City of Thieves

"The birthplace of Bolshevism, that city of thieves and maggots."
—Hitler on Leningrad

A popular 2008 novel by David Benioff that takes place during the siege of Leningrad.

In its concise 258 pages, it tells the story of Lev, a timid Jew doing his best to survive the harsh winter with no food or supplies. One day, while Lev and friends were on the roof of the apartment building where they lived, they see a German paratrooper fall from the sky (who has been dead since he ejected from the cockpit), and they quickly rush to the body and loot it (Lev gets a fancy German knife). While they're robbing the corpse, the GAZ arrive to arrest them for illegal looting (and by "arrest" we mean "shoot dead on the street"). His three friends get away, but is caught after helping one go over a fence. Instead of shooting him right then and there, they take him to the Crosses, a famous convict prison, to spend the night. There, Lev meets Kolya, a coarse and talkative army deserter.

The next morning, Lev and Kolya are escorted to an NKVD headquarters. There, they meet Colonel Grechko, who feeds them and tells them of his daughter's upcoming wedding. He says he is in need of a dozen eggs to make the cake with, eggs being among the rarer things to find in Russia around this time. So Grechko asks them to go all over Leningrad to find these eggs in exchange for their ration cards back (which he took prior to asking them).

The rest of the story follows from there; Lav and Kolya traveling through Leningrad in search these eggs.

Not to be confused with the Fighting Fantasy gamebook of the same name.

Tropes used in City of Thieves include:
  • Action Girl: Vika, sniper extraordinaire and a partisan.
  • Blind Idiot Translation: A ten-ruble banknote Lev finds that was (badly)counterfeited by the Fritz to lower the value of the actual notes.

Lev:(reading the note) The prices for food items and the necessities of daily life have increased enormously and the black market in the Soviet Union is florishing 'Flourishing' is spelled wrong, by the way. Party functionaries and Jews are working dark deals at home while you at the front have to sacrifice your life for these criminal. 'These criminal', that's nice. They occupy half the country and they can't even find someone who speaks the language?

  • Chess: Plays an important part in the story near the end.
  • Cold Sniper: Vika, although she warms up a bit.
  • Coming of Age Story: in a week! (Of course with such a short time span, the physical changes are largely left out).
  • Cowardly Lion: Lev makes numerous punches at himself for his cowardice.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death: Korsakov, one of the partisans, gets the bottom half of his face blown off by a German when they're trying to escape oncoming forces.
    • At the end of the novel, Kolya is Shot in the Ass by his fellow Russians. That's gotta be at least considered 'unusual'.
    • Zoya, a fourteen year old Sex Slave, gets her feet sawed off by Abendroth of the Einsatzgruppen after she tries to run away.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Lev to Kolya pretty much whenever he talks.
  • Determinator: Lev and Kolya, following a black market seller's tip, find a boy and his frozen-dead grandfather in a chicken coop on the roof of a building holding a gun and one last chicken. Despite their best intentions, he is unwilling to leave the post his grandfather held valiantly against the thieves trying to get to his chickens. (He does give them the chicken on the brink of his death, when he realizes there's no point in it anymore).
  • Emotionless Girl: Vika, who is disinterested in all things that aren't war.
  • Feminine Women Can Cook: Vika can't, or rather, doesn't like to, thus making her one of the least feminine girls in a work of fiction.
  • Friends with Benefits: Kolya and Sonya, who dwell in their "benefits" while Kolya and Lev are housed at her place.
  • Handsome Lech: Kolya, who boasts much experience in the matters of sex (and even gets some while on the trip), despite his nature.
  • I Ain't Got Time to Bleed: Lev, doesn't notice loosing half of a finger in a fight.
  • Lovable Sex Maniac: Kolya, who even finds a way to jerk-off while walking when he's bored.
  • Non-Action Guy: Lev, who's never been close to the type of violence and pace that he experiences in the trip.
  • No Party Like a Donner Party: Lev and Kolya, in the early search for eggs, come across a the building of a desperate husband and wife where the limbs and rib cages of women and small children hang from chains on the ceiling.
  • Revenge: A random Russian in a prisoner line tells his German captors that Markov, another partisan, is a partisan as revenge against Markov for stealing all the food in his house. Vika gets revenge on that guy later that night, while everyone is sleeping, and slits his throat.
  • Running Gag: How long has it been since Kolya's taken a shit?
  • Sex Slave: The girls being kept in the cabin by the Einzatgruppen are basically this.
  • Snow Means Death: The cold is Mother Russia's oldest weapon, after all.
  • Shot in the Ass
  • There Is No Higher Court: There's not even a court to begin with.

The punishment for violating curfew without a permit was summary execution. The punishment for abandoning a firefighting detail was summary execution. The punishment for looting was summary execution. The courts no longer operated; the police officers were on the front lines, the prisons half full and dwindling fast. Who ha food for an enemy of the state? If you broke the law and you were caught, you were dead. There wasn't any time for legal niceties.

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