Lake Ladoga during the war is the road of life. "Road of Life" across Lake Ladoga: historical facts

"THE ROAD OF LIFE"

… “Bread came to us along the road of life,

dear friendship of many to many.

They don't know on earth yet

more terrible and joyful than the road...

O. Berggolts " Leningrad poem"

Target: To foster patriotism, a sense of pride in one’s Motherland, gratitude and respect for its defenders during the war.

Tasks:

Expand children's knowledge about the heroic exploits of the Russian people.

Tell children about the lives of adults and children during the difficult days of the siege.

Develop qualities such as compassion and empathy.

Remind students about the price of bread.

Introduce the works of poets who wrote about Siege Leningrad.

Progress of the event:

Educator: There are different roads - highways, city, village, broken and well-groomed, there are racing and ring roads, but there was and is one road, the price of which is the life of Leningraders, and it is impossible not to remember it.

In September 1941, a ring closed over the city of Leningrad blockade almost 900 days and nights long. This is a time of pain and suffering, courage and dedication of many residents of this city- children, women, old people who found themselves in the ring blockades

Who can say what the word military blockade means?

Children's answers.

Guys, can you name the exact number of days of the Leningrad Siege?

Children's answers.

Educator: The beginning of the blockade is considered to be September 8, 1941, when communication between Leningrad and the entire country was interrupted. The situation was further complicated by the fact that since the beginning of the war, Leningrad was flooded with at least 300,000 refugees from the Baltic republics and neighboring Russian regions.

In October, city residents felt a clear shortage of food, and in November real famine began in Leningrad. First, the first cases of loss of consciousness from hunger on the streets and at work, cases of death from exhaustion, and then the first cases of cannibalism were noted.

Guys, do you know what cannibalism is?

Children's answers.

Educator: Under the blockade, the only possible transport communication connecting Leningrad with the rear, not counting the air route, was Ladoga.

Transportation was entrusted to the Ladoga Military Flotilla and the North-Western River Shipping Company. On September 12, 1941, two barges arrived at the piers of Cape Osinovets from the eastern shore of Lake Ladoga, delivering 626 tons of grain and 116 tons of flour. This is how the blockade “artery” of Leningrad began to operate, which the people called the Road of Life.

From September 12 to November 15, when navigation officially ended, 24,097 tons of grain, flour and cereals, more than 1,130 tons of meat and dairy products and other cargo were delivered across Ladoga. The amount of food brought across Ladoga was the city's 20-day requirement.

33,479 people were evacuated from Leningrad by water. Each voyage across the lake was a feat. Autumn storms on Ladoga made navigation impossible. Enemy aircraft, which often attacked transport ships and piers, posed a serious danger to ship traffic. And only thanks to the skill and courage of the teams, the ships made voyages throughout the entire navigation. With the onset of freeze-up, transportation by water ceased.

Guys, can anyone explain what freezing is?

Children's answers.

Educator: Preparations have begun for the construction of a winter road on the ice of Lake Ladoga.

And people in Leningrad lived in houses destroyed by bombing, without light, heat and food.

It was difficult for adults, but even more difficult for children. They very quickly realized what was happening: why dad wasn’t there, why mom often cries, why you always want to eat, why you have to run to the bomb shelter when the siren screeches.

The most delicious and sweet thing for them was not candy, but a tiny piece of bread.

A student reads a poemLidia Khyamelyanina “Siege Bread”:

"I remember the bread of the blockade years,

Which they gave us in the orphanage.

He was not born out of torment - out of our troubles,

And what didn’t they put in it then!

The bread had chaff, tops and tops,

With bark. It’s so prickly that it cuts your gums.

Heavy, bitter - with pine needles, quinoa,

On holiday, very rarely - just clean.

But the worst famine was when

We didn’t receive bread for two or three days.

We understood that war is a disaster,

But every day they waited with hope for bread.

We starved not for days, but for years.

We dreamed of eating our fill at least once.

Whoever saw it will never forget,

How the children died of hunger"

Educator: Guys, look at this little piece of black bread. It was practically the only food product. In November-December 1941, a worker could receive only 250 grams of bread per day, and employees, children and the elderly - only 125 grams.

Bread was given out on cards with a stern inscription:“If lost, it cannot be renewed”. She was the most valuable.

Educator:

• By November 17, the ice thickness reached 100 mm, which was
  not enough to open the movement. Everyone was waiting for frost. Horse transport, cars, tractors were prepared for the transportation of goods. Road workers measured the thickness of the ice on the entire lake every day, but were unable to speed up its growth.
• On November 20, the ice thickness reached 180 mm. Horse-drawn carts came out onto the ice.
• On November 22, the long-awaited day came when the cars took to the ice. Observing intervals, at low speed, they followed the tracks of the horses to collect the cargo.
• It seemed that the worst was now behind us, we could breathe more freely. But the harsh reality overturned all calculations and hopes for a quick improvement in the nutrition of the population.
• On November 22, the convoy returned, leaving 33 tons of food in the city. The next day, only 19 tons were delivered.
  Such a small amount of food delivered was due to the fragility of the ice; two-ton trucks carried 2-3 bags each, and even with such caution, several vehicles sank. Later, sleds began to be attached to trucks; this method made it possible to reduce the pressure on the ice and increase the amount of cargo.

Thus was born the now famous ice track, which was called Military Highway No. 101.

Educator: Autumn-winter 1941-1942 - the most terrible time of the blockade. Early winter brought with it cold - there was no heating or hot water, and Leningraders began to burn furniture, books, and dismantle wooden buildings for firewood. Thousands of people died from dystrophy and cold. But Leningraders continued to work - administrative institutions, printing houses, clinics, kindergartens, theaters, a public library were working, scientists continued to work. 13-14 year old teenagers worked at the factories, replacing their fathers who had gone to the front.

Please raise your hands, who is 13-14 years old now?

Educator: That is, this is the age that many of you are at the moment. Can you imagine yourself in their place?

Children's answers.

About the event of those daysRussian Soviet poetess, prose writer OlgaBergholtz in his work"Leningrad Poem" wrote:

Yes, we will not hide: these days

we ate dirt, glue, belts;

but, having eaten the soup from the belts,

the stubborn master stood up to the machine,

to sharpen gun parts,

necessary for war.

Educator: Guys, have you heard of this poetess before?

Children's answers.

Olga Berggolts is calledIN THE VOICE OF BLOCKETED LENINGRAD, sheworked in besieged Leningrad on the radioand almost daily appealed to the courage of the city residents.At this time, she created her best poems and poems, such as: “February Diary”, “Leningrad Poem” and many others dedicated to the defenders of Leningrad.

Let's listen to an excerpt from her poem“I’m talking to you under the whistling of shells...”, which will be read to us by ……………………………………………………………………………………….

Pupil:

...I say: us, citizens of Leningrad,
the roar of cannonades will not shake,
and if tomorrow there are barricades -
we will not leave our barricades...
And women and fighters will stand next to each other,
and the children will bring us cartridges,
and they will bloom over all of us
ancient banners of Petrograd...

Educator: I ask you to listen to another excerpt from Olga Berggolts’s work “The Leningrad Poem”, which will tell us very vividly about the events of those days, and read it ……………………………………………………… ……………………………….

Oh yes - and at the beginning

neither those fighters, nor those drivers,

when the trucks were driving

across the lake to the hungry city.

Cold even light of the moon,

the snow shines frantically,

and from the glass height

clearly visible to the enemy

columns running below.

And the sky howls, howls,

and the air whistles and grinds,

breaking ice under bombs,

and the lake splashes into funnels.

But enemy bombing is worse

even more painful and angry -

forty degree cold,

ruler on earth.

It seemed that the sun would not rise.

Forever night in the frozen stars,

forever lunar snow and ice,

and blue whistling air.

It seemed like the end of the earth...

But through the cooled planet

The cars were heading to Leningrad:

he's still alive. He's nearby somewhere.

To Leningrad, to Leningrad!

There was enough bread left for two days,

there are mothers under the dark sky

standing in a crowd at the bakery,

and tremble, and are silent, and wait,

listen anxiously:

They said they would deliver it by dawn...

Citizens, you can hold on...-

And it was like this: all the way

The rear car sank.

The driver jumped up, the driver was on the ice.

Well, that’s right - the engine is stuck.

A five-minute repair is nothing.

This breakdown is not a threat,

Yes, there’s no way to straighten your arms:

they were frozen on the steering wheel.

If you straighten it out a little, it will bring it together again.

Stand? What about bread? Should I wait for others?

And bread - two tons? He will save

sixteen thousand Leningraders.-

And now - he has his hands in gasoline

wetted them, set them on fire from the engine,

and repairs moved quickly

in the flaming hands of the driver.

Forward! How the blisters ache

palms frozen to the mittens.

But he will deliver the bread, bring it

to the bakery before dawn.

Sixteen thousand mothers

rations will be received at dawn -

one hundred twenty-five blockade grams

with fire and blood in half.

Oh, we learned in December -

It’s not for nothing that it’s called a “sacred gift”

ordinary bread, and grave sin -

at least throw a crumb on the ground:

such human suffering is he,

such great brotherly love

is now sanctified for us,

our daily bread, Leningrad.

