Based on sources from the federal and regional archives, the article examines the censorship policy in Leningrad under the specific conditions of the siege (1941–1944). After the severance of communication between the Leningrad Regional and city Administration for Literature and Publishing Houses (Lenoblgorlit) and Glavlit in September 1941, the city Committee of the CPSU(b) began to exert a decisive influence on censorship. Due to the proximity of the front line, the crisis situation in the urban economy and the isolation of the Leningrad information space, the leaders sought to tighten the censorship policy and gave appropriate instructions to the Lenoblgorlit. This resulted in the restriction of the publication of all information that could be used by the enemy (including addresses of city institutions and dates of upcoming mass events), and a ban on the dissemination of “politically incorrect” information about the daily life of Leningraders in a humanitarian disaster. Glavlit did not apply such drastic measures in other regions of the USSR, but sanctioned the censorship policy carried out in Leningrad. Moreover, in 1943–1944. Lenoblgorlit won the socialist censor competition several times and won the Red Banner of the Commissioner of the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR for the Protection of Military Secrets in the press, the central leadership considered its work exemplary. At the same time, Leningrad party workers were more wary of the censors and repeatedly criticized them for their lack of rigidity. After the end of the siege, the activities of the Lenoblgorlit gradually returned to the pre-war course, but the peculiarities of the censors’ work during the period under review had a significant impact on the formation and dissemination of the image of the besieged city in the media and cultural works of the 1940s.