Belgrade, it is worth remembering that Serbia also became the epicenter of military conflicts several times in the 90s. In 1991, the Croatian Civil War took place, which is today remembered as one of the most tragic in the history of modern Europe. Located on the border of conflicts, the Croatian city of Karlovac has suffered the most. During the War of Independence, he was rounded up by Serbian troops. Almost everything around was destroyed. Bullet and missile holes still remain in the walls of buildings. But, unlike Belgrade, here people still created a memorial: the Museum of Weapons was opened. During the war, the building of today's museum was hit by bullets and shells. In addition, this museum is a reminder of the tragic victims of the civilian population of Yugoslavia, no matter what ethnic group they belonged to.
The history of Murambi College is the most controversial, but also the darkest of all presented here. In 1994, Rwanda experienced the bloodiest ethnic conflict in history, when Hutu extremists massacred Tutsi tribesmen. About 400 people died every hour for 100 days. The mayor and Murambi officials have proposed using the college building as a refuge for local Tutsis. In it, like in a trap, between 20,000 and 70,000 people died as a result of the Hutu shelling. Nobody survived this massacre. 21 years later, a memorial was opened in the building of the technical school. The classrooms store the bones of the dead, left as they were during the brutal attack. The sight is not for the faint of heart. Everyone who visits here will think about it.
During the long 15 years of the Civil War, Lebanon suffered greatly. About 120,000 people died and about 1 million people left the country. Today, 4.5 million people live in Lebanon. In the center of Beirut is the Yellow Building. It was built in 1924 as a symbol of the recognition of other cultures. Then came the Civil War. Located directly on the demarcation line that separates Christians and Muslims, the building has become the epicenter of fierce battles. Fire was constantly fired at the building and from the building. Since 2008, the house has been turned into a museum. The ground floor, where the snipers lived, became a memorial to the brutal war. This reminder is necessary for everyone who directly took part in the war and for future generations.
There are also affected cities in Germany. During the bombing, for example, more than 60,000 tons of bombs were dropped on Berlin. During such a large-scale conflict, it is impossible to imagine that some country did not suffer. This theory is supported by the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. The former Protestant church was badly damaged during air raids. Today it has become a memorial dedicated to those who died during the war, and this applies not only to the fallen Germans, but to all the victims of that period. Inside the church are items damaged during the bombings in English Coventry and Stalingrad. There is also a memorial plaque with the names of the Germans who died at the hands of the Nazis. This memorial demonstrates to everyone that it is better to forgive if we cannot forget.
At 9:02 am on April 19, 1995, a huge explosion shocked Oklahoma City. A Ryder truck loaded with explosives detonated under the federal Alfred P. Marr building. Then 168 people died and 500 were injured. The culprit, Timothy McVeigh, was an ultra-rightist. He deliberately parked the truck in the city center ahead of time. This was the most tragic event along with the September 2001 terrorist attack in New York. Until now, the ruins of the building remind of this event so that people around the world know the consequences of the brutal actions of some against others. Only one of the walls of the building survived then. Today it is the center of the memorial, where the names of 600 people who died and suffered from the terrorist attack are written. The wall is called the "Surviving Wall", it calls people to tolerance and peace.
It is hard to believe today that this peaceful building façade was once the starting point for thousands of people. During World War II, Anhalt Station was one of three in Berlin, from the platforms of which Jews were deported to contract and death camps. About 10,000 Jews went through it during the Holocaust, most of whom never returned. These tragic events justified the joy of many when the station building was destroyed during the bombing. In 1943, the communication lines were damaged, and after two bombings in 1945, the station was practically destroyed. Later, part of the facade was restored. Now it stands as a symbol of two tragic eras: the existence of the GDR and Stazi, as well as the tragedy of the Jews.
Most memorials call to remember the deaths and horrors of wars and terrorist attacks, which lead to senseless victims. This is simply necessary for future generations. But not all memorials carry such ideas. St. Dustan's Church in the East End of London calls for peace not by a list of the dead, not by the destroyed walls as a result of the bombing, but simply by its own calmness and serenity. It was completely burned down after the bombing during the Second World War, which killed 40,000 Londoners. Immediately after the war, the remains of the walls of the church were a kind of monument to those events. Local authorities allocated money to build a beautiful park instead of the ruins. Today there are many trees, flower beds, green grass.
