The siege of Leningrad lasted 872 days. During this time, more than one million people died of hunger. After the end of the Second World War, the Nuremberg trials of Nazi and fascist criminals took place.
Representatives of the USSR brought an accusation against the commander of the German army group "North", because of whose actions so many civilians died in the besieged city. General von Leeb was acquitted on this charge. At that time, a clause was not yet spelled out in which it would be prohibited to use hunger as a military strategy in relation to the civilian population.
The survivors of the besieged city owe much to the appearance of the highway ("The Road of Life") through It was she who made it possible to break the blockade ring, because due to its geographic location Leningrad is not able to survive without food supplies.
The value of the paved path
The road worked from the fall of 1941 to the spring of 1943. Her appointment was in connection with the besieged Leningrad (St. Petersburg) with the country. Officially, it was called the military highway number 101.
From September 1941, Soviet troops, along with the civilian population, were surrounded by German and Finnish troops. The city was not ready for the blockade and did not have the necessary supplies of food and fuel. It was possible to deliver everything necessary by aviation or across the lake.
The “road of life” through Lake Ladoga made it possible to evacuate part of the population and partially provide the surviving people with food.
Cargo transportation on ice
In October 1941, research began to build a route through Lake Ladoga, in winter it was covered with ice. After preliminary calculations, construction began in November. It was assumed that the width of the track would be 10 meters, so that the cars could move simultaneously in both directions. Special heating points were built every 5-7 kilometers.
The direction of the road was chosen based on the presence of strong ice cover. He had to withstand large loads. The main one was GAZ-AA, popularly called "lorry". In order to prevent massive sinkholes under the ice, there had to be a distance of at least 100 meters between the cars. At the same time, a railway line was being laid across the lake.
The created "Road of Life" (Leningrad) passed not far from the front line, it required protection, which was provided by military units. The ice section of the road had two defensive lines created with the help of wooden log cabins, sandbags, which were frozen by ice. Every one to two kilometers, small-caliber artillery guns were installed, and every three kilometers. From the air, the line was defended by six fighter regiments.
During the first winter of the blockade, more than 500 thousand residents were evacuated along the Road of Life and about 250 thousand tons of food were delivered. It was mainly flour, grain, cereals, meat products, fats, vegetables, nuts, dried fruits, vitamin C. The work of the ice road continued in the winter of 1942-1943.
Shipping by water
With the melting of ice, the road through did not cease to exist. From the spring of 1942, ice transportation was replaced by water navigation. However, due to the fact that ice still remained in some areas, the gap between deliveries across the lake was a full month. In April, it was no longer possible to carry cargo on ice, and barges were able to go on water only from the end of May.
The country's leadership needed to carry out work to restore damaged ships. There were no more than 15 barges in working order. Decided to build barges on site. The site for the work was a pulp and paper mill in Syasstroy. At the same time, in Leningrad itself, the construction of metal ships began, which were transported for final assembly by rail.
Anti-aircraft artillery divisions and fighter air regiments were engaged in guarding the way. They had to fight with the forces of the German-Finno-Italian flotilla.
In 1942, about 400 thousand inhabitants were evacuated by water, food for 350 thousand tons was delivered. At the same time, 290 thousand servicemen were delivered to the city. In addition to food and oil products, horses were delivered to the city.
From April 1943, cargo transportation continued across the lake. Although their number has decreased, since a significant part of the cargo was already transported by rail, launched since 1942.
Was the "Road of Life" (Leningrad) one?
The official route is the path from Kokorev to Kobona along the lake. This thread connected the multimillion city with the country. Such information is available in textbooks and for tourists. However, there are data according to which the "Road of Life" through Lake Ladoga passed along a different path. Many facts testify to the existence of other lines for transportation.
Inconsistency in calculations
The existence of several roads is confirmed by simple calculations. So during the first winter of the blockade, the road worked for 150 days. Officially, about 350 thousand tons of cargo were transported. It turns out that 2,400 tons were delivered to Leningrad per day.
They transported the cargo of "lorry", into the body of which one and a half tons could be loaded. Another half a ton could be attached to the sled. That is, for the trip, one car loaded to failure could transfer two tons. Every day 1200 fully loaded "lorries" crossed the road. Moreover, they had to move in both directions.
The ice could not have withstood such an onslaught. Moreover, in addition to trucks, buses also ply along the highway, which took out about half a million civilians during these 150 days. Tanks were also transported along Ladoga, from which the gun turrets were removed to lighten the weight. Hardly one blockade "Road of Life" would have withstood such loads, especially since ice acted as a road.
Sunken Truck Mystery
During the transportation, about a thousand cars went under the ice. Many of them are still under water today. When the water in the lake is especially clear, the pilots visually capture the outlines of the trucks. They are not always on the official route. Some of them are located hundreds of kilometers from the well-known "Road of Life".
There are documents from which it becomes clear that some drivers deviated from the route in order to cash in on transportation and dump some of the cargo. However, there were not many such cases, and there were many hundreds of trucks that sunk far from the highway. So the question of whether Leningrad provided Lake Ladoga with only one road is quite controversial.
Reasons for the existence of multiple tracks
The official highway (“The Road of Life” through Lake Ladoga) No. 101 Kokorevo-Kobona undoubtedly existed and operated. However, calculations and the location of many of the sunken trucks suggest that she could not be the only one.
All maps and documents in this case have been classified for a long time and are kept in special archives. Perhaps this secrecy is due to the desire not to reveal all the ways in the event of another war.
Reasons why there could be several tracks:
- Danger from German aircraft. The overwhelming superiority of German aviation in the winter of 1941 was undeniable. Having marked the road across the lake, the Nazis regularly bombed it. To minimize losses from air strikes, it was necessary to change the route. The first lines were laid closer to the shores of the lake, but as the ice hardened, the route was drawn closer to its center.
- The ice could not withstand the constant load. Eyewitnesses of those years testify that only 60-70 cars could pass along the road. Further, the ice began to crack, it took time to recover. This means that the movement had to move onto a new path. Otherwise Leningrad could not receive such a quantity of cargo.
Create a railway line
Only the railway could cope with large cargo transportation. By 1942, a line was completed on the eastern shore of the lake. This made it possible to increase cargo transportation. Thanks to all the above methods, the blockade of Leningrad was partially lifted.
The memory of the broken ring of blockade
Hundreds of thousands of people were involved in maintaining the ice cover. They lived on the ice, filling in the emerging cracks, building wooden decks. The feat of these people, like the drivers themselves, is difficult to truly assess. The blockade was lifted at the cost of the lives of many of them. Lake Ladoga became the outlet that made it possible to break the ring of death for many civilians.
