Organization of food supply of the Ural orphanages during the Great Patriotic War

The article is devoted to the activities of central and local authorities associated with the food supply of children's homes in the Urals during the Great Patriotic War in the conditions of an acute shortage of resources. The research is mainly based on the sources used for the first time. The author describes the work of the State Defense Committee, which paid significant attention to the issues of food supply of the population, including children's homes. The article considers great changes in the economic life of the country, redeployment of resources, deficiencies in organization of food supply of orphanages, difficulties of transporting products from central regions to the periphery, the norms of products consumption and their realization, caloric content of food and food diversity, the role of farms and livestock farming in the life of children's homes of the Molotov, Chelyabinsk, Kurgan, and Sverdlovsk regions. The dynamics of the food supply of children's homes during the war is also traced. The author concludes that food supply in the first years of the war was difficult because of the mistakes of certain officials and deficiency of food. Those problems were solved due to the support of the state, local authorities, patronage organizations, collective farms, and created farms. By the end of the war, food supply of the Ural children's homes was restored.