I decided to summarize the statistics on the scale of destruction of Soviet cities during the Great Patriotic War. The names are in alphabetical order.
I ask readers to make additions and clarifications that will be needed for a large post with illustrations.
Belgorod
During the German bombing in March 1943 and the second liberation of the city on August 5, 1943, Belgorod suffered severe damage. Out of 3 420 residential buildings, not a single one remained intact, that is, received at least some damage.
"Of the existing in the city - 3.420 residential and public buildings - 50% are impossible to restore, 35% require major repairs and 15% - current repairs" (From the memorandum of the Belgorod Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks for 1943 [GANIBO. F.2 , OP.1, D.52, L.2])
Bryansk
Out of 7 thousand buildings, 4,100 were destroyed, the city lost 70% of its living space.
Velikie Luki
During the Great Patriotic War, this city, which became known as "Small Stalingrad", was almost completely destroyed. Of the 3,391 houses, 3,083 were destroyed or burned down.
Vinintsa
1881 residential buildings were destroyed (out of the pre-war 6 thousand residential buildings).
Vitebsk
According to some sources, the city was destroyed by 90%, according to others - by 98%.
Volgograd (Stalingrad)
90% of the housing stock was destroyed.
According to other information, “no more than 20% of the housing stock has survived”.
Voronezh
In the summer of 1942, German troops managed to approach Voronezh and capture its right-bank part. For six months, the front line divided the city into two parts. According to a special commission, 92% of all residential buildings were destroyed in Voronezh (18 220 houses out of 20 000)
Vyborg
60% of the housing stock was destroyed.
Vyazma
Destroyed 94% of buildings.
Gomel
80% of buildings destroyed.
Zhytomyr
During the fighting, almost all historical buildings and 40% of the housing stock were destroyed.
Kaluga
During the occupation and fighting in the city, 495 buildings of cultural institutions and 445 residential buildings were destroyed.
Kerch
During the battles in the city, more than 85% of buildings were destroyed.
Kiev
In total, during the occupation, 940 administrative and public buildings, 1742 communal buildings and 3.6 thousand private ones were destroyed.
Kursk
90% of buildings destroyed.
Minsk
89% of buildings were destroyed.
After the war, no more than 20% of the entire capital development of Minsk remained
At the time of the capture of the city by the Soviet army on July 3, 1944, only 70 buildings remained in the central districts of Minsk.
Murmansk
792 air raids and 185 thousand bombs were dropped on Murmansk. In terms of the total number of bombs dropped on the city, it is second only to Stalingrad.
More than 1,500 houses were destroyed or burned down (76% of the housing stock),
Narva
Destroyed 98% of buildings.
Novgorod
The city is destroyed by 98%
Of the 2346 residential buildings in the city, only 40 survived
Novorossiysk
The State Commission determined that the city was destroyed by 96.5% - only a few buildings survived in it.
Eagle
More than 2,200 residential buildings were destroyed. The city is almost completely destroyed.
Petrozavodsk
More than half of the housing stock was destroyed.
Pskov
About 60% of the housing stock was completely or partially destroyed
Anatoly Filimonov in his book "Raised from the Ruins" cites data that out of 3 thousand pre-war buildings in Pskov during the liberation in July 1944, 1380 were completely destroyed, and another 435 - half.
Rzhev
More than 90% of buildings were destroyed.
Of the 5443 buildings, 495 more or less preserved houses remain. According to other sources, only 300 buildings survived.
Rostov-on-Don
85% of buildings were destroyed.
Sevastopol
The city is almost 100% destroyed
7 large dilapidated buildings and 180 damaged small houses - that's all that remains of 6402 pre-war residential buildings.
Smolensk
According to various estimates, 85-90% of all buildings in the city were destroyed.
According to some reports, even more than 90% of buildings. Out of 8 thousand houses with a usable area of \u200b\u200bmore than 650 thousand square meters. m destroyed and burned 7,300 houses.
Staraya Russa
The city was almost completely destroyed. Of the 2960 residential buildings, only three remained intact (according to other sources, 4 houses survived).
