Impact of the Holodomor in the cities
Cities were less heavily hit by the Holodomor compared to rural areas. However, there was still hunger and hunger-related deaths in the period between 1932-1933. The state instituted a system of rationing that guaranteed access to at least some food for urban residents and factory workers. However, those rations could be very limited and not everyone was eligible to obtain a ration card.
For those who had the means, limited quantities of bread and other products could be purchased at so-called "commercial" food stores, and those with gold, jewelry, or foreign hard currency could by food at a Torgsin. But for people without such resources and who worked at low-level or menial jobs, hunger was an ever-present threat.
Although they themselves were somewhat better off than their rural compatriots, urban dwellers were not shielded from the horrors that were happening in the countryside. Despite the best efforts of authorities, starving villagers would make their way to cities looking for food, and dead or dying men and women in the streets became a part of the urban landscape, particularly in 1933.
"I think I wrote to you that I work at a hospital in a children's clinic and receive a salary of 40 rubles a month. For that money you can buy two and a half kilos of cornbread. I also get [a ration of] 400 grams of bread, but it's not bread but more like mamaliga [thick corn porridge]."
— Letter to Oleksii Balabas from his sister living in Krasondar (Kuban region), June 1933. Oleksii Balabas papers, UHEC Archives.
