Hasso Stakhov experienced all the horrors of war, as a young man he found himself in one of the hottest sectors of the Eastern Front - in the Leningrad region. Based on his own impressions, the diaries of other participants in the events mentioned, using the combat reports of unit and formation commanders preserved in the archives, the author analyzes the phenomenon of the unbending defense of the Northern capital. The book, which reveals the shocking secrets of the bloody three-year battle, which largely determined the outcome of the war, is published in Russian for the first time. She talks about the horrors of the blockade, as seen by the enemy, and about the tragedy of Vlasov’s 2nd Shock Army, which died while trying to liberate the city from the blockade ring.