Shortly before Victory in Japan (VJ) Day earlier this year, a member of staff from the Russian Embassy in London arrived in Clevedon to honour an extraordinary woman. The visit was necessarily low key in a town which has been particularly big-hearted in providing a place of safety for refugees displaced by Putin's illegal war against Ukraine. The purpose of the visit was to honour Katrina (Katya) Stogovy with a medal and a letter from the Russian President acknowledging her status as a Leningrad Siege survivor.
Last week I had the honour of spending time with Katya and her daughter Zoya, and to hear their fascinating life story. Being familiar with the battlefields of Western Russia and having met many veterans on my travels, it was a pleasure to be meeting an eye-witness to one of the most significant events of World War Two, so close to home.
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| Four sisters: Alexandra, Vera, Zoya and Katya |
Katya was born in 1929 to Nil and Alexandra. She was one of nine children - three of whom died in their infancy. Her father, Nil Nilovitch Stogov, came from a long line of small scale farmers. His father (Katya's grandfather) had worked hard after the Russian Tsar abolished serfdom in the 1860s, building up a cluster of small holdings and establishing a number of village shops. Katya's mother Alexandra (pictured above), a wealthy landlord's maid, was paired with Nil by a 'matchmaker' and after the marriage the couple enjoyed a relatively comfortable life style. Nil would travel by horse and cart to buy stock for his shops in the nearby city of Rzev or further afield in Tver.
Upon the outbreak of the First World War, Nil was called up to serve the Tzar. It is not known when he was captured by the Germans, but after his release he spoke frequently and favourably about his experience as a prisoner-of-war in a PoW camp near Frankfurt.
The catalyst for his release, was of course the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 and the subsequent Brest-Litovsk Treaty which was signed on the 3rd March 1918. Nil returned home and picked-up on the family business which continued to thrive despite the communist take-over and the brutalities that were happening throughout Russia.
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| Nil is the shorter figure in the picture of the two 1914 recruits. The other image was captured at the time of his release from a German PoW Camp in 1918. |
After Lenin's death in 1924 everything changed for the family. In the early 1930s, wealthy peasants such as Nil were labelled as 'Kulaks' and were classed as enemies of the people. Lenin's heir, the ruthless dictator Joseph Stalin, ordered the 'collectivization' of private farms into state control.
Katya's mother remembers her mother (Katya's Grandmother) cooking lunch. She recognised poor villagers who the previous day had ate in that very same kitchen. They had rifles.
"You have one hour to get out of your property, Sacha - take up your brats and get out! The property is being expropriated by the Village Soviet"
"Your Kulak days are over", the mob replied when Alexandra protested. "We have the power now and you must do as you are told otherwise we will shoot you like mad dogs!".
The family, now destitute, managed to travel north, eventually settling in Lachta a small village near Leningrad (now St Petersburg). Proximity to Finland gave them a potential escape route but as it happens they settled down well. The waters of the nearby Gulf were rich with fish and there was ground to grow a few vegetables. Nil obtained a job managing the local grocery store.
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| The house in Lachta - part of which was the new Stogovy family home |
The Winter War came and went, but on the 22nd June 1941 Katya remembers hearing Molotov on the radio, announcing that Nazi Germany had attacked the Soviet Union. This was the Barbarossa offensive, a truly immense military undertaking aimed at the destruction of the Soviet Union and the ethnic cleansing of Jews and other 'undesirables'. The Slavs were to be subjugated and the great cities of Russia raised to the ground. Three huge German Army Groups burst across the border, and Army Group North headed straight towards Leningrad - eventually reaching the outskirts in September. With their Finnish Allies holding the northern perimeter the Wehrmacht would lay siege to the city for 900 days. Why, said Adolf Hitler, should we waste men and material in urban fighting when we can simply starve the population to death?".
Katya remembers panic in the village as the Germans approached. Alexandra started packing clothes in order to travel east with the family. She recalls that nobody knew exactly where the Germans were and whether they would be able to get away by train. Nil, who had a favourable view of the Germans (garnered from his time as a PoW), and a hatred of the Communists ordered his wife to unpack and stop panicking. They would stay at home and weather the storm.
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| Siege Survivors, St Petersburg - Victory Day 2006 |
The 900 day Siege of Leningrad was a human tragedy on an unprecedented scale. Some 800,000 to 1m civilians died of starvation, cold and disease - many in the first winter when temperatures dropped to below -25 degrees and food supplies were scarce (to read more about the siege, type 'Leningrad' into the search box on the web version of this site).
Katya recalls that during the winter of 1941/42 "People were desperate and hunger made them do terrible things. Our next door neighbour locked her two young sons in her apartment and disappeared taking the childrens' ration books with her. At first they were quiet but then the neighbours heard them crying. When the door was forced open they found filthy children in a very cold room. They were starving. My father took them in and they stayed with us for a few months until their mother reappeared". When confronted she said "I am young and I can have more children, but I have only one life and I want to live".
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| Son of the Regiment - Felix Vasilvitch Limasov & his father |
Meanwhile Felix Vasilevitch Limasov, the man who Katya was to marry in the 1950s, was enduring the hardships of his own in Leningrad. Felix's parents were 'good Communists' and his father Vasili had originally arrived in Leningrad as a Red Army soldier during the revolution, and eventually attained the Naval Rank of Colonel in the Marines during the Second World War. Felix's mother Zoya, paid a heavy price for giving her ration of bread to her son during the first winter of the Siege. Zoya died of malnutrition and her husband, Colonel Limasov had no choice but to take 14 year old Felix to the front line as a 'Son of the Regiment'.
On the back of the photo above is written the following: 'We are greeting you from a front-line in 1942, near Oranienbaum (near Leningrad), 2nd Naval Brigade.' (To read about my walk around the Oranienbaum Pocket, click here).
Later Felix would tell Katya that he was used as a courier and that he was very scared when told to run through the woods trying to avoid German gunfire. Sadly, along with everyone else, Felix was given the Red Army's daily ration of '100 grams' - a large shot of vodka. This left him with an addiction which was to blight his family life in later years.
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| Katya (right) with her daughter, Zoya - Clevedon 2025 |
Katya's story continues, of course, and as she approaches her 100th birthday safe in the tranquil town of Clevedon, she has plenty of time to reflect on her fascinating life journey. Indeed, the story continues through subsequent generations of her family - including her daughter Zoya who has a dramatic story of her own and who was kind enough to introduce me to her mother.