Educator: In early December, the ice became stronger, and three-ton ZIS-5 vehicles were launched onto the track; The drivers were already driving without fear of ice failures.

Despite frosts and snowstorms, enemy artillery fire and air strikes, the movement of freight vehicles did not stop for almost a single day.If on November 25, 70 tons of food were delivered to the city, then a month later it was already 800 tons,which made it possible, from December 25, for the first time during the blockade, to slightly increase the bread ration - for workers - by 100 grams, for others - by 75.

The ice road worked until the last opportunity. In mid-April, the air temperature began to rise to 12 - 15° and the ice cover of the lake began to quickly collapse. A large amount of water accumulated on the surface of the ice. For a whole week - from April 15 to 21 - the vehicles walked through solid water, in some places up to 45 cm deep. On the last trips, the vehicles did not reach the shore and carried the loads by hand. Further movement on the ice became dangerous, and on April 21 the Ladoga Ice Route was officially closed, but in fact it functioned until April 24, as some drivers, despite the order to close the route, continued to travel on Ladoga. When the lake began to open up and the movement of cars along the highway stopped.

Road of Life - pulsebesieged Leningrad A . In summer there is a water route, and in winter there is an ice route connecting Leningrad with the “mainland” along Lake Ladoga. The Germans constantly sought to break this thread connecting the besieged city with the country, but thanks to the courage and fortitude of the Leningraders. The Road of Life lived itself and gave life to the great city.
The significance of the Ladoga highway is enormous; it has saved thousands of lives. Now on the shore of Lake Ladoga there is the Road of Life Museum.

Guys, who can tell me when he was released?the city of Leningrad from the enemy blockade?

Children's answers.

Radio announced: - JANUARY 27, 1944 DAY OF GREAT JOY! THE CITY OF LENINGRAD IS LIBERATED FROM THE ENEMY BLOCADE.

Let's remember, what date is today?

Today, January 27, the Russian Federation celebrates the Day of Military Glory of Russia - the Day of Lifting the Siege of the City of Leningrad.

The date is celebrated on the basis of the federal law “On Days of Military Glory and Memorable Dates of Russia” dated March 13, 1995.

Reflection:

Guys, I would like to ask you if you were interested in our hour of communication today?

Did you learn anything new?

Will your attitude towards bread change?

Children's answers.

Guys, thank you very much for your participation!

Appendix: presentation prepared on a documentary basis.

It would seem that everything is known about the Road of Life. However, the vast majority associate it only with the ice track along which semi-trucks travel. However, a pipeline was laid along the bottom of Lake Ladoga to supply the city with fuel and an electric cable, through which electricity was supplied to the city for machine tools of factories and Leningrad trams.
Four articles from their "Techniques of Youth" for 1946. Memories of the Blockade are still very fresh, and therefore all descriptions are devoid of additional ideological processing, especially since they were written by direct participants in the construction and operation of the arteries connecting Leningrad with the mainland.

Thanks for the scans of "Techniques of Youth" history http://gistory.livejournal.com/98042.html

This year we celebrate the first anniversary of the victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War. Now, when the broadest prospects for prosperity are opening up before us, embodied in the Law on the Five-Year Plan for the Restoration and Development of the National Economy of our Motherland,” I would like to look back at the examples of labor heroism of ordinary Soviet people during the war, and from them draw strength for further hard work on field of peaceful construction.

Winter 1942/43. The black ring of the blockade closed around the city of Lenin. Hunger, artillery shelling, and bombing hit the besieged city. The water froze, power plants and factories stopped. It seemed as if the very heart of the city had frozen. But its defenders knew: the “Main Land” will not leave them... will come... will help... And the “Main Land” extended powerful helping hands to the Leningraders through the iron ring of the blockade, over the cold surface of the Ladoga ice.
On snow-covered ice, several kilometers from the front line, thousands of trucks with food rushed into the city. Motorists brought life to an exhausted city along the icy road of life. The ice has melted. Pipes were laid along the bottom of the lake. The gas pipeline, like an underwater artery, fed the city with gasoline - the life-giving blood of cars. Power cables lay next to the gas pipeline. Electricity from the Volkhov hydroelectric station flowed into the wires of Leningrad. The city came to life. Using directional radio communication on ultrashort wolves, he communicated with the “Mainland”.
The technical feats of the Soviet people, the help to besieged Leningrad across Lake Ladoga are described in the articles “The Road of Life” by the head of the ice route, Lieutenant General A. M. Shilov, “The Underwater Artery” by the chief engineer of the construction of the gas pipeline A. Shalkevich and the articles “Energy Breakthrough of the Blockade”, "Directed Communication".

"The road of life"
Lieutenant General A. M. SHILOV
It was the Leningrad spring of 1942. The swollen Neva carried its waters to the bay. Warmed by the spring sun, people went out onto the granite embankments and watched the ice drift. The water was driving huge ice floes. Touched by the early sun, They have already begun to thaw and darkened on top.
Wide grooves were visible across one of the floating blocks, as if thousands of machines had rolled the once smooth surface of the ice.
“Look, this is a piece of the “Road of Life” floating,” people on the embankment said.
Who knows how many human lives were saved by this extraordinary road - a bridge between the besieged city and the “Mainland”, built by nature itself and the will of man. Warmed by the “spring sun, they float - the transparent ice spans of a giant bridge across the lake, which was not listed” on any map and melted away like an unforgettable fairy tale about human courage.

The Germans sent over 40 selected divisions to Leningrad in the fall of 1941. They were confident of an early victory. In a hurry, Goebbels' office fabricated a fake film - a parade of German troops at the Winter Palace, but they failed to take the city by storm. Hitler decided to suppress the city with hunger and cold. The motorized corps of General Schmidt rushed to Tikhvin with the goal of cutting off Leningrad from the “Mainland”. Now we will calmly wait until the city, like an overripe apple, falls into our hands, the Germans boasted.
But the city did not fall!
History knows many examples of besieged cities with a worldwide reputation: Troy, Carthage, Madrid, Warsaw, Paris, but the glory that fell to the city of Lenin overshadows everything else.
The city did not surrender, although it seemed to the Germans that all the conditions for this were present. Every autumn morning, a hundred Douglas aircraft landed at city airfields.” Food was unloaded from the planes. On the return flight, people got into cars to evacuate to the rear. At the same time, the city began to be supplied by ships, barges, and schooners across Lake Ladoga. The Germans were still clinging to its southern bank. In November frosts set in, and the ships, having broken through the ice, became firmly frozen at the western piers of Ladoga. Supplies stopped: the situation of the besieged became extremely difficult. It was necessary to take emergency measures. And they were accepted.
The Military Council of the Leningrad Front, on the initiative of Comrade Zhdanov, proposed to begin the construction of an ice road through Ladoga - a road that later became known as the “Road of Life.”
The use of ice for the transport of troops goes back to the deep historical times of Russia. In February 1710, under Peter I, Apraksin's corps, consisting of 12 thousand soldiers, successfully crossed the ice through the Gulf of Finland from the island of Kotlin to Vyborg.
In subsequent times, Russian troops repeatedly crossed to the Swedish coast through the Åland Islands.
During the Russian-Swedish War of 1809, the famous Barclay de Tolly led a column of 5 thousand people across the ice of the Gulf of Bothnia through the Kvarken Strait - an ice route over 100 kilometers long.
During the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, an ice crossing for trains was built across Lake Baikal. The trains moved on rails laid on frozen ice.
During the Civil War, there was an ice crossing across the Volga near Syzran, across the Kama near Taishet, and across the Irtysh near Omsk. The historically memorable suppression of the Kronstadt rebellion was also carried out on the ice of the Gulf of Finland.
Finally, in 1940, during the fight against the White Finns, the famous ice campaign of the 70th Order of Lenin Rifle Division across the Vyborg Bay was carried out. Artillery, tanks, and vehicles passed across the ice.

