Always joking
When Lev meets Kolya, it becomes soon clear that Kolya is not a common character. Despite the situation they found themselves in, Kolya always seemed to find some motive or another to be happy and to joke. This characteristic remains common in the novel until the end and every time Kolya is presented he is joking or making fun of various situations.
Constipated
Another common motif in the novel is the idea that Kolya is constipated. He mentions his lack of bowel movements several times in the story and this shows just how poor his food was and how his body began to feel the consequences.
No one bothers with the dead anymore
In the third chapter, Lev described the body of a dead woman, left to rot in the city canal, in plain sight. No one in the streets bothered to move her and no one seemed to be affected by her presence. The sight of dead bodies in the streets becomes a common motif in the novel as it becomes soon clear that when people are surrounded by that much death, they stop caring at one point about what happens to the bodies of the people who died and chose instead to focus on themselves and on what they can do to survive.
Cannibalism
Another common motif in the novel is the idea that in order to survive, the people in Leningrad had to do horrible things, such as killing other humans and resolving to cannibalism. This becomes clear when Lev and Kolya go into the giant’s house to discover dead human bodies being dismembered by the giant’s wife. When it becomes clear that the giant took the boys there to have them killed, then flee from the scene and fight their way out to safety.
Symbol for hope
While walking through the city, Lev and Kolya hear someone playing the piano in the distance. The two stop for a moment and listen, forgetting about the horrors taking place near them. The piano music is important because it makes the two forget for a moment about all the horrors taking place all around them. Thus, in a sense, the piano music represents here the hope that some people inside the city still had.
