The Siege of Leningrad (1941-1944) lasted 872 days — the longest siege in modern history. What made it uniquely horrific: in the winter of 1941-42, when food rations dropped to 125 grams of bread per day (made of sawdust, cellulose, and glue), Leningrad residents boiled wallpaper paste to extract the flour paste from the backing. The paste itself often contained arsenic as a fungicide. Some residents ate candles (made of tallow), candle wicks, and leather from belts and shoes. The famous composer Dmitri Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony was written partly during the siege — the score was smuggled out of the city on microfilm. Approximately 1.5 million civilians died. But 3.2 million survived — the largest urban survival in history. The city's art museum, the Hermitage, was never damaged. The staff had sandbagged every painting and removed every sculpture before the siege began.