The Ladoga ice route cannot be compared with all these operations. And in terms of the scale of its transportation, and in terms of the duration of work, and in terms of natural and combat conditions, it was an exceptional structure.
Once upon a time, the ancient water route from the Varangians to the Greeks lay here. Ladoga was famous for its treacherous character, blizzards and storms. Its surface almost never completely froze, and besides all this, the ice road was covered by enemy artillery fire and bombed by enemy aircraft.
In the name of the life of an entire city with a population of millions, the Red Army had to overcome all difficulties.
People understood this. Comrade Zhdanov’s appeal to the workers of the military road said: “Dear comrades!.. On behalf of Leningrad and the front, I ask you to take into account that you have been assigned to a great and responsible task and are performing a task of paramount state and military importance.. Your work will not be forgotten by the Motherland and Leningrad never"
It turned out that, despite the abundance of literature on Lake Ladoga, ice conditions turned out to be almost unexamined and little studied.
But there was no time to wait - the route had to be laid.
As soon as the surface of the water became covered with a thin layer of ice, uneven from hummocking, we began an urgent study of the future route of the ice road.
First, an aerial photograph of the proposed direction of the highway was taken. Then reconnaissance groups went out on a raid from the eastern and western shores of the lake.
On the night of November 16, a group of young hydrographers - Baltic sailors - walked out on the ice, slightly covered with snow pollen, from the direction of Kobona. Overcoming ice hummocks, in some places on thin, cracked ice, they walked west, cutting holes every 10 minutes to measure the thickness of the ice. Having covered about 60 kilometers in two days, the scouts collected all the necessary information to draw up a detailed map.
Almost at the same time, a horseman crossed from the western shore to the eastern shore across the ice of the lake.
The first sleigh convoys passed through the still fragile ice of the lake to Leningrad. bread.
The ice track began to exist. On November 22, a convoy of one and a half ton vehicles set off from Leningrad to pick up cargo; 60 vehicles safely crossed the ice. The cars looked unusual heading back. Behind each truck, in the back of which there were only 5-6 bags of cargo, were towed a sleigh with the same luggage. This was done in order to distribute the load over the largest possible surface of the still thin and fragile ice.
The first timid steps paid off. On the night of November 28, 100 loaded cars left the eastern bank for Leningrad. They walked in a snowstorm and blizzard, but after a few hours they reached the opposite shore.
The ice track has become operational.
From the end of November to December 15, 1941, the construction of 27 kilometers of ice route and 34 kilometers of auxiliary branches lasted.
By January 6, the ice thickness reached one meter - not only heavy vehicles, but even heavy KV tanks could move along the road.

Thousands of cars worked around the clock on the icy highway. Neither air bombing, nor machine-gun fire from aircraft, nor artillery fire from the German-occupied shore could stop the continuous flow of vehicles bringing food to the besieged city and taking women and children away from the front line.
A thin thread of road connected the huge city with the entire country, which extended helping hands to it. This thread was stronger than steel.
On December 26, 1941, Leningrad residents began to receive increased bread rations.
For anyone who is not familiar with the organization of the military highway, it is difficult to even imagine the complexity of the work of this organism, full of equipment and people.
Imagine a road on which up to 4,500 vehicles must pass per day, moving at a speed of 35-40 kilometers per hour.
The vehicles need to be loaded, unloaded, filled with flammable water, and possibly repaired along the way. All this on the windy Ladoga ice. When the transparent surface of the road is suddenly cut by a crack, water appears from it. All this in snowy drifts, not covered by anything, and almost under the very nose of the enemy.
Which driver doesn’t remember the ninth kilometer of the road, where bridges had to be built at the crossroads under artillery fire from the shore?
But the ice road was created, mastered and turned into an ice highway, equipped with the latest automotive technology.
The road was designed for separate traffic - loaded cars walked along one line, and empty cars along the other, at a distance of 100-150 meters.
Road signs and inscriptions were installed along the entire route; every kilometer there are control posts; After 5 kilometers there are water intake points.
Along the route, here on the ice, technical assistance points for repair and maintenance of vehicles, heating and medical assistance points were organized.

At night, marine shkhetilen flashing lights every 100-200 meters indicated to the vehicles the direction of their movement.
Dozens of graders, anglers, and snowplows protected the route from snow drifts. Suffice it to say that 90 percent of all snow removal work. was mechanized, 30 crawler tractors worked for cleaning. Special bridges were immediately erected by road workers in places where cracks formed, over the craters of artillery shells and high-explosive bombs.
Services: regulation, road commandant, communications, sanitary, anti-aircraft defense and, finally, EPRON (for underwater work) - all of them were used to maintain the constant survivability of the route, to fight the enemy and nature.
And “The Road of Life” did not stop for a minute. Motorists knew: the cargo of each vehicle delivered to Leningrad would save the lives of thousands of people.
Thousands of sacks of flour and boxes of food were awaiting loading on the eastern shore of Ladoga.
The drivers showed miracles of dedication. There have been cases when drivers, without leaving the car for 48 hours, traveled over a thousand kilometers. Among them was the Siberian driver Efim Vasilyev.
They made four flights per shift, tying a bowler hat with a nut in it over their heads so that its noise would prevent them from falling asleep on the way.
Wounded as a result of enemy shelling, the drivers did not abandon the vehicles with the priceless cargo, like the driver Yerkman, who, bleeding and losing consciousness, saved the vehicle and the cargo.
Hundreds of cars were brought back to life by the repairmen of ice technical assistance points. They were placed on the ice in tents and ice houses. The name of the best repair foreman Yakov Moroz will long remain in the memory of the drivers who suffered an accident on the Ladoga ice.
Anti-aircraft gunners and fighter aircraft covered the road from enemy aircraft.
The ice route rested on the courage of the Soviet people, on their unflagging will to win.
Since November 23, 1941; Until April 21, 1942, the “Road of Life” existed. For over four months it hummed with continuous traffic.
Food, fodder, ammunition, fuel, coal, parcels with gifts, mail crossed the lake on a thirty-kilometer ice bridge.
But then April came. Water appeared on the icy surface of the road. At first there was not much of it, and cars rushed through the spring puddles, scattering light splashes. The water level continued to rise; in some places it reached 40-60 centimeters. The cars were now driving through the water like sea boats, cutting the water with their radiators. Sometimes water would already flood the engine—it would cough and stop.
It became impossible to drive.
The road is closed...
It was possible to sum up its existence.
Yes, it really was the “Road of Life”!
During its existence, over 354 thousand tons of various cargo were delivered to Leningrad. Of these, food alone amounts to 268 thousand tons.
During the same time, over 500 thousand people were evacuated from the city along the ice road.
To do this, vehicles had to travel over 41 million ton-kilometers. It is difficult to even imagine the majesty of this figure.
That is why Leningraders, looking at the spring ice floating along the Neva, filled their hearts with gratitude to the ordinary people who saved their lives by working on the cold ice of Ladoga.
During the Russian-Japanese War, an ice crossing for trains was established across Lake Baikal.

"Underwater artery"
Eng. A. FALKEVICH
Fuel is the lifeblood of machines, it is the lifeblood of military equipment and industry.
In the spring of 1942, when the ice began to smolder and it was no longer possible to deliver fuel to Leningrad along the ice route, there was a danger that the tanks, cars and other equipment in service with the troops of the Leningrad Front would be forced to stop.
The threat of shutdown also loomed over many Leningrad enterprises working for defense.
In this situation, in April 1942, the State Defense Committee decided to build an underwater pipeline along the bottom of Lake Ladoga. Gasoline from the eastern shore was supposed to flow into the besieged city through an underwater artery, unnoticed by the enemy.
The implementation of this bold decision was associated with enormous difficulties. Underwater pipelines of such length have never been built in the Union. Construction was supposed to take place only 5-6 kilometers from the front line, north of Shlisselburg. All materials and necessary equipment had to be found locally, in Leningrad. Finally, only 50 days were allotted for the construction of the gas pipeline.

The following scheme for the construction of a gasoline pipeline was developed: gasoline is transported by rail to a fuel warehouse located on the eastern shore of the lake and is pumped from railway tanks into tanks buried in the ground. From these tanks it enters a pumping station on which two high-pressure pumps are installed. Under a pressure of 12-15 atmospheres, gasoline is sent to a pipeline laid along the bottom of the lake. Coming out to the western shore of the lake, gasoline flows through an 8-kilometer-long pipeline laid in the ground to the nearest railway station. Not far from the station there is a fuel receiving warehouse, consisting of small vertical tanks and a loading rack to simultaneously refuel 10 railway tanks or 20 vehicles. The underwater pipeline consisted of seamless steel pipes 5-7 meters long, designed to pump liquid under high pressure. The wall thickness of the pipes was 7-8 millimeters, their internal diameter was 101 millimeters (4 inches). The pipeline's design capacity was 350 tons of gasoline per day.

