"In that first year of the war, everything went to extremes; the summer sun was intolerably oppressive, and the winter frosts were unbearably cruel. But winter was still a long way off, and the autumn had come brightly and swiftly upon us.
"Towards evening on September 16th we started to hear the rattling of German machine-gun fire in the Babolovsky and the Alexander Parks."
Thus in 1941, by one account, began the infamous siege of Leningrad, which was to last 900 days.
The German campaign against the Soviets began on June 22nd, and for a time it seemed as if Hitler was invincible. By the beginning of December, the German army was within earshot of the Soviet capital.
But suddenly there came the Russian winter, and in the first seven days of December the temperature in Moscow fell an unbelievable 28 Celsius, from -1 to 29.
The Russians, better able to cope with these severe conditions than the Germans, took their opportunity and began the counter-offensive which ultimately was to take them to Berlin.
The German troops were ill-prepared for freezing cold. They lacked winter clothing, and their equipment was badly suited to the deepening snow and the low temperatures.
The High Command, it seems, had been convinced the war would end before the winter came, but they reckoned without what the Russians call the rasputiza - a regular feature of the Russian springs and autumns whereby everything is immobilised by mud. It halted the entire military operation for the greater part of the month of October, 1941.
In some regions, however, the Russians made more rapid progress westwards than they did in others. The ordeal of the starving inhabitants of Leningrad was to last until January 27th, 1944 - 55 years ago today, when their struggle for survival finally ended.
Leningrad in recent years has reverted to its previous name, St Petersburg. It is a city remarkable for the extent to which the restoring architects have adorned many of its finest structures with a weather vane. The Admiralty, for example, one of its greatest buildings, was built during the 18th century with a 200ft-high spire, and is topped with a gilded 6 ft weather vane in the shape of a sailing ship.
And across the Neva stands the Peter and Paul Fortress, whose focal point is a cathedral dedicated to the saints after whom the fortress as a whole is named; its spire is 400 ft high and also has a gilded weather vane, this time in the shape of a flying angel whose wings constrain it perpetually to face the wind.