ELLEN BARRY Prime Minister Vladimir V Putin,a man whose private life is revealed to the public only in glimpses,on Friday described the loss that his family suffered during the 872-day siege of Leningrad,the Soviet-era name for St Petersburg. He said his one-year-old brother,who was taken from his mother,died in a childrens home and was buried in an unmarked grave. My brother,whom I have never seen and did not know,was buried here,I dont even know where exactly, Putin said flatly during an annual wreath-laying at Piskaryovskoye Cemetery in St Petersburg,where 4,70,000 civilians and soldiers were buried in mass graves. A memorial plaque at the site states that 6,41,803 people died of starvation in the city between 1941 and 1944. My parents told me that children were taken from their families in 1941,and my mother had a child taken from her as well with the goal of saving him, he said. They said he died,but they never said where he was buried. A St Petersburg organisation called We Remember Them All By Name announced that its researchers had found a record of one Viktor V Putin,who was born in 1940 and died in 1942.