The construction of the land part of the gas pipeline on both banks was a relatively simple task: a trench 1.2 meters deep was dug along the route line, the pipes were transported by vehicles or pulled by tractors along the route, after which they were laid in a thread and welded into sections 40-50 meters long. Welding on the route was carried out using mobile welding units consisting of an internal combustion engine and a welding generator. The so-called “rotary” method was used, in which during welding one or two assistants rotate the section. This method allows the welder to carry out the welding process in the most convenient position for him. At the end of welding, the sections were tied together by a tractor into a thread and welded together. Here, non-rotational welding was used, since it was no longer possible to rotate the sections being connected. After welding was completed, the pipeline was covered with a layer of bitumen insulation to protect against corrosion.
After laying it in the trench, it was tested with water at double the working pressure of 25 atmospheres.
The construction of the underwater part of the gas pipeline was more difficult.
Due to the fact that the pipes for construction came from Leningrad, all preparations for the construction of the underwater part of the gas pipeline were carried out on the western shore of the lake.
For this purpose, a flat sandy area was chosen. The pipes, delivered to the middle of the site, were laid out, assembled and welded into sections 200 meters long. The sections were placed one by one on a test rack made of wooden cages, which had a slope towards the water. On this rack, each section was tested for density under triple the operating pressure of 35 atmospheres. The density of the welds was tested with kerosene, which easily penetrates into the smallest pores of the metal. After testing, the sections were covered with bitumen insulation and laid on a 300-meter long descent path.
The track consisted of rotating rollers installed at a distance of 15 meters from each other. Three quarters of the launch path are on the shore, one quarter is in the water. Each meter of thick-walled pipe weighed 18 kilograms. When lowered into water, even with plugged ends, the pipes sank.
It was impossible to drag the pipes to the bottom; this would require a huge traction force, which the welds could not withstand. Therefore, it was decided to deliver the pipes to the laying site afloat, and to impart buoyancy, tie logs to them. A section of pipes along the launch path was pulled by a tractor 30-40 meters into the water; its head part was fixed to the pontoon. The logs were tied to the pipes with hemp rope. Further retraction of the pipeline sections into the water was carried out by a towing steamer and winches installed on special flat-bottomed barges - pontoon boats. The coastal shoals did not allow the steamer to come close to the shore, so the sections were moved to the required depth from barges, and only then the towing end of the section was placed on the steamer for further pulling it into the water.
After the two-hundred-meter section was completely pulled out from the descent track, the next section was welded to it on the shore. The junction of the two sections required increased strength. Therefore, the pipes were first welded by gas welding, then a coupling was pushed onto the joint, which was pushed down with hammer blows and welded to the pipe by electric arc welding. When the length of the resulting pipeline string reached 1-2 thousand meters, the end part of the last section was also fixed to the pontoon. The afloat string of pipeline was pulled along the route by a towing steamer. Here the head pontoon was anchored, and the end pontoon was brought closer to the previously brought lash. After this, using a winch, the ends of the joined pipes were aligned. The previously welded plugs were cut off, the pipes were clamped into a special conductor and welded on the pontoon using equipment installed on a special boat. After the seam cooled, the pipes were removed from the pontoons and immersed in water. Workers, moving in small boats along the route, cut off the ropes, and the pipeline smoothly lowered to the ground.
By building up one string after another, the entire underwater part of the gas pipeline was laid. 21,500 meters of the underwater part of the gas pipeline were laid in 15 days.
Upon completion of the installation, divers inspected the entire lake part of the gas pipeline and, using weights, secured the pipes every 50-100 meters to the ground. The coastal sections of the pipeline, in order to avoid damage by ice, were washed into the ground to a depth of half a meter using a hydraulic monitor.
An inspection carried out by divers showed that the entire length of the pipeline was laid on the ground without sagging, with smooth bends where the route turned.
The gasoline pipeline was tested by pumping water and kerosene. The water was pumped under a pressure of 16-18 atmospheres, and within 24 hours no defects were revealed. Then pumping of kerosene under a pressure of 20 atmospheres began. To identify possible defects, boats continuously cruised along the gas line route, from which they monitored the appearance of oil stains on the surface of the water. Careful observations over 72 hours showed that the pipeline did not have any defects and the kerosene, having traveled about 30 kilometers along the pipe, normally entered the receiving warehouse tanks. At the end of the tests, the government commission declared it possible to put the gas pipeline into operation, giving an excellent assessment of the work performed. The underwater artery has come into operation.
In a record short time - 41 days - directly at the front line, during daily bombing and artillery shelling, this underwater welded pipeline was built for the first time in the Union, providing Leningrad with fuel during the most difficult days of the siege.
The gas pipeline operated successfully for 20 months. 400-420 tons of gasoline entered the besieged city every day, passing under the very nose of the enemy.

"Energy breakthrough of the blockade"
Eng. F. VEITKOV
At the end of July 1942, a group of Lenenergo engineers, led by chief engineer Sergei Vasilyevich Usov, developed a bold and courageous plan to help Leningrad with electricity. Engineers Usov, Yezhov and Naumovsky proposed connecting the city with the Volkhov hydroelectric station, saved from the Germans, and receiving electrical energy from it. In those days, the electrical ration of blockaded Leningrad was very meager, and obtaining additional power of at least 10-20 thousand kWh per day was vital.
City power stations could not provide electricity: there was no coal, no peat. The enemy was in control of the regional power plants. The enemy destroyed the Dubrovsk power plant to the ground: the front line passed here for many months. Svirskaya and other hydroelectric power stations were cut off and were located behind enemy lines. At the Volkhov hydroelectric station, work was in full swing to restore two hydrogenerators.
The proposal of Lenenergo engineers was supported by city defense leaders.
On August 7, 1942, the Military Council of the Leningrad Front decided to build a power transmission line from the Volkhov hydroelectric station to Leningrad with a total length of more than 150 kilometers within two months. The middle part of the line was to be made with a cable laid along the bottom of Lake Ladoga. In addition, it was necessary to build three transformer substations.
A new power line had to be built under the nose of the enemy, who was continuously bombing work sites. The line was also unusual because it had to be built in 60 days - four times faster than it was supposed to be done in peacetime. Instead of the previous two lines with a voltage of 110 thousand volts, according to the technical capabilities of that time, it was necessary to transmit electricity from Volkhov along one line with a voltage of 65 thousand volts. It was necessary to lay 22 km of 10-kilovolt cable along the bottom of the lake. The line's builders had no experience in constructing a long power transmission consisting of three pieces: two overhead cables at the ends and a submarine cable in the middle.
To carry out a large volume of complex technical work, it was necessary to have many qualified cable and air handlers. But they were not in the Lenenergo system in those days. Some went to the front, others died or were evacuated.
It was very difficult for the builders and installers of the air sections of the Ladozhskaya line, who worked from the Volkhov and the western Leningrad coast. But the working conditions of the cable workers on Lake Ladoga were many times more difficult and stressful.
They worked only at night, without lighting the lights. Smoking was prohibited. The cable laying was carried out in the dark with a barge on cold autumn nights. To lay 22 km of cable, it was necessary to drag 55 cable coils onto barges, weighing 8-10 tons each. But these 600 tons of cable
made up only one thread, and to skip 15-20 THOUSAND. kW of power, it was necessary to lay 5 threads of cable with a total weight of more than 3 thousand tons. It was necessary to install up to 300 couplings to connect individual pieces of cable to each other, and
first separate the appropriate number of cable ends.

Young people worked valiantly alongside the older workers. Brave Leningrad girls and teenagers, among whom there were many Komsomol members, under the supervision of several experienced craftsmen, did a tremendous job of building the Volkhov-Leningrad line.
On September 23, 1942, a full 13 days ahead of schedule, this unusual power line went into operation.
On that memorable autumn day, the current of the firstborn of our electrification - the Volkhov hydroelectric station named after Lenin - by the will of Leningrad power engineers, broke through the enemy blockade. Along the life-giving artery, heroic Leningrad received electrical energy.
The Volkhov electricity received by the city breathed a new stream of vigor into its valiant defenders.
The energy workers kept a vigilant eye on the new line. They showed a lot of creativity and ingenuity to keep it running reliably. Particular attention was paid to the cable section. Difficult laying conditions and the discrepancy between the quality of the cable and the conditions of its operation (it was necessary to lay a high-quality marine cable, but there was none) sometimes made themselves felt. The onset of winter has further complicated the task of Leningrad power engineers.
Lake Ladoga was covered with a cover of thick ice.
The cable laid along the bottom of the lake now seemed to be walled up. The line's builders were tormented by doubts: “What if a hairline crack appears in one of the many connecting cable couplings and water begins to penetrate into the cable? What if there is a short circuit? How then to detect the damaged area and remove the damaged piece of cable, how to replace the defective coupling resting under a meter layer of ice?
A solution was found. On December 9, 1942, a new decision was made: to build an aerial “ice line” as soon as possible to replace the cable section of the line.
And, despite the fierce winter cold, hard work began again for brave energy workers.
But even now the seasoned installers were surprised by what they were doing. At first it seemed that the laws of electrical engineering, the strength of materials and long-standing installation rules were rejected. And only later, later, did they understand the creative significance of advanced science.
In fact, until this time, installers knew, for example, that power line supports must be installed either on a concrete foundation or in ordinary soil with horizontal support beams and with reliable backfill. Was it proposed to drill holes in the ice here? and freeze short pillars in them - stepsons, to which the legs and traverses of a flat U-shaped support can already be tilted. Ice was used as a reliable foundation.
The installers knew that in each power line, in addition to the usual intermediate supports, anchor supports must be installed every few kilometers. But among the 176 supports to be installed, there was not a single anchor one. They were replaced by conventional supports, reinforced with light steel braces.
The installers knew that the wires must be in special terminals so that the mechanical tension forces on the wires and the load on the supports would be within acceptable limits. Here the wires were placed on the rollers of simple double-ear clamps and secured along the entire line only in a few corner supports.
All this was new and unusual, but quite reliable.
As before, the enemy should not have learned the secrets of the “ice line”. It was necessary to secretly deliver many vehicles with scaffolding for supports to the work sites, it was necessary to transport bulky coils of linear and fastening wires, and finally, it was necessary to manage to build an almost 30-kilometer power transmission line in a short time.
And again the heroic team steadfastly overcame all difficulties. After 15 days, a new section of the line went into operation.
Days passed; and weeks. Everywhere, as if by agreement, tables stubbornly rose
mercury beads of thermometers. The ice of Ladoga, although it was melting, still supported the unusual power line. It is said that this was because the line itself, in turn, held together a large strip of lake ice.
Soon, polynyas appeared. Linemen returning from the line arrived wet to the waist. The reliability of the “ice line” has raised concerns. But the Leningrad power engineers did not waste time and did not sit idly by.
By March 21, 1943, the historical “ice line” on Lake Ladoga was completely dismantled, and a new coastline was already in the works, passing through territory recently cleared of the enemy.
Leningrad and the whole country defeated the Nazi invaders with increasing force.
Years will pass, but never; The glory of the brave power engineers - the builders of the Life Line on Ladoga during the Great Patriotic War - will not fade.

