I stood in the latter camp, purely out of self-interest. Others said skinny people were more accustomed to eating little and could better handle the shock of starvation. Some said those who were fat before the war stood a better chance of survival: a week without food would not transform a plump man into a skeleton.

There were two theories on the fat versus the thin. No one but the best connected could still feed a pet, so the pets fed us.

By January the rumors had become plain fact. You would hear a rumor in October that someone had roasted the family mutt and split it four ways for supper we'd laugh and shake our heads, not believing it, and also wondering if dog tasted good with enough salt- there was still plenty of salt, even when everything else ran out we had salt. It was the dogs and cats that caused trouble. The pigeons were missing, too, caught and stewed in melted ice from the Neva. Every wood sign, the slats of the park benches, the floorboards of shattered buildings-all gone and burning in someone's stove. There was no more scrap wood in Leningrad.

The shutters themselves had been torn down for firewood in November. But June seemed like paradise by winter.Īt night the wind blew so loud and long it startled you when it stopped the shutter hinges of the burnt-out café on the corner would quit creaking for a few ominous seconds, as if a predator neared and the smaller animals hushed in terror. In June of 1941, before the Germans came, we thought we were poor. When we slept, if we slept, we dreamed of the feasts we had carelessly eaten seven months earlier-all that buttered bread, the potato dumplings, the sausages-eaten with disregard, swallowing without tasting, leaving great crumbs on our plates, scraps of fat. You have never been so hungry you have never been so cold. 'synopsis' may belong to another edition of this title. In a city cut off from all supplies and suffering unbelievable deprivation, Lev and Kolya embark on a hunt through the dire lawlessness of Leningrad and behind enemy lines to find the impossible.īy turns insightful and funny, thrilling and terrifying, the New York Times bestseller City of Thieves is a gripping, cinematic World War II adventure and an intimate coming-of-age story with an utterly contemporary feel for how boys become men. Instead of being executed, Lev and Kolya are given a shot at saving their own lives by complying with an outrageous directive: secure a dozen eggs for a powerful Soviet colonel to use in his daughter’s wedding cake. From the critically acclaimed author of The 25th Hour and When the Nines Roll Over and co-creator of t he HBO series Game of Thrones, a captivating novel about war, courage, survival - and a remarkable friendship that ripples across a lifetime.ĭuring the Nazis’ brutal siege of Leningrad, Lev Beniov is arrested for looting and thrown into the same cell as a handsome deserter named Kolya.

City of thieves benioff