If you read extensively about the siege of Leningrad, you will see that it is one of THE more horrible battles from a civillian prospecive on the Eastern Front (although there are many others). The population was cut off from most all food, medicine, and supplies for long enough periods of time that there are some very real stories of cannibalism.
A Soviet general gave a woman a leather briefcase...he later asked about the briefcase and she told him the truth: she ate it.
People were putting up signs on streetlight posts offering to trade grand pianos for flour.
Only after Georgi Zhukhov was put on the mission did transports/convoys coming over frozen Lake Ladoga help with the crisis, and that was only a bandaid.
The more you study and research history--the more you hope and pray it is never repeated.
ROX