"Directed Communication".
V. MEDVEDEV

The connection between the multimillion-dollar besieged city and the “Great Land,” as the Leningraders then called their great homeland, was achieved through many means.
Along with the telephone and telegraph cable laid along the bottom of Lake Ladoga and conventional radio communications, the heroic defenders of the city managed to establish another type of communication, which played a big role in the defense of the city.
We are talking about a directed ultrashort wave line across Lake Ladoga.
In most cases, radio stations send their waves around them in all directions. In military conditions, this often allows the enemy to monitor transmissions, try to decipher them, or disrupt the operation of stations by creating special interference. In this case, ultrashort waves turn out to be very valuable, making it possible to transmit with a narrow directed beam. It is impossible for an enemy to eavesdrop on or interfere with such a transmission unless he is directly in the path of the directed beam.
As you know, the only enemy-free space connecting Leningrad with the country was Lake Ladoga.
A responsible and honorable task fell to the lot of the Leningrad electricians. They were tasked with building the necessary equipment for directed shortwave communications across the lake. This equipment was built under very difficult blockade conditions. The plant did not have all the necessary equipment, since much of it had already been evacuated to the interior of the country. People worked in cold rooms. There was no electricity.
Chief designer of the plant comrade. Spirov, who led this work, was not stopped by any difficulties. From an automobile gas-generating engine and a small dynamo, his own small power plant was built in a very short time. Several machines came to life. Parts were made with numb hands, transmitting and receiving equipment, complex dipole antennas and tall wooden The antennas were installed in the forest, not far from the shore, with the help of military units.
Despite all the difficulties, the work was completed successfully. In mid-1942, the first radio signals flew across the lake.
The communication line built between Leningrad and the “Mainland” had another important property. The fact is that a very high radio frequency allows such a line to be used many times. By modulating a high frequency with several lower ones, “multi-channel transmission” can be achieved. Modern communication technology widely uses this method in order to simultaneously transmit several telephone conversations over one line without interfering with each other. Thus, the besieged city, from the moment the directed ultra-short wave communication came into effect, received not one, but several communication channels. The huge city and the Red Army defending it needed many simultaneously operating lines.
The Germans could not interfere with the directional communications by any means. It is possible that for a long time they did not even suspect its existence. Well-camouflaged wooden masts with a row of short copper pipes located at the top were not detected by German aircraft.
Soon, directed shortwave communications were included in the centralized communication system of Leningrad with Moscow and other cities of the Union. She served well and uninterruptedly throughout the war.
Maybe some of the readers had to talk on the phone with Leningrad during its siege. Most likely, this conversation took place precisely through these radio stations, built and installed by Leningraders already during the blockade.

An IV placed on a seriously wounded soldier right on the front line will not be able to instantly heal him or magically protect him from shells and bullets; she just has to stop him from dying. The “Road of Life” played the same role for besieged Leningrad. During the severe blockade winter of 1941–1942, it was the work of the supply route on the ice of Lake Ladoga that saved the city from inevitable and terrible death. Leningrad had no alternatives to this path.

In any case, the German high command was not going to feed the civilians of the city; they were actually sentenced to starvation. And for the USSR, the loss of Leningrad meant an almost guaranteed defeat in the war.

Cars move along the melted “Road of Life”

Ladoga - threat and hope

It all started back in August 1941, when the Germans cut the last railway connecting Leningrad with the country. The Soviet command decided to evacuate civilians through Ladoga. This lake is known for its strong storms during bad weather. To ensure safety, ships with people had to go along the Staro- and Novoladoga canals, laid parallel to the southern shore of Lake Ladoga. However, on September 8, 1941, the Germans captured the city of Shlisselburg. The land blockade was finally closed, but there was no longer any possibility for water transport to move along the canals entering the Neva near Shlisselburg.

As a result, ships and vessels of the Ladoga military flotilla were forced to sail only on the lake. The route between Novaya Ladoga in the east and Osinovets Bay on the western, besieged coast of Lake Ladoga was short, about 60 kilometers, but extremely risky due to storms, not inferior in fury to those of the sea. In addition, they have not yet managed to equip beacons or mark the fairway here.

Nevertheless, the first barges arrived in Osinovets on September 12, 1941. And on the night of September 17, one of the largest disasters in the history of navigation on rivers and lakes occurred. Non-self-propelled barge No. 725, together with the tugboat Orel, was caught in a storm. According to various estimates, there were from 1200 to 1500 people there. Of these, the tug was able to save just over two hundred.

But there was no alternative to Ladoga. Already in September 1941, the food situation in Leningrad began to rapidly deteriorate. The besieged city needed 1,100 tons of flour alone daily. In the first fall of the siege, they were able to deliver barely half of this volume by water. Aviation could not transport more than 100 tons per day.

Delivering food and other essential goods to Leningrad, ships and planes not only evacuated civilians, but also transferred troops from the city to the east. About 20 thousand people transported as reinforcements during the October German offensive on Tikhvin and Volkhovstroy helped stop the enemy at the line east of these cities.

But Tikhvin himself still fell on November 9, 1941, and supplies of goods to Leningrad from the east by rail were interrupted. This put the supply of the besieged city at risk, and it was on the verge of destruction.

How they paved the “Road of Life”

By this time, the Soviet side was already working on a project to create a supply route across the ice of Lake Ladoga. There was already some experience in laying such roads, and the most recent and large-scale one was obtained literally a year before the events described, during the war with Finland. This was a rush of the Red Army across the ice of the Vyborg Bay. By the time Tikhvin fell, the first road projects already existed; it was a matter of implementation.

Horse-drawn train on the ice of Lake Ladoga

The northern, shallower part of Lake Ladoga froze faster. It was necessary to wait for this moment and conduct reconnaissance. This was done on November 15–18. Then a small convoy of seven cars tried to pass from the eastern shore of the lake, but failed. The same thing happened with the second column. And only the reconnaissance of the 88th bridge-building battalion, after spending a whole day on the ice, managed to find a way on November 18 from the port of Osinovets on the “Leningrad” side of Lake Ladoga to the village of Kobona on the eastern shore. The ice track has turned from an idea into a tangible fact. For the first few days, horse-drawn convoys were supposed to travel along it, and by the end of November - automobile convoys.

On November 21, 350 horse teams arrived in Osinovets, delivering the first 63 tons of flour to Leningraders. Thus, a thin thread stretched between Leningrad and the mainland, without which the city would not have survived the blockade. Officially, it was called military highway No. 102 (VAD-102). It was led by Major General of the Quartermaster Service Afanasy Mitrofanovich Shilov.

VAD-102 at work and in battle

Every kilogram delivered along the “Road of Life” cost a lot of effort and loss. Cars fell through and sank, they were destroyed by German aircraft, and the track itself had to be moved every now and then because the ice could not withstand the load. Transportation management established a special traffic regime in which the movement of vehicles would not overload the ice cover. Despite all the efforts, only in January 1942, during one day of work, “Road of Life” was able to deliver at least the minimum daily quota of flour.

The population was evacuated back from the city along the same route and troops continued to be transferred from Leningrad. And not only rifle units. In February 1942, the 124th Tank Brigade - several dozen heavy KVs - was driven across the ice of Ladoga. To be on the safe side, the turrets were removed from the tanks, thereby reducing their weight, and they were driven behind the combat vehicles on sleds.

Map "Roads of Life"

The Germans were categorically not happy with the existence of such a road right under their noses. Luftwaffe bombers bombed it from the very moment of its appearance, fighters hunted Soviet transport aircraft. When movement on the ice opened, enemy artillery began to “process” the route. The German command even prepared the 8th Panzer Division for a breakthrough across the ice to interrupt the supply of Leningrad. They failed to carry out this plan only because of the general offensive of the Soviet Volkhov and Leningrad fronts in January 1942.

Soviet troops defended the “Road of Life” from land and air. Here, the pilot of the 4th Guards Fighter Regiment Leonid Georgievich Belousov repeated the feat of Alexei Maresyev. His legs were frostbitten during the flight, gangrene set in, and they had to be amputated. Despite this, the pilot returned to duty at the end of 1944. He received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union only 13 years later.

In the summer and autumn of 1942, the enemy transferred Italian torpedo boats and armed German Siebel catamaran ferries to Ladoga. In October, the Germans launched a major operation against the island of Suho, located next to the route. The Soviet garrison fought back with the help of the Ladoga flotilla.