Monuments dedicated to the "Road of Life" are located along the land section from Leningrad to Ladoga. All of them are included in the Green Belt of Glory memorial, which stretches for many kilometers. The memorial consists of seven monuments, 46 memorial pillars on the highway, 56 pillars on the railroad.
The most memorable are the monuments at 40 and 103 kilometers of the highway. The first is the Broken Ring memorial (architect VG Filippov), which symbolizes the breaking of the blockade ring formed by the German-Finnish troops over Leningrad in the fall of 1941. At 103 km there is a monument "Legendary lorry" (architect Levenkov A. D.). It depicts a car that is driving, breaking free from the ice.
"The Road of Life" is the only military-strategic transport highway connecting during the Great Patriotic War from September 1941 to March 1943 besieged by the Germans Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) with the rear of the country. Passed through Lake Ladoga.
During the navigation periods, transportation along the "Road of Life" was carried out along the waterway on ships of the Ladoga military flotilla and ships of the North-Western River Shipping Company, in freeze-up - on an ice road by motor transport, then to Leningrad by rail.
Leningrad in the ring on September 8, 1941, when the Nazis cut all railway, river and road communications. More than 2.5 million inhabitants, including 400 thousand children, turned out to be in the blocked city.
The air bridge between the mainland and the besieged city only to an insignificant extent satisfied his needs for food and other necessary goods.
The only way by which it was possible to deliver goods to Leningrad in large volumes and evacuate people from the besieged city was Lake Ladoga, the southwestern and southeastern coasts of which remained in the hands of the Soviet troops.
High waves caused by windy stormy weather have long made the lake dangerous for navigation. Since the founding of St. Petersburg, waterways have been built to bypass it during transportation. Therefore, there were no marinas or piers on the shores of Ladoga.
In September and October 1941, at an accelerated pace, work was carried out to equip harbors, deepen the bottom, build narrow-gauge railways, warehouses, and dugouts. Telephone and telegraph communications were established via underwater cables.
For communication with Leningrad, the inactive dead-end Irinovskaya line was reconstructed, along which 3-4 pairs of suburban steam trains went before the war. In 1941, this line became the only road from besieged Leningrad, it turned into an important highway, and the deaf small station "Lake Ladoga" - into a large railway junction with an adjoining lake-river port. At the station "Ladoga Lake" the number of tracks increased from four to more than twenty.
On September 12, 1941, the first convoy of ships arrived in besieged Leningrad, delivering 800 tons of grain and 60 tons of ammunition. During the short but very difficult autumn navigation of 1941, about 60 thousand tons of various cargoes were delivered to the western shore of Lake Ladoga, including 45 thousand tons of food. 33.5 thousand civilians and wounded were evacuated from the city. The transportation took place in conditions of continuous German air raids from the coast, located only 25-30 kilometers from the route.
With the onset of winter and freeze-up, water communications ceased to function. Under these conditions, the only way out was to build a winter road on the ice of Lake Ladoga. Long before the onset of winter, the road department of the Leningrad Front Logistics Directorate, which was entrusted with the construction of this road, together with the scientists of the Hydrological Institute, did a great deal of preparatory work to study the ice regime of Ladoga and design the ice track routes.
The data obtained formed the basis for the project of the route, which received the official name - Military Highway No. 101 (No. 102), but the inhabitants of besieged Leningrad gave it a different name - "The Road of Life". The route with a total length of over 30 kilometers passed from Cape Osinovets (the villages of Vaganovo and Kokkarevo), through the Zelentsy Islands, with a fork into the villages of Kobona and Lavrovo.
The road was based on the principle of the least depths - there the ice broke less often.
The first horse-drawn transport battalion set off on it on November 21, 1941. He brought 63 tons of flour to the city. On November 22, a column of 60 vehicles from besieged Leningrad crossed Lake Ladoga for the first time on ice. The next day they returned to the city with food. The ice cover was so fragile that a two-ton truck carried only 2-3 bags of food. However, that flight managed to transport 33 tons of food.
Due to heavy traffic on the still insufficiently strengthened ice, the road had to be moved to a new place several times. During the first month, the road was changed four times, and some of its sections - even more often. In addition, the route was under constant shelling and bombing by German artillery and aviation, and the harsh temper of Ladoga made additional adjustments to the work. From the end of November, unusually strong frosts began. A fierce north wind was blowing, a blizzard swept the road. Under these conditions, drivers often lost their bearings. As a result, only on November 29, 1941, 52 vehicles were lost (by February 1, 1942, 327 vehicles had sunk on the ice of Lake Ladoga).
However, regardless of the difficult weather conditions, shelling and overwork, drivers make two trips per day. It was about the life and death of hundreds of thousands of people. The slogan of those days was - "Every two flights provide 10,500 residents of Leningrad. Fight for two flights." Some drivers even managed to make three flights.
In some periods, up to four thousand cars worked on the "Road of Life". In order to have time to jump out if the car starts to sink, drivers often did not close their doors when driving on the highway.
Several thousand, and according to some reports, tens of thousands of people worked on the road. In addition to drivers and mechanics, these are those who paved the way and were engaged in ice reconnaissance, and traffic controllers who sent the convoys on the safest routes. They put their lives at risk every day.
From January 1942, movement along the highway became more orderly. The road was a very complex engineering structure. Its builders made road signs, built bases, warehouses, heating and medical centers, workshops, telephone and telegraph stations, food and technical assistance points, and adopted various means of camouflage.
Protection and defense of the "Road of Life" was carried out by rifle units located along the shores of the lake and along the route, by marines brigades, as well as aviation and anti-aircraft units of the Leningrad Front, the country's Air Defense Forces, the Baltic Fleet and the Ladoga military flotilla, united in the Ladoga Air Defense District. Small-caliber anti-aircraft batteries protected the Ladoga ice route from German air raids (the weight of the guns did not allow the installation of a larger caliber, which, after firing, sank into the ice). They, along with anti-aircraft machine guns in a checkerboard pattern, were placed on both sides of the road.
Ground protection was carried out by a specially formed rifle regiment, whose fighters were located on the ice of Lake Ladoga, 8-12 kilometers from the shore occupied by the enemy. Two defensive zones were created with pillboxes and snow-ice trenches. Hundreds of tensile bombs and several thousand antipersonnel mines were placed in front of the front line.
In the first and most terrible winter of the blockade, the ice road functioned for 152 days, until April 24, 1942, when the wheels of trucks began to fall through the melted ice. During this time, more than 360 tons of various cargoes were transported, six rifle divisions and a tank brigade were transported with full weapons. At the same time, about 540 thousand people, about 3700 cars of industrial equipment and other property were evacuated from Leningrad.
