About the book: 2011 / The fact that the siege diary of schoolgirl Lena Mukhina has been preserved is a miracle in itself. In 1962, it ended up in the Leningrad party archive (now the Central State Archive of Historical and Political Documents of St. Petersburg) and is stored there to this day. We know “adult” evidence of that monstrous, not fully studied phenomenon called the Leningrad Siege: “Memoirs” by D. S. Likhachev, “ Notes of a Siege Man” by L. Ya. Ginzburg, “Siege Diary” by G. A. Knyazev, “Memories of the Siege” by V. M. Glinka and many others. But there is little evidence from children. In terms of the stunning impact on the reader, one thing can be called: the diary of Yura Ryabinkin, given in the Leningrad Gospel - “The Siege Book” by D. Granin and A. Adamovich. And now - Lena Mukhina's diary. What can be opposed to the painful death of hunger in conditions when generally accepted moral standards are collapsing? What can save us from spiritual degradation in conditions when the struggle for survival deprives us of a “human face”, and hunger and fear of death turn a person into an animal? One of the means of salvation turned out to be the alphabet, the order of letters. An attempt to understand what is happening through words, to understand oneself. And one more thing: the intuitive knowledge that you need to preserve your history, your experience - for others. Lena once dreamed of writing a book with a friend, “which I would like to read, but which, unfortunately, does not exist.” This book exists. And it is evidence that in the most inhuman times people tried to preserve their human essence. This is what gives us hope today. The diary has been prepared for publication by employees of the St. Petersburg Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Introductory article by S. Yarov.