Tver (Kalinin)
7,714 buildings were destroyed, accounting for 56% of the city's housing stock.
Chernihiv
Chernigov was almost completely destroyed and became one of the ten most destroyed cities of the Soviet Union during the Great Patriotic War.
P. S... It should be borne in mind that the destruction of buildings is assessed in this case from a communal and household, and not from an architectural and historical point of view. "Completely destroyed" was considered a building, at which, at least, the ceilings were burnt out or collapsed, i.e. it became completely unusable without major repairs.
5 cities destroyed by WWII bombing
The total air raids of the Second World War convincingly demonstrated the uncompromising nature of the means of the participants in the conflict. Massive bombing strikes on cities destroyed communications and factories, leading to the deaths of thousands of innocent people.
Stalingrad
The bombing of Stalingrad began on 23 August 1942. It was attended by up to a thousand Luftwaffe aircraft, which made from one and a half to two thousand sorties. By the time the air raids began, more than 100 thousand people had been evacuated from the city, but most of the residents were unable to evacuate.
As a result of the bombing, according to the most rough estimates, more than 40 thousand people, mostly civilians, were killed. First, the bombardment was carried out with high-explosive shells, then with incendiary bombs, which caused the effect of a fiery tornado that destroyed all living things. Despite significant destruction and a huge number of victims, many historians believe that the Germans did not achieve their original goals. The historian Alexei Isaev commented on the Stalingrad bombing in the following way: “Everything did not go according to plan. written plan, it would seem logical. "
It must be said that the "world community" responded to the bombing of Stalingrad. Residents of Coventry, destroyed by the Germans in the fall of 1940, showed particular interest. The women of this city sent a message of support to the women of Stalingrad, in which they wrote: "From a city torn to pieces by the main enemy of world civilization, our hearts are drawn to you, those who are dying and suffering much more than ours."
In England, the "Committee of Anglo-Soviet Unity" was created, which organized various events and collected money to be sent to the USSR. In 1944, Coventry and Stalingrad became sister cities.
Coventry
The bombing of the English city of Coventry is still one of the most talked about events of the Second World War. There is a point of view, expressed, among other things, by the British writer Robert Harris in the book "Enigma", that Churchill knew about the planned bombing of Coventry, but did not intensify his air defense, because he feared that the Germans would understand that their ciphers were solved.
However, today we can already say that Churchill really knew about the planned operation, but did not know that the target would be the city of Coventry. The British government knew on November 11, 1940 that the Germans were planning a major operation called the Moonlight Sonata, and it would be undertaken on the next full moon, November 15. The British did not know about the goal of the Germans. Even if the goals were known, they would hardly have been able to take appropriate action. In addition, the government relied on electronic countermeasures (Cold Water) for air defense, which, as we know, did not work.
The bombing of Coventry began on November 14, 1940. Up to 437 aircraft took part in the air raid, the bombing lasted more than 11 hours, during which 56 tons of incendiary bombs, 394 tons of high-explosive bombs and 127 parachute mines were dropped on the city. In Coventry, more than 1,200 people died in total. In the city, water and gas supply was actually disabled, the railway and 12 aircraft factories were destroyed, which affected the defense of Great Britain in the most negative way - the productivity of aircraft construction decreased by 20%.
It was the bombing of Coventry that opened a new era of total air raids, which would later be called "carpet bombing", and also served as a pretext for the retaliatory bombing of German cities at the end of the war.
The Germans did not leave Coventry after the first raid. In the summer of 1941, they carried out new bombings of the city. In total, the Germans bombed Coventry 41 times. The last bombing took place in August 1942.
Hamburg
For the troops of the anti-Hitler coalition, Hamburg was a strategic object, there were oil refineries, military-industrial plants, Hamburg was the largest port and transport hub. On May 27, 1943, RAF Commander Arthur Harris signed Bomber Command Order No. 173 about an operation codenamed "Gomorrah". This name was not chosen by chance, it referred to the biblical text "And the Lord poured sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah with rain and fire from the Lord from heaven." During the bombardment of Hamburg, British aviation for the first time used a new means of jamming German radars, called Window: strips of aluminum foil were dropped from aircraft.