During the navigation of 1942, the mass evacuation of the population of Leningrad was completed. On December 19, 1942, the road on the ice of Lake Ladoga resumed work, which operated until March 30, 1943 (101 days).
The total amount of cargo transported to Leningrad along the "Road of Life" for the entire period of its operation amounted to over 1,615 thousand tons; during the same time, about 1,376 thousand people were evacuated from the city. To supply oil products to Leningrad, the Ladoga pipeline was laid along the bottom of the lake.
Nobody knows how many people died on the "Road of Life" - from shelling or on thin ice. Cars - the legendary "lorries" GAZ - were taken from the bottom of the lake for several decades after the end of the war. Now a bronze copy of such a car stands on the shores of Lake Ladoga as a monument to the feat that ordinary people performed day after day on the military highway number 101.
The memory of the mass heroism of the Soviet people, who ensured the movement along the "Road of Life", is immortalized in the monuments and memorial ensembles included in the "Green Belt of Glory". The central place among them is occupied by the architectural and sculptural composition "The Broken Ring", the ensemble "Rumbolovskaya Gora", the monument "The Flower of Life". There are 45 kilometer-long memorial pillars along the ground part of the route. In 1972, the Road of Life Museum (a branch of the Central Naval Museum) was opened in the village of Osinovets on the western shore of Lake Ladoga. In 1974, a memorial station-monument was erected at the station "Ladoga Lake" near Osinovets.
The material was prepared on the basis of information from RIA Novosti and open sources
70 years ago, on November 22, 1941, the first automobile convoy with a cargo of food passed through the ice of Lake Ladoga into Leningrad besieged by the Nazis.
Much has been said about the "Road of Life", more precisely, about the military road No. 101 (VAD No. 101) in Soviet times. In particular, the magazine "Za Rulem" has repeatedly published the memoirs of the drivers who worked on the ice road.
In numerous publications, as a rule, details were omitted that seemed insignificant to someone, but seditious to someone. Today, when the general outline of what happened is widely known, it is these details that are most interesting.
Lake Ladoga - the largest freshwater reservoir in Europe, with almost sea depths (allowing, in particular, the use of submarines) - became the umbilical cord that connected the fighting Leningrad with the rest of the country.
On November 20, 1941, as the ice hardened, a sledge-horse wagon train (almost 350 teams) under the command of Senior Lieutenant M.S. Murov left the Leningrad coast (in the vicinity of the village of Kokorevo) towards the village of Kobona. A day later, this convoy will deliver the first 63 tons of flour to the city (if the need is 1100 tons / day). At the same time, the first passenger car crossed Ladoga. On November 22, an empty convoy of 60 GAZ-AA trucks of the 388th separate autobat of Captain V.A.Porchunov left the western coast. On the morning of the 23rd, the transport left Cobona back loaded with food. These are well-known facts.
Few people know about the so-called "Small Road of Life", which ran across the ice of the Gulf of Finland - it connected the Oranienbaum defensive bridgehead, Kronstadt and Leningrad. And about the road that stretched 71 km from the Shepelevsky lighthouse to the islands of Seskar and Powerful in the Gulf of Finland. What is noteworthy, this route was crossed by the same German road. The intersection of the wits was nicknamed the "International Crossroads." There were frequent clashes between ours and the Germans.
It is practically overlooked that VAD No. 101 was not created at the last moment, out of hopelessness, but in advance, with the involvement of data compiled by the tsarist hydrographers. The road was provided with maintenance, air defense system, air cover. The NKVD division carried out the checkpoint regime. The road was launched ... a plan that she was able to carry out on January 18, 1942.
In the old days, they tried not to focus on facts that could give rise to unwanted speculations about the dramatic events of those years. Speaking about hunger and cold, about the blockade rate of bread (on November 20, 1941, the rate of an employee and a dependent was 125 g), they omitted, for example, information that in 1942 an oil pipeline and a high-voltage cable were laid to Leningrad along the bottom of Ladoga. They did not say that tanks were transported on the ice of Ladoga - special research work determined the strength limits of ice for different types of transport (including aircraft) and military equipment.
The heavy KV tank could not withstand the ice, so the tank went along it without a tower and dragged the tower behind it on a drag. So over 700 military vehicles were overtaken! The tanks were sent not from the "mainland" to besieged Leningrad, as one might think, but from the exhausted city to other fronts. Our contemporary, who is not familiar with the realities of those years, will then demand an explanation: was it not better to warm the exhausted residents with electricity and oil coming along the bottom of Ladoga than to produce armored vehicles for export? Personally, I have no right to answer this question unambiguously.
Industrial equipment and cultural values \u200b\u200bcontinued to be evacuated from the besieged city along the Road of Life. Few people know that the ceiling lamps at the Novokuznetskaya metro station in Moscow are decorated with mosaics by Professor Vladimir Alexandrovich Frolov, taken from Leningrad along the Road of Life. Professor Frolov remained in the besieged city and died of exhaustion.
Or, for example, such a detail: in many photographs you can see that cars are going along an ice track with their headlights on, just like along Nevsky Prospekt. But what about observance of blackout? It turns out that the German shelling and bombing of the road were not effective enough (due to the lack of accurate landmarks when shooting). On the contrary, due to poor visibility, cars often fell through the ice. Turning on the high beam, it was possible to notice in advance a crater from an aerial bomb or wormwood. By the way, the ice "got tired", so it is wrong to imagine VAD # 101 as one or two tracks - as fatigue set in, the road was moved several meters to the side, and dozens of such tracks were laid.
In total, the Road of Life was serviced by 4,500 vehicles. During the winter of 1941/42, they delivered 361,109 tons of various cargoes to Leningrad (including 262,419 tons of food) and took 554,186 people to the “mainland”. The first ice car "navigation" was closed only at the height of spring, on April 21. And then some desperate chauffeurs managed to drive along the highway later - the ice, which grew in severe, up to minus 50 degrees, still kept frosts. The cruel truth of the war: do not stand out the winter of 1941/42 so severe, the city might not survive it ...
The blockade of Leningrad is an unhealed wound in the people's memory. 497 days, counting from September 8, 1941, when the Germans finally cut the city's land connection with the rest of the USSR. An unprecedented military operation of our time in terms of shed blood and duration. Before the war, 2 million 887 thousand people lived in the city. The blockade mercilessly counted on three residents: the first was destined to die of hunger, the second - to be taken to the "mainland" along Ladoga, the third - to survive, fully knowing the horrors of the blockade and the joy of victory.
This, of course, is a very approximate division - how much an approximation is generally appropriate for assessing such dramatic events. However, there is no exact data. At the Nuremberg trials, the number of victims of the blockade was announced at 632 thousand people. Moreover, only 3% of them died from bombing and shelling - the rest from hunger. However, this number has been repeatedly questioned, each time increasing. In particular, today the number of 1.5 million dead is often called. Accurate statistics simply could not exist, many were already dying on the “mainland” from exhaustion, unable to endure the move.