In summer, the route along Ladoga became exclusively water

Leningrad was already ready for the second blockade winter. The supply along Lake Ladoga functioned properly, and the operation of the route provided conditions for several major offensive operations of the Leningrad Front. By the winter of 1942–1943, several projects for organizing traffic on ice had appeared. Among them was such a risky one as the construction of a trolleybus line. It was because of the risk that this project was rejected. Instead, it was decided to build a railway bridge across Ladoga. But this idea was not implemented.

On January 18, 1943, Soviet troops broke the blockade of Leningrad. And although traffic along the “Road of Life” continued until March, the main load was taken on by a new artery - the railway “Road of Victory”, built in a record 17 days.

The material was republished from the portal worldoftanks.ru as part of a partnership.

Sources:

1. Kovalchuk V. M. Leningrad and the “Big Land”. History of Ladoga communication of blockaded Leningrad. L., 1975.
2. Battle for Leningrad // Ed. S. P. Platonova. M., 1964.
3. Tsybulsky I., Chechin O. Soldiers of Ladoga. M., 1977.
4. Dear Ladoga // Comp. Z. G. Rusakov. L., 1969.
5. Documents of the 28th Army Corps of the 18th Army from the NARA collection.

On this day, November 22, 75 years ago, the automobile Road of Life began operating, connecting besieged Leningrad with the mainland.

As a result of the unsuccessful start of the war for the USSR and subsequent battles, German and Finnish troops surrounded the Soviet troops defending Leningrad in early September 1941. In addition to the troops, the entire civilian population of the city was surrounded by the blockade. To supply them, it was necessary to arrange the delivery of goods, which could be done either with the help of aviation, or by delivering goods by water - through Lake Ladoga to the coast of Ladoga, controlled by blockaded Soviet troops. The air bridge to Leningrad was established, but it could not fully satisfy transportation needs. The development of the water route began.

To supply Leningrad, in addition to aviation, there remained the possibility of delivering goods by water transport - through Ladoga to the unequipped southwestern coast, held by surrounded troops. From Leningrad to the coast of Ladoga there was both a railway and a road, but in order to receive a large number of cargoes it was necessary to expand the coastal railway stations, build berths and dig approach fairways to them. The need to begin work on the Ladoga coast was stated in the GKO decree of August 30, 1941. The following were chosen to receive ships: Osinovets Bay, fenced by a 400-meter dilapidated stone pier, 1.5 km from the Ladoga Lake railway station; Goltsman Bay, located 3 km from the same station; and Morier Bay, located to the north, which had an overpass for one ship. Four dredgers were used in the construction of the ports. The deadlines for delivery of the berths were set as follows: by September 12 for receiving one vessel, by September 18 for simultaneous reception of five, by September 25 - 12 vessels. By the end of September, warehouses, a narrow gauge railway connecting the berths with the main railway, 2 berths with depths on approaches of 2.5 m in Osinovets, 2 berths with depths of 2.5 m and 1.7 m in Holtzman harbor and a protective dam were built in Morier Bay.

In September, the North-Western River Shipping Company had 5 lake and 72 river tugs, 29 lake and about 100 river barges on the Volkhov and Ladoga. Cargoes to Leningrad were sent along the following route. After arriving by rail at the Volkhov station, the wagons went to the pier in Gostinopolye, where the cargo was loaded onto barges. River tugs delivered barges along the Volkhov through the Volkhov Lock to Novaya Ladoga, where some of them were loaded, and from there they were towed to Osinovets for 14-18 hours by lake tugs or ships of the military flotilla. At its berths, cargo was reloaded onto a narrow-gauge railway, transported several hundred meters to the Irinovskaya branch of the Oktyabrskaya Railway, from where, after reloading, it went directly to Leningrad.
Management of all water transportation from Novaya Ladoga to Shlisselburg and Leningrad from September 3, 1941 was entrusted to the Ladoga Military Flotilla, previously the North-Western Shipping Company was included in its composition, and on September 30 a transportation commissioner was appointed - Major General A.M. Shilov , who led the entire route, including the ports. To cover the route, the Osinovetsky air defense brigade area was created, consisting of three divisions on the western bank of Ladoga (Major General of Artillery S.E. Prokhorov), the Svirsky air defense brigade area, consisting of five divisions, covered the route on the eastern bank. In total, they included 76 85-mm, 69 76-mm, 39 37-mm anti-aircraft guns, 75 anti-aircraft machine guns and 60 searchlights.
The first barges with cargo began to arrive in Osinovets starting on September 12. In total, about 20 thousand tons of cargo were delivered in September. During the transportation of goods, a number of barges were lost as a result of the Ladoga storms. On September 17 and 18, barges carrying people sank: one with 520 military personnel heading to Leningrad, 300 of whom were rescued, and the other with 300 evacuees, most of whom died. After these incidents, the transportation of people on barges stopped; they began to be transported only on self-propelled vessels.
Due to the fact that Volkhov freezes much earlier than Ladoga, at the end of October it was decided to transport cargo from Gostinopol, which also happened to be close to the front line, to Novaya Ladoga. Due to the onset of freeze-up, barges were no longer used for transportation on November 10; the automobile ice road began operating on November 22, but individual ships continued to deliver cargo until December 4.
In total, during the first navigation, 60 thousand tons of cargo were transported to Leningrad by water, including 45 thousand tons of food. 10.3 thousand tons of cargo were sent in the opposite direction, 33 thousand Leningraders were evacuated and about 20 thousand military personnel were transported.

In October, work began to prepare for the construction of an ice route across Lake Ladoga. Basically, the work consisted of summarizing scattered data on the ice regime of the lake, routing the road based on these data and calculating the costs of its construction. On November 13, the chief of logistics of the Leningrad Front, F.N. Lagunov, signed an order “On organizing the construction of an ice road along the water route Cape Osinovets - Kareji Lighthouse.” The road was supposed to be 10 m wide for two-way traffic, and feeding and heating points were to be built every 5 km. From November 15 to 19, 12 groups surveyed the established ice. The results showed that the route to Kareji has ice-free sections, but it is possible to construct a road through the Zelentsy Islands. On November 19, the commander of the Leningrad Front signed an order to organize a road and tractor road across Lake Ladoga. The automobile and tractor road with a daily cargo turnover of 4000 tons was supposed to pass along the route Cape Osinovets - Zelentsy Islands with a branch to Kobona and Lavrovo. Feeding and heating points were supposed to be provided every 7 km. For the operation and protection of the road and transshipment bases, a Road Administration was created, headed by engineer of the first rank V.G. Monakhov, which was subordinate to the chief of front rear services. On November 26, the ice road received the name military highway No. 101. On December 7, captain 2nd rank M.A. Nefedov was appointed head of the road instead of Monakhov. To maintain the road, including transshipment points, the Ice Road Administration was assigned military units numbering a total of 9 thousand people. Transportation through Ladoga was carried out by the 17th separate motor transport brigade, which was not subordinate to the ice route management. At the expense of the rear of the 54th Army, by November 22, it was ordered to organize supply routes along the Novaya Ladoga - Chernoushevo - Lemasar - Kobona highway with the opening of transshipment bases at the Voibokalo and Zhikharevo railway stations, as well as to ensure the delivery of goods to transshipment bases in Kobona and Lavrovo. The commissioner of the Leningrad Front, A. M. Shilov, was responsible for the delivery of goods to the eastern shore of the lake.

On the morning of November 20, a battalion of a horse-transport regiment, recently formed by the Leningrad Front, was sent to the eastern shore of Ladoga from Vaganovsky Spusk near the village of Kokkorevo. The battalion was a horse-drawn sleigh train of 350 teams. In the evening of the same day, the convoy reached Kobona, loaded itself with flour and set off at night on the return journey, arriving in Osinovets on November 21 with a load of 63 tons of flour. On the same day, several successful attempts were made to cross the lake in empty GAZ-AA vehicles. On November 22, a convoy was sent to the eastern bank under the control of the commander of the 389th separate motor transport battalion, Captain V.A. Porchunov, consisting of 60 vehicles with attached sleighs. Having loaded 70 tons of food on the eastern bank, the convoy set off back and arrived in Osinovets in the evening of the same day. In November, on average, a little more than 100 tons of cargo per day were delivered along the route; by the end of December, as the ice strengthened, it was already about 1000 tons.

Until December 15, the route through Ladoga ran in the direction of Kokkorevo - Astrechye Bank - Zelentsy Islands - Kobona. Due to the weakness of the ice during the initial period of operation of the road, its route had to be changed frequently. So, during the first month of using the ice road, its route changed four times. Two-way separate traffic was installed on the ice road, with lanes located at a distance of 100-150 m from each other. To prevent several cars from falling under the ice at once, the distance between cars in a convoy was at least 100 m. The road was served by 350 traffic controllers at 45, and from December 19 at 75 traffic control posts. An overhead communication line was laid along the ice road on poles frozen in the ice. As of December 25, the 17th OATBr included a total of 2,877 vehicles - 668 ZIS-5 and 2,209 GAZ-AA, of which only 1,198 were in operation. Of this number, 87 ZIS-5 fuel tankers were engaged only in fuel transportation, 511 vehicles with a total carrying capacity of 900 tons operated on the Tikhvin-Kolchanovo route, and 600 vehicles with a total carrying capacity of 900 tons operated on the Voybokalo-Kokkorevo ice section. By decree of the Leningrad Front, it was planned to release 1,500 vehicles on the ice road from January 5, 1942 (in conventional one and a half ton calculation), from January 15 - 1,700 and from February 1 - 2,000.