Thanks to Window, the Allied forces were able to minimize the number of losses, the British aircraft lost only 12 aircraft. Air raids on Hamburg continued from July 25 to August 3, 1943, about a million residents were forced to leave the city. According to various sources, the number of victims varies, but amounts to at least 45,000 inhabitants. The highest death toll was on July 29th. Due to climatic conditions and massive bombardment, fire tornadoes formed in the city, literally sucking people into the fire, asphalt burned, walls melted, houses burned like candles. For three days after the end of the air raids, it was impossible to carry out rescue and recovery work. People waited for the wreckage, turned into coals, to cool.
Dresden
The bombing of Dresden is to this day one of the most controversial events of the Second World War. Historians have disputed the military necessity of Allied air raids. Information about the bombing of the marshalling yard in Dresden was transmitted by the head of the aviation department of the American military mission in Moscow, Major General Hill, only on February 12, 1945. The document did not say a word about the bombing of the city itself.
Dresden was not one of the strategic goals, besides, by February 1945, the Third Reich was living out its last days. Thus, the bombing of Dresden was more of a demonstration of US and British air force. The officially declared target was German factories, but they practically did not suffer from the bombing, 50% of residential buildings were destroyed, in general, 80% of city buildings were destroyed.
Dresden was called "Florence on the Elbe", it was a city-museum. The destruction of the city caused irreparable damage to world culture. However, it must be said that most of the works of art from the Dresden gallery were taken to Moscow, thanks to which they survived. They were later returned to Germany. The exact number of victims is still disputed. In 2006, the historian Boris Sokolov noted that the death toll in the bombing of Dresden ranges from 25 to 250 thousand people. In the same year, the book of the Russian journalist Alyabyev named the amount of deaths from 60 to 245 thousand people.
Lubeck
The RAF bombing of Lubeck on 28-29 March 1942 was an operation in retaliation by the British for air raids on London, Coventry and other British cities. On the night of March 28-29, Palm Sunday, 234 British bombers dropped about 400 tons of bombs on Lubeck. The airstrike took place according to the classical scheme: first, to destroy the roofs of houses, high-explosive bombs were dropped, then incendiary bombs. According to the British estimates, almost one and a half thousand buildings were destroyed, more than two thousand were seriously damaged, more than nine thousand were slightly damaged. As a result of the avalanche, more than three hundred people died, 15,000 were left homeless. The irreparable loss of the bombing of Lubeck was the loss of historical and artistic treasures.
Given the devastation that Hurricane Sandy has inflicted on America's East Coast, we decided to remember cities destroyed by nature or war and completely rebuilt by humans, literally brick by brick.
LISBON
The capital of Portugal was almost completely destroyed by an earthquake that occurred in the early morning of November 1, 1755, and finally finished off by powerful tsunamis and fires provoked by seismic shocks. The Lisbon earthquake is considered the most powerful and destructive in Europe, claiming more than 80,000 lives in just 6 minutes. Of course, this severely crippled the Portuguese economy and all of its colonial ambitions. But the earthquake gave rise to the creation of such a science as seismology.
Lisbon was rebuilt pretty quickly and structured much better. Only the ruins of the Convento da Ordem do Carmo have been preserved in memory of the disaster.
SAINT LUIS
In general, St. Louis is unlucky. Over the past 140 years, about 100 tornadoes have passed here. But the two most powerful happened in 1896 and 1927. The first destroyed most of the city and claimed the lives of 255 people, the second destroyed what they had only managed to restore and killed 77 people. Until the 2000 tornado, these two were considered the most expensive in US history.
Despite the fact that St. Louis is attacked by tornadoes to this day, it is the second largest city in Missouri, with developed tourism, three sports teams, and the famous "Gateway to the West" arch stands motionless.
SAN FRANCISCO
Like many earthquakes, this happened very early - at 5 am on April 18, 1906. The tremors were so powerful that they were felt even in Nevada. 80% of buildings were destroyed by natural disaster and fires caused by it. In fact, they say, many residents themselves set fire to their houses in order to get at least some kind of insurance, because it never occurred to anyone to insure themselves against earthquakes, which never happened here. Meanwhile, the disaster claimed the lives of more than 3,000 people (an approximate figure, because the population of Chinatown could not be counted).