Monuments were erected to the heroism of the drivers, who made two or even three trips to Leningrad under the most severe conditions, and poems are dedicated:
“Dear friendship of many to many.
Do not know yet on earth
A more terrible and joyful road ... "
Olga Berggolts
Decisions and events that entail such dramatic consequences for Leningrad and its inhabitants await a separate assessment, which goes beyond the automotive theme. Today, from the high rostrum, we are hinted that the events of the Great Patriotic War are not subject to revision, they do not allow new interpretations. We are, in fact, urged to forget how to think. It is the comprehension and acceptance of the truth, no matter how bitter it is, that will help to avoid tragic mistakes in the future.
In 2011, the magazine "Za Rulem" together with the Ministry of Transport raised from the bottom of Ladoga the remains of trucks that had gone under the ice of the "Road of Life"
The need to build a new road to Leningrad arose after the blockade ring around the city was closed. The only opportunity was to use Lake Ladoga for these purposes. After the onset of cold weather, a complex transport highway was laid right on the ice, the configuration of which changed depending on the conditions. People called her Dear Life.
The road of life of besieged Leningrad
In terms of an attack on the Soviet Union, Hitler gave a special place to the capture and destruction of Leningrad. The fall of this historic capital and the cradle of the revolution should have preceded the complete defeat of Moscow. Leningrad and Moscow were undoubtedly important strategic points and transport hubs. But even more important was their role in the minds of Soviet citizens. For Hitler, the first priority was to undermine the morale of the defenders. Like no one else, he knew how important it was to either inspire or demoralize the crowd.
Therefore, Army Group North, under the command of Fyodor von Bock, was ordered to destroy Leningrad. Initially, it was assumed that the city would be taken outright, using the blitzkrieg technique. But by the time the troops of the German army approached the intended goal, it had already become clear that lightning war was not possible on Soviet territory. The military leaders were against a direct assault on the fortified city. So the blockade of Leningrad was proposed. Instead of suffering the inevitable human losses during the assault, the Germans decided to starve the city to death. Constantly pouring it with generous artillery fire.
Cars take people out of besieged Leningrad along the Road of Life.
At first, roads and railways were cut off. And on September 8, 1941, after the capture of Shlisselburg, the history of besieged Leningrad began - one of the most tragic in the Great Patriotic War. The only communication with the outside world for the Leningraders was only the road that began on the shores of Lake Ladoga. This thin thread, which at the cost of incredible efforts the defenders of Leningrad were able to stretch, gave life and hope.
The road of life across Lake Ladoga
When the blockade ring closed, the only way to communicate with the besieged Leningrad remained - through Lake Ladoga, the coast of which during the Great Patriotic War continued to be controlled by the Soviet army. This lake was very difficult to navigate. Unexpected gust of wind often hit the ships. Therefore, the coast was not equipped with any berths or piers.
The first cargoes delivered were dropped directly onto the wild shore. Along with this, urgent work was carried out to deepen the bottom and equip the harbor. Dugouts were dug on the shore and warehouses were equipped. Telephone and telegraph cables were laid under the water. A narrow-gauge railway was laid from the coast to the nearest railway line.
Already on September 12, just four days after the start of the blockade of Leningrad, the first consignment of goods was delivered across Lake Ladoga. There were 60 tons of various ammunition and 800 tons of food. Leningraders were taken on the return flight. During the autumn navigation, until the ice made movement on the lake impossible, 33,500 people were evacuated from the city by water. During the same time, 60 thousand tons of cargo were delivered to Leningrad.
In addition to unfavorable weather conditions, transportation was complicated by constant German air raids. The use of available tugs and barges for delivery was encouraged. However, even the full workload of all ships could not fully provide the surrounded city with food. In addition, the task was further complicated by the fact that not only food had to be supplied. Weapons were required to wage war and defend the city. Therefore, part of the cargo was ammunition.
How the Road of Life was paved
It was clear from the very beginning that the navigable route was a temporary measure. The cold was about to come. Therefore, ahead of time, the employees of the Hydrological Institute and the road department of the Leningrad Front began to design a road that was to be laid directly on the ice of the frozen Ladoga Lake.
In the documents, it was called the military road No. 101. Heating points were to be located at every fifth kilometer of the route. And the road itself was planned to be 10 meters wide. But in reality, everything was much more complicated than on paper. Despite the fact that the Road of Life, as Leningraders themselves called it, often broke through the places of the smallest depths, taking away not only valuable cargo, but also a lot of human lives.
The length across Ladoga was approximately 30 kilometers. Tens of thousands of people worked together in this relatively small area in difficult conditions. These were truck drivers and horse-drawn carriage drivers, mechanics who repaired cars, traffic controllers whose task was to guide drivers along the safest routes. In addition, there were those who directly paved the road. And it was necessary to lay it constantly. Sometimes due to the fact that the road was covered with snow, sometimes due to the fact that it was necessary to select areas with a stronger layer of ice, and sometimes due to the fact that the road was damaged by German air raids, which took place with enviable regularity.
The road of life was constantly being repaired. Divers strengthened it with all possible means at hand, diving under the ice and installing decks and supports there. It was far from just a wide track on the ice. Traffic signs were installed along the road. Medical and heating stations were built along the way of the trucks. There were warehouses and bases along the route. Technical assistance stations, workshops and food points were also equipped. Telephone and telegraph communications passed along the road.
Food situation
Meanwhile, the situation in the city was getting worse. In fact, it reached a critical point, stepped over it and confidently moved on. Food was sorely lacking. At the beginning of the siege, there were approximately 2.9 million people in the city. There were no significant food supplies in Leningrad. It operated at the expense of products supplied from the Leningrad region.
In addition, even the small stocks that were available were destroyed in warehouses during the first shelling. The system for issuing products by cards was introduced immediately. However, the issuance rates were constantly cut. By November 1941, the situation was critical. Bread delivery rates fell below the required physiological minimum. Only 125 grams of bread was given out per day. For workers ration was a little more - 200 grams. This is a small piece of bread. And nothing more. By that time, all reserves had long been exhausted. Many did not survive the harsh winter of 1941.
And do not forget that these 125 grams were not pure flour bread, albeit the lowest grade. Everything that could be edible was added to the bread - food cellulose, cake, wallpaper dust, burlap waste. There was also the concept of measles meal. It was formed from a soggy, set and hardened, like cement, crust. On the way to Leningrad, a lot of cars sank along with food. Special teams, under cover of darkness, searched for these places and, with the help of ropes and hooks, lifted sacks of flour from the bottom. Some part in the very middle could remain dry. And the rest of the flour turned into a hard crust, which was then broken up and added to the blockade bread.
