The Savages Read Online Free PDF

he always been like this?’ asked Sasha, as Grandpa took a seat opposite her. He nodded and regarded his granddaughter.
    â€˜Since he was a little boy. But you have to understand why family is so important to him. He knows his roots, Sasha. I come from nothing.
Nechevo
. When I arrived in this country with your grandmother, we had only the rags on our backs. We’d been through hell to get here. The experience changed us both as human beings, and left him with a very strong sense that to survive this life no matter what, you stick together. It’s what we did,’ he said to finish, and looked at the table. ‘During the Siege.’
    Sasha had no need to press her grandfather for an explanation. It wasn’t because she feared it would lead to an hour-long look back through several chapters of history. The first time he had accounted for his experience during World War Two, she and Ivan had sat throughout and barely breathed. Once he’d finished, it became clear to both grandchildren that what he had just shared could never be repeated outside the house. It was only later, during the course of the investigation, that Oleg’s background became central to the Savage saga.
    Without doubt, Grandpa’s wartime experience went some way towards understanding what shaped them as a family. For Oleg Fedor Savadski endured unimaginable hardship and misery, alongside the citizens in Leningrad, when the city was surrounded and cut off from the world by enemy forces. For more than two years, including cruel, harsh and bitter winters, nobody could get out and nearly all supply routes were blocked. With no food available, the people suffered terribly. Up to one and a half million starved to death. Those who lived through it were forced to test the limits of resourcefulness. As the famine grew, people foraged for berries in parkland before going on to hunt birds and rats. Then, with the wildlife consumed, the desperate turned to boiling down belt straps into soup and licking the paste from the back of wallpaper. Oleg was among that number. Stationed in his home city, with a new bride to protect, he pledged to do whatever it took to endure the growing horror.
    The city had come under an onslaught. Buildings lay in ruins and bodies sprawled in the streets. As the weeks turned to months, people grew familiar with death. It became a part of everyday life, and for some a means of survival.
    At first, the surviving citizens of Leningrad believed that street dogs must be coming out at night to strip some corpses of organs and flesh. An alternative explanation was unthinkable, despite the fact that such dogs had already become food for the table. When word began to spread that gangs were roaming the city, picking off victims to ease their appalling hunger, fear and panic set in. At such an inhumane time, could some desperate souls really be driven to turn on each other? Towards the end of the Siege, the police even set up a special unit to investigate the claims. Oleg was among a small band of soldiers appointed as an army escort to accompany the unit. Unlike so many others, he was in relatively good shape and strong enough to help ensure their safety across the more forbidding quarters of the stricken city. According to reports, just as the investigation began to find substance to the awful rumours, so news filtered through that most had lost all hope of hearing. Thanks to advances by the Allies, the enemy had been forced to pull back from their positions. At last, a blockade that had lasted almost nine hundred days, and turned the city into a living hell, was over. Exhausted but overjoyed, the citizens were free to leave. Oleg and his wife were among that number. In fact, they chose to get out at the earliest opportunity, before the police unit’s investigation was complete, and even departed the country just as soon as the war came to an end.
    Some years after they arrived in England, with Oleg working quietly as