As in the case of Lisbon, the city government completely reorganized the city, installed a metro line and expanded most of the streets. By 1915, the city was completely rebuilt and even hosted the Panama-Pacific Exhibition.
TOKYO
Japan is shaken regularly, but the 2011 earthquake is not comparable in damage to the one that occurred on September 1, 1923, which almost completely destroyed Tokyo and Yokohama, and killed several hundred thousand people. In just two days, 356 aftershocks occurred, changes in the coastal landscape provoked 12-meter tsunami waves, destructive fires started due to gasoline spilled in the port, the flames of which reached 60 meters in height, and a strong wind carried it around the area. For some reason, they blamed the Koreans for everything, which triggered a wave of unmotivated brutality against this nation.
Tokyo began to expand and rebuild, improving the city's infrastructure, but Japan's entry into the war somewhat froze the government's far-reaching plans. Meanwhile, the city was not only rebuilt, but memorials were broken everywhere. Even the innocently injured Koreans.
STALINGRAD / VOLGOGRAD
The Great Battle of Stalingrad, which was going on for six months (from July 17, 1942 to February 2, 1943), claimed the lives of 2 million people, both from the Red Army and from the Nazi troops. They managed to defend the city with huge losses, although there was nothing much to defend - only ruins remained from it. The central and northern regions were completely destroyed, and of the hundreds of thousands of inhabitants, one and a half thousand remained alive. Although ... this battle is considered the turning point from which the pushing of the Germans to the West began.
The city began to be restored during the war and at such a pace that on April 22, 1943, the first tank rolled off the assembly line of the newly built plant. And in the first years after the Second World War, the city was completely restored, and became even larger. In 1961 it was renamed Volgograd. And in 1967, a huge memorial complex was laid out in honor of the fallen soldiers - Mamayev Kurgan.
BERLIN
Of course, they themselves are to blame. Towards the end of World War II, the capital of Germany was bombed on one side by the Americans and the British, and on the other, Soviet troops were ironing them with tanks. The far-reaching plans of Hitler and the architect Speer to turn Berlin into the largest and most beautiful city in the Empire were literally blown apart brick by brick.
As you know, after the war the city was divided into two parts - East and West, and in the middle there was an ugly wall. Later it was also destroyed, but this is a new story. It is only necessary to note that the eastern part was destroyed less, and architectural monuments of the 17-19 centuries have been preserved here. On the Western side, in the very first years after the war, modern (for those times) buildings were rebuilt. On the East, in front of the wall, they preserved the exclusion zone, restored, as best they could, what they could restore, and the remote areas began to build up the high-rise buildings familiar to all.
HIROSHIMA
On August 6, 1945, the Malysh multi-ton atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, instantly killing 80,000 people and completely destroying the city. Another 60,000 subsequently died from radiation sickness. America, of course, was not praised for this, but the bomb tests were successful. A typhoon a month later razed everything that remained intact and killed those who survived the bombing. It would seem that you can put an end to the city.
However, on August 6, 1949, the Japanese government named Hiroshima "the city of peace" and began to rebuild it at a rapid pace. By the 60s of the last century, Hiroshima was completely revived, becoming even larger at the expense of neighboring towns.
BEIRUT
One of the most beautiful cities in the Middle East, it was destroyed for a long time and systematically. The civil war lasted from 1975 to 1990, during its first years 60,000 people died, and most of the capital of Lebanon was corny destroyed. The formerly beautiful industrial and tourist center fell into ruins. After that, a complete collapse began, in 1978, Syrian troops invaded the Christian area of \u200b\u200bthe city, but the Christians fought them back, pushing them back. In 1982 Israel began shelling West Beirut, in 1983 unknown (although they say that it was still Israel) razed the military base of American and French peacekeepers to the ground.
As soon as the truce was concluded, Beirut began to rebuild, thanks to the efforts of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, and large injections from the French economy. Despite the fact that Lebanon received independence from the Fifth Republic in 1943, the French considered themselves obliged to take care of their former colony.