Route to Leningrad
The situation in the city was well known to the drivers of vehicles that delivered tens of tons of various cargoes to the shores of Ladoga during the Leningrad blockade and took evacuees from there. They risked their lives every minute, going out on the ice of Lake Ladoga. And these are not just big words. In just one day on November 29, 1941, 52 cars went under water. And this is on a stretch of 30 kilometers! Of which the first few kilometers can even be ignored - the road there was relatively safe.
On the way, the driver was constantly in danger of going under the ice. Therefore, no one closed the doors of the car, despite the chill penetrating to the bone. So there was a chance to get out of the sinking car. When the situation was especially dangerous (trucks also made flights on the already melting ice), the drivers drove all the way on the steps of the car. The thirty-kilometer ice section thus turned into a serious and long-term test. After all, I had to go at low speed. But almost every driver made two flights a day.
However, the dangers were not limited to this. The Germans tried to inflict airstrikes on the columns during the transport of goods. They aimed both at the trucks themselves and along the route, trying to destroy the track itself. The capricious weather also practically attacked the Ladoga military road. A blizzard was rising quickly to level the ice road with the surrounding unspoiled landscape. There was an extremely great danger of going astray. Many drivers died from the cold, getting lost in a blizzard. To prevent such cases, many road signs were installed along the route.
Sinking cars on the "Road of Life".
Siege winter
In total, Leningraders had to endure three blockade winters. And although it was at this time that the ice road worked best of all, and a considerable amount of tons of cargo could be delivered along it, it was the winters of the blockade that were the most difficult time for Leningraders. Cold was added to the acute problem of malnutrition. There was no central heating and no electricity. Those lucky ones who were able to acquire a stove-stove, slowly burned everything that could burn in it. In some cases, even furniture and parquet were used.
During the first winter - from December 1941 to February 1942 - a quarter of a million people died in Leningrad. But with the increase in the norms of giving out bread, the mortality rate has decreased. In order for the delivery of goods to take place in the besieged city more massively and safely, in the winter of 1942 they began to build an ice railway, which was supposed to pass right along the lake. However, its construction was not completed, since on January 18, 1943, the blockade of Leningrad was broken, and the need for Lake Ladoga station was no longer needed.
There was one more path, which was called the small road of life. It passed along the surface of the Gulf of Finland. Most of the defenders of Leningrad moved along this small route. This way they got to the defended "patch". Numerous soldiers wounded in battles were also sent back along it.
And when the blockade was broken, another road appeared, which was unofficially called the "Road of Victory". It was built right in the swamps and rugged terrain for the rapid evacuation of the population and the delivery of the necessary food and ammunition.
"Victory Road"
Sections of ice roads were calculated and built based on data from divers and scientists from the Hydrological Institute. On the operational military map, the Road of Life was constantly changing its shape. Often the reason was that the delivery of goods took place in areas that, due to the bombing, became hazardous. And the weather was constantly making its own adjustments. Temperature changes, underwater currents and other external factors sometimes greatly influenced the entire route, and sometimes only a separate section of the route. Traffic on ice tracks was corrected by traffic controllers. During the first winter alone, the ice road was completely moved 4 times. And some sections changed their configuration 12 times.
It is with such changes that the difference in data on the length of the path in historical documents is associated. In addition, the map of the military road No. 101 included the land section to the railway station. Some indicated the total mileage, and some indicated only the section that they called the "Road of Life" on the ice of Lake Ladoga.
Monuments on the Road of Life
- Flower of Life;
- Katyusha;
- Broken ring;
- Crossing;
- Tanya Savicheva's diary;
- One and a half;
- Rumbolovskaya mountain.
In addition to them, 102 memorial pillars were erected along the highway and railway and memorial steles. Some of the stelae are included in the complex of monuments and memorials, and some are installed separately.
Among the memorial structures on the Road of Life, the monument to the "lorry" stands out. There is simply no other like him. "One and a half" in the people called a car with a carrying capacity of one and a half tons. It was on such trucks that people and goods were transported along the Road of Life. In the place of the road, where there was the most massive shelling, today a life-size truck, cast in bronze, rises.
Monument "Lorry" on the "Road of Life"
Flower of Life
The road of life passed near Vsevolozhsk. There, on the third kilometer of the memorial track, the Flower of Life complex was opened in 1968. It is dedicated to the youngest victims of the besieged Leningrad. Indeed, during the years of the blockade, children became not only passive victims of hunger and shelling. To the best of their ability, they helped in the defense of the city, taking on those responsibilities that in other circumstances would have entrusted only to adults. Schoolchildren extinguished incendiary bombs, stood on patrol, helped in hospitals and collected raw materials for military needs.
The memorial complex consists of three parts. First, the visitor is presented with a 15-meter sculpture of a flower, on the petals of which are carved the words of a children's song popular in the USSR: "May there always be sunshine" and an image of a pioneer boy. This is followed by the Friendship Alley, which consists of nine hundred birches - according to the number of blockade days. Scarlet pioneer ties are tied on tree trunks in memory of the dead children. There is a mourning mound behind the alley. Rarely does any mention of the Road of Life in guidebooks go without a photo of this mound. Among other attractions, there is a diary of a girl recreated in stone, who consistently entered the dates of death of her family members in a notebook with the wrong child's handwriting.
Monument "Flower of Life" on the "Road of Life"
Broken ring
On the western shore of Lake Ladoga, where the Road of Life began, there is another monument. With severe brevity, he symbolically illustrates interesting facts about the Road. Two massive semi-arches, in the form of a broken ring, seven meters high, remind of a blockade ring. And the rupture of the memorial itself The broken ring points to the Road of Life. Under the ring in the direction of the descent to the lake, right along the masonry, there is a concrete track from the wheels of a car.
From here, during the years of the blockade, trucks began their journey, delivering a valuable cargo of food and ammunition to the besieged city. Under the imposing monument, the words from a poem by Bronislav Kezhun are engraved:
“Descendant, know: in the harsh years,
Loyal to the people, duty and Fatherland,
Through hummocks of Ladoga ice
From here we led the road of Life,
So that life never dies. "
Monument "Broken Ring" on the "Road of Life"
Osinovetsky lighthouse
The road of life is most often associated with trucks on ice and snowstorms. However, when the ice melted, it did not stop functioning. It was just that in warm times the Ladoga flotilla took on the load. It was often even more difficult and dangerous than driving on ice. The coastline of Lake Ladoga has never been conducive to shipping.
