To the world of animals: The "Blockade zoo" provides a model of behavior in a disaster

The premiere of the non-fiction film "The Besieged Zoo" by Anatoly Agrafenin will take place on January 22 at Lenfilm, then free screenings are planned around the city on other dates. In the center of the story is the Leningrad Zoo, where the staff tried to save the animals throughout the blockade, although it seemed impossible. And not only did it seem that not all pets could survive, as well as those who cared for them, overcoming hunger, cold and fear. Izvestia watched the film and found that not only a much broader geography is embedded in the local history of a single institution, but also effective recipes for behavior in the event of cataclysms of any scale.

The main films about the blockade

Once the Leningrad Zoo, but now the zoo, which is not far from the Peter and Paul Fortress, is a tiny oasis in the middle of a big city. His story began almost eight decades before the Great Patriotic War and continues now, 80 years after the events described in Anatoly Agrafenin's film. But those days of the blockade were, of course, the most amazing in the history of this place. Because during all those 872 days that the blockade lasted, the zoo continued to work. Animals that could not be evacuated lived there, and employees worked there to solve the problems of nutrition, heating, and basic animal survival in conditions where people were literally eating each other, unable to withstand the torture of hunger and frost.

Photo: Leningrad Zoo Archive

It seems that we already know a lot about the blockade, it's hard to surprise us with anything. These stories are well-known, and only in the 21st century have many films been made on the subject, memoirs have been published, performances have been staged, and exhibitions are underway. More and more amazing facts are being discovered, optics are emerging that allows you to find yourself there, in a besieged city, and try to imagine what it was like to live there.

A shot from the movie "The Besieged Zoo"

Photo: Anatoly Agrafenin

I will never forget the scene from Andrei Zaitsev's "The Blockade Diary", where a ruddy-cheeked German, laughing, launches a shell towards the city to show off in front of his companion. The amazing film "Reading the Book of the Blockade" by Alexander Sokurov, in which modern residents of the city really only read — and we don't have the energy to listen, it's so intense, vivid, scary. We wander through the Hermitage in Alexey German's "Air" and get to a chilling concert at the Musical Comedy Theater...

What is the movie "Blockade Zoo" about?

The "blockade zoo" was made, of course, taking into account the fact that we already know a lot about the blockade. Therefore, there are only tangentially given stories, which, however, are still chilly. About how they robbed on the streets, taking away cards and groceries. How could you find yourself in front of a closed door in a shelter, and then find out that it was destroyed as a result of the bombing? All these memories lead us to the main plot — the story of how the zoo survived with its dozens of incomprehensible animals. And gradually, the author of the painting Anatoly Agrafenin expands and complicates this image so that it turns into a detailed metaphor. Moreover, it unfolds both in the past, to tsarist Russia, and in the present, to our days. And the geography is growing, covering Mariupol, Kaliningrad, and even a little bit Kazan.

Photo: Leningrad Zoo Archive

But the most interesting thing is just the zoo itself, which turns into a kind of ark (yes, and Sokurov's "Russian Ark" comes to mind, of course): these are the creatures, here is Noah's family, that is, the zoo staff, who need to save the animals. The waves of the historical flood are raging around, and it seems that salvation may not come. But faith leads the ark to survival, because it is run by the true righteous. This line is solved completely in a biblical way, and when we are told what tricks were invented on the go for food for predatory animals, parallels immediately arise with the evangelical miracle of the multiplication of loaves, and with manna from heaven in the Sinai desert. And we're moving on.

Photo: Leningrad Zoo Archive

The zoo appears to us as a model of the society of that time. Everything is here. Someone is being brutally repressed, and we learn about the shooting of some of the animals that have been recognized as potentially dangerous. Someone is sent to an unknown destination — and then the traces are lost, how many such biographies with a space instead of the ending were left by that time. Some of these animals die of heart attacks, unable to cope with the horror of their situation. They can be fragile and weak creatures, but a tiger Cat also becomes a victim of a stroke. Someone lacks a vital environment, like a Beautiful hippopotamus, and needs to think about what to do, since there is no more warm water in her pool. Someone was bitten by rats. And it is necessary to condense, because otherwise someone will die in the cold, it is necessary to undereat, not get enough sleep. And not to understand: why, for what, when will it end? And with what? Isn't it the end for everyone? How should one behave if the world has gone mad and requires more and more victims, if death is from the sky and death is also from all sides?

Here, the Leningrad Zoo as an image breaks out beyond the limits of a specific narrative, because this is not a story about him, it is a story for everyone, for all of us, a recipe for survival in an all-out disaster. And there is only one, says Agrafenin. To unite, to understand that it is necessary to survive together and do everything possible to help others. The animals performed in orphanages and schools throughout the blockade. People came to the zoo just to look at the animals and realize that the nightmare they were forced to become a part of was not everything. And that right in front of them is a clear proof of how it is possible, even in such a desperate situation, under siege, from which it may not be possible to get out, to remain free, joyful and generous. And both people and animals, so different, but in this ark they have become one. And as long as there are such oases, no blockade will kill either hope, conscience, or love.

In honor of the anniversary of the lifting of the blockade, the film is planned to be shown free of charge after the premiere.