Service Teams

Categories / Army. Navy/Blokade
SERVICE TEAMS, voluntary youth units for local air defence, formed to support Leningrad citizens during the siege of 1941-44. The first service team was formed in February 1942 on the initiative of the Primorsky District Committee of the All-Union Leninist Communist Union of Youth. It was made up of young women working at factories on the Petrogradskaya Side. The service teams regularly employed about 1,000 people (mainly young women) who visited people in their flats, removed the bodies of those starved to death, find exhausted people and bring them water and food from cafeterias, tidy up their rooms, do the washing, and help in any possible way. Service Teams had the right to put people into lodging in flats that were empty and more comfortable, to send orphaned children to orphanages, and to petition authorities for evacuation. In winter - spring 1942, Service Teams helped up to 78,000 Leningrad citizens. In 1943, they were disbanded.

References: Манаков Н. А. В кольце блокады: Хоз-во и быт осажденного Ленинграда Л., 1961. С. 140-143; Непокоренный Ленинград: Крат. очерк истории города в период Великой Отеч. войны. 3-е изд., перераб. и доп. Л., 1985. С. 117-118.

A. Y. Chistyakov. Манаков Н. А. В кольце блокады: Хоз-во и быт осажденного Ленинграда Л., 1961
Непокоренный Ленинград: Крат. очерк истории города в период Великой Отеч. войны. 3-е изд., перераб. и доп. Л., 1985 Siege of 1941-44