In late spring, summer and early autumn, ships plying on the lake were guided by the light of the Osinovetsky lighthouse located on the southwestern coast. This lighthouse is still functioning today. There are no excursions there, since the lighthouse belongs to strategic objects and is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Defense.
The construction of the Osinovetsky lighthouse began in 1905. Since then, he has not interrupted his work. The light of the lighthouse points to the western border of the bay, from which the Neva begins its journey. It rises 74 meters above the lake level, and the light of the lighthouse is visible at a distance of 40 kilometers.
Monument "Osinovetsky Lighthouse" on the "Road of Life"
Due to the fact that the Osinovetsky lighthouse during the years of the blockade served as an important landmark for ships sailing along the Road of Life, it is classified as a cultural heritage site, although it is not a monument as such.
Katyusha
The road of life was the only link between besieged Leningrad and the rest of the country. The only artery that carried food and ammunition. She was what kept the city alive. The defenders of Leningrad perfectly understood this, the Leningradians themselves understood this, and the Germans understood this. They desperately tried to cut this last route of communication in order to finally strangle the resistance and destroy the weakened city.
The road of life was under constant fire. To protect against enemy aircraft, the legendary Katyusha installations were used on it. In memory of this, a monument was erected on the site where anti-aircraft units were located during the war years, reminiscent of these protective weapons that covered the movement of trucks. It consists of steel beams directed into the sky, each of which is 14 meters long. There are 5 such beams in total. They represent the famous Katyusha.
Monument "Katyusha" on the "Road of Life"
Poem about the blockade of Leningrad
The deep feelings of the Leningraders about wartime and the blockade of their native city found their way out in art. Poems dedicated to the Road of Life, paintings, photographs, literary essays - everything that could help express feelings was used. Olga Berggolts, Eduard Asadov, Vera Ibner, Boris Bogdanov, Vsevolod Rozhdestvensky, Vladimir Lifshits are the most famous poets who glorified the days of siege in their works. But this list is far from complete.
And even today, after seven decades, this theme continues to inspire poets and words of memory, pain and gratitude are harmoniously folded into rhymed lines. Here is an excerpt from a contemporary poem:
The Road of Life, dear Ladoga,
Oh, how many you were able to save then!
For our grandfathers, grandmothers, I know
You will not find a sacred place in the world!
I stand before you on my knees
I stand and look into the distance thoughtfully
From all post-war generations,
As God, I thank you.
And I know: I still dream at night
To everyone who survived the blockade that hell,
A stream of cars, a sleepless string,
Carrying bread on the Ladoga ice….
Natalia Smirnova
The name "Road of Life", which the Leningraders gave to the ice track across Lake Ladoga, which began work on November 22, 1941, is not a poetic image. This was the only way that allowed besieged Leningrad to survive and even help the front, which received the weapons produced in the besieged city.
The road began to operate in the days when food standards in the city were reduced to the tragic 250 grams of bread per day for workers and 125 grams for everyone else, people began to die of hunger in thousands. The soldiers on the front line received 500 g of bread each. But even to maintain these norms, at least a thousand tons of food were required daily.
The construction of an ice road through Ladoga is an absolutely grandiose and daring idea even for peacetime, especially considering that in 1941 Ladoga was not sufficiently explored, including its ice regime
Sergey Kurnosov
Director of the State Memorial Museum of Defense and Siege of Leningrad
To save the city and help the front, it was necessary to do the incredible: to create from scratch an entire infrastructure that was supposed to operate uninterruptedly throughout the winter, solving many problems. Such a project seemed difficult even for peacetime. In fact, this was a victory of science, and above all physics, over Hitler's tactics, which used hunger as a means of waging war.
“The construction of an ice road across Ladoga is an absolutely grandiose and daring idea even for peacetime, especially considering that in 1941, Ladoga was not sufficiently explored, including its ice regime. The largest lake in Europe is generally very changeable and has always difficult in all respects, including for shipping, "says Sergei Kurnosov, director of the State Memorial Museum of Defense and Siege of Leningrad.
“The road of life is usually presented to the average person as a road on ice, along which one and a half lorries with flour go to Leningrad,” says Kurnosov. , and the Oranienbaum bridgehead, and the troops of the Leningrad Front, and the Red Banner Baltic Fleet. the time of navigation, when the lake was not covered with ice; this is a telephone and telegraph cable that provided communication with Moscow, and a high-voltage electric cable that made it possible to supply electricity to Leningrad from the Volkhovskaya hydroelectric power station - these cables ran along the bottom of Ladoga. along the bottom of Ladoga, supplying the city with fuel ".
Leningrad, as a metropolis, has never been and could not be self-sufficient in terms of food, the director of the museum emphasizes. It was self-sufficient only as a front city, because it could produce most of its military equipment itself.
When designing the Road of Life, the experience of the past was taken into account, when ice routes became a convenient crossing, sometimes more reliable and comfortable than the autumn-spring off-road, ice routes were also used for military purposes. “Was the Road of Life an urgent invention of blockaded Leningrad? Yes and no,” Kurnosov believes. “On the one hand, it was certainly an urgent invention. On the other hand, the idea of \u200b\u200bmoving on ice had existed for a long time. In St. Petersburg, even before the revolution movement on the ice of the Neva in winter was a common phenomenon. These roads completely replaced bridges. "
But all ice communications that preceded the Road of Life were short-term and were not designed for the huge traffic and human flow that went along the ice of Lake Ladoga in 1941–43.
Ice exploration
The idea of \u200b\u200ban ice track has been discussed in Leningrad since September 1941. "On September 24, AA Zhdanov, members of the Military Council of the Leningrad Front, were presented with materials in the form of maps and text on 34 sheets. Then we reported on the expected nature of freezing and the duration of the ice cover. On this day, in fact, the Ladoga Road of Life project was born." , - wrote in his memoirs the head of the ice service of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet, Mikhail Kazansky.
He played an important role in organizing the crossing of Ladoga. "Kazansky distinguished himself both as an organizer, and as a designer, and then as a pilot - both water and ice. He accompanied the ships during navigation and supervised the maintenance of the ice route. He had the nickname" Ice Grandfather ", and this" grandfather "at the time of the start of work The road of life was only 25 years old, "says Sergei Kurnosov.
A preliminary ice track between Kobona and Kokkarevo was laid on the basis of materials that were given by scientific research and interviews with fishermen - old-timers of Ladoga.
The first detachment of seven one and a half, each carrying seven sacks of flour, moved on ice no more than 15 cm thick. The drivers stood on the steps and in case of danger of the car falling under the ice they had to jump out. The detachment traveled about 20 km, but there was no further way - the ice ended, the ice began. The machines had to, after unloading the flour on the ice, return back
“To clarify the state of the ice along the routes of the planned routes began on November 12, - recalled Mikhail Kazansky. - Each step of the scouts was a step into the unknown.