From December 10, 1941, in accordance with the resolution of the Military Council of the Leningrad Front, it was planned to begin evacuating residents along the winter road, bringing the number of evacuated population to 5 thousand people per day by December 20. On December 12, the Military Council ordered the evacuation to be postponed. However, from December 1941 to January 22, 1942, 36 thousand people were evacuated by march across Lake Ladoga and by unorganized vehicles. On January 22, 1942, the State Defense Committee adopted a resolution on the evacuation of 500 thousand residents of Leningrad. Evacuation points were organized along the route for removing people: at the Finlyandsky station in Leningrad, in Vaganovo, Zhikharevo and Volkhov.
In mid-January 1942, the 17th separate brigade was disbanded and its battalions were subordinated to the command of the military highway. As of January 20, it included: four road maintenance regiments with a total number of 5,335 people, two construction battalions - 1,042 people; nine separate motor transport battalions, motor battalions of the 8th, 23rd, 42nd, 55th armies, a convoy of the NKVD and a separate company of tankers - a total of 8032 people and more than 3400 trucks and special vehicles; two separate repair and restoration battalions - 452 people; three separate evacuation companies - 285 people; separate horse-drawn transport battalion - 1455 people and 952 horses; two separate work battalions (Syassky and Novo-Ladozhsky) - 1905 people; transshipment bases and military health facilities - about 200 people. In total there are about 19 thousand people and 4053 different vehicles. On February 20, the VAD included 15,168 people, 4,283 vehicles (including 3,632 vehicles from motor transport battalions), 136 tractors and 537 horses. On March 26, 1942, 16,168 people, 2,278 trucks (1,129 GAZ-AA and 1,149 ZIS-5, while only 1,103 vehicles were on the road), 163 tank trucks, 167 tractors and 428 horses were working on the road. April 20 - 12,656 people, 2,957 trucks and 348 special vehicles, 84 tractors, 241 horses. Until mid-January, the road management was located in Novaya Ladoga, then in Zhikharevo, and from March 7 in Kobon. From April 21, by order of the Leningrad Front, traffic on the ice road was closed, but some transportation took place until April 25.

The total amount of cargo transported to Leningrad along the Road of Life for the entire period of its operation amounted to over 1 million 615 thousand tons. During the same time, about 1 million 376 thousand people were evacuated from the city.

The name “Road of Life”, which Leningraders gave to the ice route 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 weapons produced in the besieged city.

The road began to operate in those days when food standards in the city were reduced to the tragic 250 g of bread per day for workers and 125 g for everyone else, people began to die of hunger in the thousands. Soldiers on the front line received 500 g of bread. But even to maintain these standards, 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 had not been sufficiently explored, including its ice regime

Sergey Kurnosov

Director of the State Memorial Museum of the Defense and Siege of Leningrad

To save the city and help the front, it was necessary to do the incredible: create an entire infrastructure from scratch, which had 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 warfare.

“The construction of an ice road through Ladoga is an absolutely grandiose and daring idea even for peacetime, especially considering that in 1941 Ladoga had not been sufficiently studied, including its ice regime. The largest lake in Europe generally has a very changeable character and has always been considered very complex in all respects, including for shipping,” notes Sergei Kurnosov, director of the State Memorial Museum of the Defense and Siege of Leningrad.

“The road of life is usually presented to the average person as a road on ice along which trucks and a half with flour go to Leningrad,” says Kurnosov. “But in fact it is a huge infrastructure created literally from scratch, which made it possible to supply both Leningrad and Kronstadt during the siege , and the Oranienbaum bridgehead, and the troops of the Leningrad Front, and the Red Banner Baltic Fleet. The Road of Life has many components: this is the “air bridge” with the mainland, and the Ladoga military flotilla, which protected Ladoga communications, and the North-Western River Shipping Company, which carried out transportation to the mainland. the time of navigation, when the lake was not covered with ice; this was a telephone and telegraph cable that provided communication with Moscow, and a high-voltage electrical cable that made it possible to supply electricity to Leningrad from the Volkhov hydroelectric station - these cables ran along the bottom of Ladoga. This is also a pipeline that also passed. along the bottom of Ladoga, supplying the city with fuel."

Leningrad, as a metropolis, has never been and could not be self-sufficient in food terms, the museum director emphasizes. It was self-sufficient only as a front city, because it could produce most of the military weapons 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 conditions; ice routes were also used for military purposes. “Was the Road of Life an urgent invention of blockaded Leningrad? Yes and no,” says Kurnosov. “On the one hand, it was certainly an urgent invention. On the other hand, the idea of ​​​​moving on ice 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 the ice communications that preceded the Road of Life were short-term and were not designed for the huge traffic and human flow that walked on the ice of Lake Ladoga in 1941–43.

Ice reconnaissance

The idea of ​​an ice route had been discussed in Leningrad since September 1941. “On September 24, A.A. 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 preservation of the ice cover. On this day, the project of the Ladoga Road of Life was actually born.” , - wrote the head of the ice service of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet, Mikhail Kazansky, in his memoirs.

He played a big 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 ships during navigation and supervised the maintenance of the ice route. He had the nickname Ice Grandfather, and this was the “grandfather” at the time he began work The road of life was only 25 years old,” notes Sergei Kurnosov.

A preliminary ice route between Kobona and Kokkorevo was laid on the basis of materials provided by scientific research and interviews with fishermen - old-timers of Ladoga.

The first detachment of seven lorries, each of which carried seven bags 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 through the ice, had to jump out. The detachment drove about 20 km, but there was no further way - the ice was ending and the ice hole was beginning. The machines had to unload the flour onto the ice and return

“We started to determine the condition of the ice along the routes of the planned routes on November 12,” recalled Mikhail Kazansky. “Every step the scouts took was a step into the unknown. Where the springy ice crust bent under the feet of the daredevils and cracked, they had to lie down and crawl.”

On the night of November 16, the hydrographers harnessed themselves to sleighs and, with compasses, maps, and lines (cables), descended onto the sagging ice in the area of ​​the Osinovets flotilla base and first examined the route from Osinovets on the western shore of Ladoga to Kobona on the eastern shore.

Almost simultaneously with the sailors, 30 soldiers of the 88th separate bridge-building battalion carried out reconnaissance of this route. The detachment left Kokkorevo 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 suits, with weapons, hung with grenades, we had a warlike appearance, but pickets, sleds with poles, ropes, life preservers made us look like winterers of the Far North.” The scouts moved one at a time, three to five steps apart from each other, and every 300–400 meters they froze pegs into the ice.

On the same day, by order of the authorized Military Council of the front, General A. Shilov, vehicles with flour were sent across the lake in a western direction from a separate supply company for Leningrad. The first detachment of seven lorries (GAZ-AA), each of which was carrying seven bags of flour, moved north of the Zelentsy Islands on ice no more than 15 cm thick.

Drivers stood on the steps and, in case of danger of the car falling through the ice, had to jump out. The detachment drove about 20 km from Kobona, but there was no further way - the ice was ending and an ice hole was beginning. The machines had to return after unloading the flour onto the ice.

On November 19, a horse-drawn convoy of 350 teams set off from Kokkorevo. On November 21, he delivered 63 tons of flour to Osinovets, but his route was extremely difficult: in some places, the drivers unloaded bags of flour from the sleigh onto the ice, led the teams empty, carried the flour in their hands and loaded it back into the sleigh.

It was obvious that starting automobile traffic on thin November ice was an extremely risky undertaking, but there was no way to wait.

Order No. 00172 “On the organization of a motor-tractor road across Lake Ladoga” was signed on the evening of November 19, 1941. The development of the route and the construction of infrastructure had to go in parallel with the launch of the ice road.

What is a deflexograph

The rules for driving along the Road of Life were developed not at the State Traffic Inspectorate, but at the Leningrad Physics and Technology Institute (Physico-Technical Institute, Physicotechnical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences). The possibilities of Ladoga ice as a road surface were studied by a group of Physics and Technology scientists led by Peter Kobeko. Physicists determined how the ice cover on the lake was deformed under the influence of static loads of different magnitudes, what fluctuations occurred in it under the influence of wind and changes in surge water levels, calculated the wear of ice on the routes and the conditions for its breaking.

To automatically record ice vibrations, Physics and Technology scientist Naum Reinov invented a special device - a deflexograph. He could record ice fluctuations over a time period from 0.1 seconds to a day. With its help, it was possible to determine the reason why, in the first weeks of the Roads of Life’s operation, about a hundred trucks went under the ice: the problem was the resonance that arose when the vehicle’s speed coincided with the speed of the Ladoga wave under the ice.

The rules for driving along the Road of Life were developed not at the State Traffic Inspectorate, but at the Leningrad Institute of Physics and Technology. To automatically record ice vibrations, Physics and Technology scientist Naum Reinov invented a special device - a deflexograph. With its help, it was possible to determine the reason why about a hundred trucks went under ice in the first weeks of operation.

