The siege of Leningrad stands apart in the tragic pages of the history of the Great Patriotic War, as it can’t be regarded solely as a military campaign. The siege of a peaceful city aimed at depopulation of its civilians can be classified as a barbaric crime against humanity.

Nikolay Dormidontov was born in 1898 and lived in Leningrad his whole life. When tracing his creative career, one may say the painter was searching for his own path for a long period of time trying working in different genres and techniques. Dormidontov studied in classic workshop of Dmitry Karlovsky and the one of Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin. He worked a lot in graphic art, painted landscapes and still lifes as well as paintings in military and historical genres. The artist paid special attention to the sports and industrial themes. The power of factories and mines, glance of steel and the scale of production captivated the artist so much that he thought of this theme as the turning and definitive in his art.

During the whole siege Nikolay Dormidontov stayed in Leningrad and went through all of its horrors. This experience formed the basis for the big graphic series Leningrad in Siege. In spite of the extreme exhaustion and sickness the artist managed to complete the series with some paintings. This painting is one of them. The city view from the window of Nikolay Dormidontov’s studio is depicted there. One can see the fragility and fading of life with the naked eye. The painting looks glazed. The city carries on with its last strength with its broken streetcars’ wires, taped up windows and snow-covered streets with no cleaning. There are washed out Leningraders on the foreground. The painter depicted the most tragic moments that became usual for the locals of the time, such as the moments of death, sickness, lines for the bread.

The work was painted in a few versions. The earliest one was completed in 1942 and is now in the collection of the Nizhny Novgorod State Art Museum. It was exhibited in the hall of the Leningrad Association of Artists and then was taken to Moscow by air as part of the exhibition of the Leningrad siege artists. Nikolay Dormidontov himself made it to Moscow in five days risking his own life in order to participate in the exhibition opening and tell about the life of Leningrad and the heroic creative work of its painters.