On the night of November 16, the hydrographers harnessed to sledges and, with compasses, maps, lines (cables), descended on the sagging ice in the area of \u200b\u200bthe Osinovets flotilla base and first surveyed the route from Osinovets on the western bank of Ladoga to Kobona on the eastern bank.
Almost simultaneously with the sailors, 30 soldiers of the 88th separate bridge-building battalion carried out reconnaissance of this route. The detachment left Kokkarevo with a supply of poles, ropes and rescue equipment, accompanied by two experienced fishermen who served as guides.
The commander of one of the groups of this detachment, I. Smirnov, later recalled: "In camouflage coats, with weapons, hung with grenades, we had a warlike appearance, but peshns, sledges with poles, ropes, lifebuoys made us look like winterers of the Far North." The scouts moved one at a time, three to five paces from each other, and every 300-400 meters froze poles into the ice.
On the same day, by order of the authorized Military Council of the front, General A. Shilov, trucks with flour for Leningrad were sent across the lake in the western direction from the structure of a separate delivery company. The first detachment of seven one and a half (GAZ-AA), each carrying seven sacks of flour, moved north of the Zelentsy Islands on ice no more than 15 cm thick.
The drivers stood on the steps and in case of danger of the car falling under the ice they had to jump out. The detachment traveled from Kobona about 20 km, but there was no further way - the ice ended, the ice began. The machines had to return after unloading the flour onto the ice.
On November 19, a horse-drawn sled train of 350 teams left Kokkarevo. On November 21, he delivered 63 tons of flour to Osinovets, but his path was extremely difficult: in some places the carters unloaded bags of flour from the sleigh onto the ice, led the sledges empty, carried the flour on their hands and reloaded it into the sleigh.
It was obvious that starting traffic on thin November ice was extremely risky, but there was no way to wait.
Order No. 00172 "On the organization of a motor-tractor road through Lake Ladoga" was signed on the evening of November 19, 1941. Arrangement of the track, construction of infrastructure was to go in parallel with the launch of the ice road.
What is progibograph
The traffic rules on the Road of Life were developed not at the State Traffic Inspectorate, but at the Leningrad Physicotechnical Institute (Physico-Technical Institute, Physico-Technical Institute, USSR Academy of Sciences). The possibilities of Ladoga ice as a road surface were investigated by a group of physicist scientists led by Peter Kobeko. Physicists determined how the ice cover on the lake was deformed under the influence of static loads of various magnitudes, what fluctuations occurred in it under the influence of wind and changes in surging water levels, calculated ice wear on the routes and the conditions for its break.
For the automatic recording of ice vibrations, the physicist Naum Reinov invented a special device - a defibograph. He could register ice fluctuations in the time interval from 0.1 second to a day. With its help, it was possible to determine the reason why about a hundred trucks went under the ice in the first weeks of the Roads of Life operation: the problem was in the resonance that arose when the speed of the car coincided with the speed of the Ladoga wave under the ice.
The traffic rules on the Road of Life were developed not at the State Traffic Inspectorate, but at the Leningrad Physics and Technology Institute. For the automatic recording of ice vibrations, the physicist Naum Reinov invented a special device - a defibograph. With his help, it was possible to determine the reason why in the first weeks of work the roads went under the ice about a hundred trucks.
The effect was also exerted by the wave reflected from the coast and the waves created by neighboring machines. This happened if the lorry was moving at a speed of 35 km / h. Scientists also did not recommend driving in columns and warned against overtaking on ice. When driving along parallel routes, the distance between the trucks had to be at least 70–80 m. Science help reduced losses, and the route was operated until April 24, 1942. The last cars passed through Ladoga with an ice thickness of only 10 cm.
Leningrad meteorologists made a special weather forecast for the winter of 1941–42 for Ladoga, constantly updated information on the regime of the lake, made detailed maps with reviews of ice conditions and a forecast of its development for two and ten days. The ice carrying capacity was determined anew several times a month; every ten days, hydrological bulletins were compiled with forecasts of the ice thickness: in the first blockade winter alone, it was measured more than 3640 times.
From horses to buses
The cargo turnover of the route Cape Osinovets - Zelentsy Islands with a fork into Kobona and Lavrovo was 4000 tons per day. The transshipment bases of the road were set up in Osinovets, Vaganovo, Kobon, Lavrovo and at the Ladozhskoe Ozero station. From November 22, pedestrian and horse-drawn traffic began on the road, from November 25 - automobile traffic. On November 26, 1941, by order on the rear of the Leningrad Front, the ice road was renamed Military Highway No. 101 (VAD-101).
“At first, sled carts were launched over the ice, because he could not stand the cars yet,” says Sergei Kurnosov. “Ice sufficient for the then motor transport to move on it had to be at least 20-30 cm thick. 19 November In 1941, a horse-drawn sled train set off to the eastern bank of Ladoga, which returned to Osinovets on November 21 with flour for Leningraders.In the evening of the same day, a specially formed reconnaissance convoy of ten empty one and a half lorries set off from Leningrad across Ladoga across the ice! 60 cars have already left, which have returned, delivering 33 tons of bread to Leningrad. This is how the Road of Life ice track began its work. Each of the cars-one and a half was loaded with only five or six bags of flour - they were afraid that the ice simply could not stand it anymore, it bent under the wheels from gravity. "
German shells and bombs left openings, which literally immediately covered with ice in the cold, the snow masked them, and sometimes it was absolutely impossible to detect them. They tried to pull out the failed cars. The cargo was also saved: the flour was transported to the Leningrad breweries, dried there and then used to bake bread
The ice track was only 12-15 km from the German positions, so there was a constant threat of an air raid or shelling. Shells, bombs left openings, which in such a frost literally immediately covered with ice, the snow masked them, and sometimes it was absolutely impossible to detect them. They tried to pull out the failed cars, but this was not always possible. They rescued not only cars, but also the cargo: the flour was transported to the Leningrad breweries, dried there and then used to bake bread.
The matter was complicated by the fact that the old railway between Osinovets and Leningrad was not ready to receive heavy traffic flows: before the war, it handled no more than one train a day, and now six or seven large trains. "There weren't even water towers on this road, and the locomotives had to be supplied with water manually; in addition, trees had to be cut down on the spot to supply the locomotives with raw and very bad fuel," wrote the British journalist Alexander Werth, who worked at USSR during the war and visiting Leningrad. - In fact, the ice path across Lake Ladoga began to work like a clock only at the end of January or even from February 10, 1942, after its serious reorganization. "
In January 1942, an evacuation was actively going on along the Road of Life. Passenger buses were used to transport people - there were more than a hundred of them.
