21 Facts About Tanya Savicheva

Tatyana Nikolayevna Savicheva, commonly referred to as Tanya Savicheva, was a Russian teenage diarist who kept a diary in 1942 whilst enduring the siege of Leningrad during World War II.

Tanya Savicheva's diary was used during the Nuremberg Trials as evidence of the Nazis' crimes.

Tanya Savicheva was born on 23 January 1930, the youngest child in the family of a baker father, Nikolay Rodionovich Savichev, and a seamstress mother, Mariya Ignatievna Tanya Savicheva.

Some time after the burning of her diary Tanya Savicheva was given a small notebook that had belonged to her sister Nina, which would later become her diary.

Tanya Savicheva's weakened body was not strong enough to stand the blood donations and she died in her apartment, from complications resulting from exhaustion and malnutrition, in the arms of her sister Nina who had been worried when she had not turned up for her shift at the factory and had hurried round to Mokhovaya Street to check on her.

Tanya Savicheva began to record the deaths of each family member in her half empty work notebook.

From here on, most of Tanya Savicheva's family died in quick succession.

Tanya Savicheva was buried in a mass grave in what is today's Piskaryovskoye Memorial Cemetery, where there is a memorial complex to the victims of the siege.

Tanya Savicheva later admitted that at the behest of their grandmother they postponed the burial and kept Yevdokiya's ration card until the end of the month; thus, the official date of her death was recorded as 1 February 1942.

In fact Nina Tanya Savicheva had been evacuated without warning across Lake Ladoga on the dangerous Road of Life ice route.

Tanya Savicheva remained ill for several months and was not able to return to Leningrad to find out what had happened to her family until 1945.

Tanya Savicheva had tried earlier in the war to enlist in the military but had been turned down because of nearsightedness.

Tanya Savicheva worked long shifts at the Admiralty Shipyard, often working a second shift into the night.

Vasya and Tanya Savicheva were said to be very close and Tanya Savicheva spent many hours in Vasya's apartment which was filled with books.

Tanya Savicheva too had tried to enlist in the military but was refused, being too old.

Mariya Ignatievna Tanya Savicheva was born in 1889 and worked as a seamstress, which she continued during the civilian war effort by sewing soldiers' uniforms.

Tanya Savicheva's aunt, hoping Savicheva might receive urgent medical care, then transferred custody of Savicheva to public orphanage number 48 in the Smolny area of St Petersburg.

Tanya Savicheva needs rest, special care, nutrition, better climate and, most of all, tender motherly care.

Tanya Savicheva's diary is displayed at the Museum of Leningrad History, with a copy on display at the Piskaryovskoye Memorial Cemetery.

At Krasny Bor cemetery where Savicheva is buried there is a red marble tomb with a grey marble grave stone depicting her image in bas relief, sculpted by T Holueva.

Serbian poet Mika Antic penned a poem dedicated to Tanya Savicheva named "A lost rendez-vous".