The wave reflected from the shore and waves created by neighboring cars also had an influence. This happened if the lorry was moving at a speed of 35 km/h. Scientists also did not recommend driving cars in convoys and warned against overtaking on ice. When driving along parallel routes, the distance between trucks had to be at least 70–80 m. The help of science made it possible to reduce losses, and the route was operated until April 24, 1942. The last cars passed through Ladoga when the ice thickness was only 10 cm.

Leningrad meteorologists compiled a special weather forecast for Ladoga for the winter of 1941–42, constantly updated information on the lake regime, and compiled detailed maps with reviews of the ice situation and a forecast of its development for two and ten days. The carrying capacity of the ice was re-determined several times a month, and hydrological bulletins with forecasts of ice thickness were compiled every ten days: during the first winter of the blockade alone, it was measured more than 3,640 times.

From horses to buses

The cargo turnover of the route Cape Osinovets - Zelentsy Islands with a branch to Kobona and Lavrovo was determined to be 4000 tons per day. Transshipment bases for the road were established in Osinovets, Vaganovo, Kobon, Lavrovo and at the Ladozhskoye Ozero station. From November 22, pedestrian and horse-drawn traffic opened along the road, and from November 25, automobile traffic. On November 26, 1941, by order for the rear of the Leningrad Front, the ice road became known as Military Highway No. 101 (VAD-101).

“At first, sleigh convoys were launched on the ice, because it could not yet support cars,” says Sergei Kurnosov. “Ice, sufficient for the then automobile transport to move on it, had to be at least 20–30 cm thick. November 19 In 1941, a horse-drawn convoy went to the eastern shore of Ladoga, which returned to Osinovets on November 21 with flour for the Leningraders. On the evening of the same day, a specially formed reconnaissance column of ten empty lorries set off from Leningrad across Ladoga on November 22 towards Kobona! 60 cars had already left and returned, delivering 33 tons of bread to Leningrad. This is how the ice route of the Road of Life began its work. Each of the one and a half cars was loaded with only five or six bags of flour - they were afraid that the ice simply could not stand it, it was bending. under the wheels from gravity."

German shells and bombs left holes, which in the cold were literally immediately covered with ice, the snow masked them, and sometimes it was absolutely impossible to detect them. They tried to pull out the sunken cars. The cargo was also saved: the flour was transported to Leningrad breweries, dried there and then used for baking bread.

The ice route was only 12–15 km from the German positions, so there was always the threat of an air raid or shelling. Shells and bombs left holes that, in such frost, were literally immediately covered with ice, the snow masked them, and sometimes it was absolutely impossible to detect them. They tried to pull out the sunken cars, but this was not always possible. Not only the cars were saved, but also the cargo: the flour was taken to 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 intense cargo flows: before the war it handled no more than one train a day, but now it handled six or seven large trains. “There weren’t even water towers on this road, and water had to be supplied to the locomotives manually; in addition, trees had to be cut down right there on the spot to supply the locomotives with raw and very poor fuel,” wrote British journalist Alexander Werth, who worked in USSR during the war and visited Leningrad. “In fact, the ice route through Lake Ladoga began to work like clockwork only at the end of January or even from February 10, 1942, after its serious reorganization.”

In January 1942, evacuation was actively underway along the Road of Life. Passenger buses were used to transport people - there were more than a hundred of them.

Tanks without turrets

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 historian Rostislav Lyubvin. “Sometimes Leningraders stayed until they could leave, and worked there unaccounted for. The infrastructure was maintained by professional workers - loaders in warehouses, three auto repair plants: mechanics , turners, blacksmiths, and finally, among the drivers there were not only military personnel, but also drivers from civilian enterprises. The rotation was large."

“From November 1941 to April 1942 (152 days), the ice road was serviced by about 4,000 cars, not counting horse-drawn transport,” notes Sergei Kurnosov. “Every fourth car did not return from the trip, falling into the wormwood or coming under bombing or artillery fire.” The technical condition of the cars during almost the entire first period of operation of the track was extremely low. By March 1942, 1,577 damaged cars were towed from Ladoga. There was a shortage of fuel, tools, spare parts and repairs.

Ports on the coast were built at a very fast pace. “The Germans, having captured Shlisselburg, actually captured the entire port infrastructure on Southern Ladoga, because since the times of the Russian Empire, Shlisselburg was the main port in this part of the lake,” notes Sergei 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 shore, in the area of ​​​​the Osinovetsky lighthouse, the other - on the east, in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bKobona. A huge mooring front was built, new routes were built - and this was all done literally on the “mossy, swampy” banks. by the end of the navigation of 1942, there were two huge lake ports, which were separated by 30–35 km. A mooring front more than 8 km long was built. Up to 80 ships could moor at these berths at the same time - and all this was created from scratch to save the city and. to help the Leningrad Front survive."

In total, more than 60 trails were built on the Road of Life. Some were intended for transporting equipment; ammunition was transported along a different route, and in such a way that in the event of an explosion, neighboring vehicles would not be damaged. The wounded and children were transported separately, and vehicles with petroleum products were also transported separately, because in the event of an explosion there would be a huge flame and, as a result, melted ice

Rostislav Lyubvin

“When the work of the road somewhat improved, the purpose of the routes was strictly defined,” says Lubvin. “Some were intended for transporting equipment, ammunition went along another route, and in such a way that in the event of an explosion, neighboring cars would not be damaged. Separately, there was a removal of the wounded and children , cars with petroleum products were also transported separately, because in the event of an explosion there would be a huge flame and, as a result, melted ice. Everything was very well thought out.”

“The road of life served not only to deliver food to Leningrad,” notes Sergei Kurnosov. “The return flight from the city carried products, including military products, which Leningrad factories continued to produce during the blockade. Even KV tanks, which in 1941 they did it only in Leningrad. To transport them, the turret was removed from the tank, thus reducing the area of ​​pressure on the ice, and the tank, following its own power across the ice of Ladoga, towed its turret behind it on a sled.”

Also, mortars and artillery pieces, including those needed in the battle for Moscow, were transported from Leningrad factories across Ladoga. Equipment and valuables that had not been evacuated before the blockade were transported from Leningrad to the rear.

The approaches to the Road of Life from Kobona were defended by the 1st NKVD Rifle Division, which defended Shlisselburg until September 8, and from Osinovets by the 20th NKVD Division, which fought on the Nevsky Piglet in October 1941. “The forces of the sailors were brought here, some of the sailors-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 Shlisselburg.” Lenfront aviation covered the road to life. From December 1941 to March 1942, pilots flew more than 6,000 combat missions.

“The losses, especially at first, were very large,” states an employee of the Police Museum. “In 1965, a group of divers in honor of the 20th anniversary of the Victory walked along the bottom of the lake, along the Road of Life. They said that they actually walked on the roofs of cars.”

Mikhail Kazansky compared the Road of Life with a sea crossing: “Troop crossing across ice bridgeheads at night, without seeing the shores, or during the day, in fog and snowstorm, can be compared with pilotage of ships in pitch darkness, when lighthouses do not work and there are no navigation aids at all. Analogy It will become more complete if we take into account that the wind carried the columns on the ice, like the ships, away from the laid out course of travel. More than once we had to see how infantry battle formations drifted on slippery, as if polished ice, like a crazy wind, tearing out individual ones. fighters, drove these “living sails” into minefields, cars spun like a top and overturned. Not every transition ended happily.”

NKVD on the Road of Life: against traffic jams and crimes

A combined detachment of the Leningrad regional police department worked on VAD-101. The 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 arose in its individual sections - this problem was solved by December 26.

“This was inevitable, because no one had ever built such a highway or worked on it, especially since in the first days there was only one highway, and there was traffic in both directions. Drivers went to the Ladoga highway after having already driven almost 300 km along a country road from the village of Zaborye in the Tikhvin region,” explains Rostislav Lyubvin, “When Tikhvin was recaptured, the warehouses moved mainly to the Pella area, the journey was shortened to 40 km, it became easier, and people came not so exhausted.”

Police officers provided drivers with technical assistance. “We found 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 climb under the car to turn the nuts, help the driver restore the car, and when overloaded you become even and a loader."

During the first winter of operation of the ice track, the police identified 589 aimless vehicle downtimes. “The police worked on principle and found out why the driver was standing without any reason where he was not supposed to stand, and everything could have ended in court,” says a specialist from the Police Museum. Fighting thefts on the Road of Life, by the end of March 1942, the police had seized 33.4 tons of food from criminals, including 23 tons of flour. 586 military personnel and 232 civilians were brought to criminal liability. There were also cases when drivers were prosecuted for 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 supply the city, but also in preparation for the Red Army's offensive to break the blockade. “This is the infrastructure that was the only military-strategic line of communication of besieged Leningrad until the so-called Victory Road was laid in late January - early February 1943 along a narrow section along the southern shore of Ladoga after the breaking of the siege of Leningrad,” emphasizes Sergei Kurnosov. “In principle, The Road of Life operated one way or another until 1944, helping to supply the city."

Yulia Andreeva, Ekaterina Andreeva, Ivan Skirtach