Tanks without towers
During the two blockade winters, more than 1 million tons of cargo were transported along the ice road and about 1.5 million people were evacuated.
“According to various sources, from 16 to 18 thousand people worked on the highway,” says the historian Rostislav Lyubvin. “Sometimes Leningraders stayed until they could leave and worked there unaccounted for. The infrastructure was served by professional workers - loaders in warehouses, three auto repair plants: locksmiths , turners, blacksmiths, finally, among the chauffeurs were not only the military, but also chauffeurs from civilian enterprises. The rotation was great. "
"From November 1941 to April 1942 (152 days), about 4,000 vehicles served the ice road, not counting horse-drawn vehicles," notes Sergei Kurnosov. "Every fourth car did not return from the voyage, having fallen into a hole in the ice or being bombed or shelled." The technical condition of the cars during almost the entire first period of the track operation was extremely low. By March 1942, 1,577 damaged vehicles had been towed from Ladoga. There was a shortage of fuel, tools, spare parts and repair facilities.
Ports on the coast were being built very rapidly. “The Germans, having seized Shlisselburg, actually seized the entire port infrastructure on South Ladoga, because since the time of the Russian Empire it was Shlisselburg that was the main port in this part of the lake,” notes Sergey Kurnosov. “Fishing villages, where there was virtually no infrastructure, in a matter of weeks it was necessary to turn into two powerful ports: one on the western coast, in the area of \u200b\u200bthe Osinovetsky lighthouse, the other on the east, in the Kobona area. by the end of navigation in 1942, there were two huge lake ports, which separated 30-35 km. A quay front more than 8 km long was built. At the same time, up to 80 ships could moor to these quays - and all this was created from scratch to save the city and help the Leningrad front to survive. "
In total, more than 60 tracks have been built on the Road of Life. Some were intended for transporting equipment, the ammunition went along a different route, and in such a way that, in the event of an explosion, it would not damage neighboring vehicles. Separately, the wounded and children were taken out, cars with oil products also went separately, because in the event of an explosion it was a huge flame and, as a result, melted ice
Rostislav Lyubvin
“When the work of the road improved somewhat, the purpose of the routes was strictly defined,” says Lyubvin. “Some were intended for transporting equipment, the ammunition went along a different route, and in such a way that in the event of an explosion, the neighboring cars would not be damaged. The wounded and children were removed separately. , cars with oil products also went separately, because in the event of an explosion it was a huge flame and, as a result, melted ice. Everything was very thought out. "
“The road of life served not only to deliver foodstuffs to Leningrad,” notes Sergei Kurnosov. “On the return flight from the city, they carried products, including military products, which the Leningrad factories continued to produce under the blockade. Even KV tanks were transported across the ice. in 1941 they were made only in Leningrad. To transport them, the tower was removed from the tank, thus reducing the area of \u200b\u200bpressure on the ice, and the tank, following its own power on the ice of Ladoga, towed its tower on a sleigh. "
Also, mortars, artillery pieces, including those that were needed in the battle for Moscow, were transported from the Leningrad factories along Ladoga. Equipment and valuables that were not evacuated before the blockade were taken from Leningrad to the rear.
The approaches to the Road of Life from Kobona were defended by the 1st Rifle Division of the NKVD, which defended Shlisselburg until September 8, and from Osinovets by the 20th NKVD Division, which in October 1941 fought on the "Nevsky Pyatachka". "The forces of sailors were brought up here, some of the seamen-artillerymen were transferred to ground units to service the artillery and anti-aircraft batteries that were installed along the route," says Rostislav Lyubvin. "Huge forces of sappers constantly mined the approaches from the Shlisselburg side." Aviation of the Leningrad Front covered the road of life. From December 1941 to March 1942, the pilots flew more than 6,000 sorties.
“The losses, especially at first, were very large,” says an employee of the Police Museum. “In 1965, a group of divers in honor of the 20th anniversary of the Victory passed along the bottom of the lake, along the Road of Life. They said that they were actually walking on the roofs of cars.”
Mikhail Kazansky compared the Road of Life with a sea passage: “The crossing of troops across ice bridgeheads at night, without seeing the shores, or in the daytime, in fog and blizzard, can be compared with pilotage of ships in pitch darkness, when beacons do not work and there are no navigational aids at all. will become more complete if we take into account that the wind blew the columns on the ice, like the ships, away from the laid course. More than once I had to see how the infantry battle formations drift on slippery, as if polished ice, like a crazy wind, tearing out individual fighters, drove these "living sails" to minefields, like a spinning top and overturned cars. Not every transition ended happily. "
NKVD on the Road of Life: Against Traffic Jams and Crime
A consolidated detachment of the Leningrad regional police department worked at VAD-101. Task forces were located on the line, at transport stops and at loading and unloading bases. At the beginning of the work of the Road of Life, traffic jams appeared in its individual sections - this problem was solved by December 26.
“This was inevitable, because no one had ever built such a highway, never worked on it, especially since in the first days there was only one highway, and there was traffic on it in both directions. Drivers left the Ladoga highway, having already driven almost 300 km along a country road from the village of Zaborie in the Tikhvin region, - explains Rostislav Lyubvin. - When Tikhvin was recaptured, the warehouses moved mainly to the Pella region, the path was reduced to 40 km, it became easier, and people came less exhausted. "
The police officers provided technical assistance to the drivers. “We met a lot of workers on the Road of Life,” recalls Lyubvin. “I then asked what kind of technical assistance, and one veteran told me: you take a wrench and you climb under the car to turn the nuts, help the driver restore the car, and when you overload you become more and a loader. "
During the first winter of operation of the ice track, the police revealed 589 aimless downtime of cars. “The police worked in principle and found out why the driver was standing for no reason where it was not supposed to stand, and everything could have ended in a tribunal,” says a specialist at the Police Museum. Fighting theft on the Road of Life, by the end of March 1942, the police seized 33.4 tons of food from criminals, including 23 tons of flour. 586 military personnel and 232 civilians were prosecuted. There were also facts when drivers were involved in taking money and valuables from people evacuated from Leningrad.
The road of life continued to operate in the winter of 1942-43, when it was used not only to provide the city, but also in the preparation of the offensive of the Red Army to break the blockade. “This is the infrastructure, which was the only military-strategic communication line of besieged Leningrad until the laying of the so-called Victory Road in late January - early February 1943 along a narrow section along the southern bank of Ladoga after the blockade of Leningrad was broken,” emphasizes Sergei Kurnosov. The road of life operated in one way or another until 1944, helping to supply the city. "
Julia Andreeva, Ekaterina Andreeva, Ivan Skirtach