Sinclair McKay

Author and critic Sinclair McKay tells the story of the great Russian city of Saint Petersburg, including its heroic resistance to Hitler’s army.

McKay says St Petersburg was Peter the Great’s ‘window on Europe’ designed to outdo Europe in its splendour. It has also always been a city that has drawn in westerners wishing to see into Russia. McKay tells the story of a city that stretches from Peter the Great to one of its modern sons Vladimir Putin. It’s a story that centres round the 900 days and nights of the Siege of Leningrad, as it was then known, when the Nazis aimed to wipe the city and its people off the map. McKay tells the story from the perspective of published and unpublished accounts of people who lived in the city.

McKay is a literary critic for The Telegraph and Spectator. His books include Meeting Churchill, Berlin, Dresden and The Secret Life of Bletchley Park.