The history of the road of life of Leningrad. The Road of Life - the pulse of besieged Leningrad

The siege of Leningrad lasted 872 days. During this time, more than one million people died from famine. After the end of World War II, the Nuremberg trials of Nazi and fascist criminals took place.

Representatives of the USSR brought charges against the commander of the German army group “North”, because of whose actions so many civilians of the besieged city died. General von Leeb was acquitted of this charge. At that time, there was no clause yet that would prohibit the use of hunger as a military strategy against civilians.

The survivors of the besieged city owe a lot to the appearance of the highway (“Road of Life”) through It. It made it possible to break the blockade ring, since due to its geographical location Leningrad is not able to survive without the supply of food.

Meaning of the laid path

The road operated from the autumn of 1941 to the spring of 1943. Her purpose was to connect besieged Leningrad (St. Petersburg) with the country. Officially, it was called Military Highway No. 101.

Since 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. Everything needed could be delivered by air or across the lake.

The “Road of Life” across Lake Ladoga made it possible to evacuate part of the population and partially provide the surviving people with food.

Freight transportation on ice

In October 1941, research began to build a route across 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 cars could move in both directions at the same time. Every 5-7 kilometers special heating points were built.

The direction of the road was chosen based on the presence of strong ice cover. It had to withstand heavy loads. The main one was the GAZ-AA, popularly called a “lorry”. In order to prevent massive falls through the ice, there had to be a distance of at least 100 meters between cars. At the same time, a railway line was being built across the lake.

The created “Road of Life” (Leningrad) passed close to the front line; it required protection, which was provided by military units. The ice section of the road had two defensive lines created using wooden logs and sandbags, which were frozen with ice. Small-caliber artillery guns were installed every one or two kilometers and every three kilometers. The highway was defended from the air 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. Basically it was 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.

Cargo transportation by water

With the melting of the ice, the road through did not cease to exist. Since the spring of 1942, transportation on ice was replaced by navigation by water. However, with ice still remaining in some areas, there was a full month between shipments across the lake. In April, it was no longer possible to transport cargo on ice, and barges were able to travel 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 condition. They decided to build the barges on site. The site for the work was the pulp and paper mill in Syasstroy. At the same time, the construction of metal ships began in Leningrad itself, which were transported for final assembly by rail.

Anti-aircraft artillery divisions and fighter air regiments were responsible for guarding the route. They had to fight the forces of the German-Finnish-Italian flotilla.

In 1942, about 400 thousand residents were evacuated by water, and 350 thousand tons of food were delivered. At the same time, 290 thousand military personnel were delivered to the city. In addition to food and petroleum products, horses were also delivered to the city.

Since April 1943, cargo transportation across the lake continued. Although their number has decreased, since a significant part of the goods was already transported by rail, launched in 1942.

Was there only one “Road of Life” (Leningrad)?

The official route is the path from Kokorevo to Kobona along the lake. This thread connected the multimillion-dollar 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 took a different route. The existence of other transportation lines is evidenced by many facts.

Calculation discrepancy

Simple calculations confirm the existence of several roads. 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 cargo using “lorry-and-a-half trucks”, the back of which could load one and a half tons. Another half ton could be attached to a sled. That is, one loaded vehicle could transfer two tons per trip. Every day, 1,200 fully loaded lorries crossed the road. At the same time, they had to move in both directions.

The ice might not be able to withstand such an onslaught. Moreover, in addition to trucks, buses also plied along the highway, which transported about half a million civilians during these 150 days. Tanks were also transported across Ladoga, from which weapon turrets were removed to lighten the weight. It is unlikely that the blockade “Road of Life” alone would have withstood such loads, especially since the road was ice.

The Mystery of the Sunken Trucks

During transportation, about a thousand cars went under the ice. Many of them are still under water today. When the water in the lake is particularly clear, pilots visually record the outlines of the trucks. They are not always located 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 profit from transportation and dump part of the cargo. However, there were not many such cases, and there were many hundreds of trucks that sank away from the highway. So the question of whether Leningrad provided Lake Ladoga only through one road is quite controversial.

Reasons for the existence of multiple routes

The official highway (“Road of Life” across Lake Ladoga) No. 101 Kokorevo - Kobona, of course, existed and operated. However, calculations and the location of many sunken trucks indicate that she could not be the only one.

All maps and documents on this case were classified for a long time and stored in special archives. Perhaps such secrecy is due to the desire not to reveal all the ways in the event of another war.

Reasons why multiple routes could exist:

• Danger from German aviation. 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 raids, it was necessary to change the route. The first lines were laid closer to the shores of the lake, but as the ice strengthened, 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. Then the ice began to crack, and it took time to restore it. This means that the movement had to move to a new path. Otherwise, Leningrad would not have been able to receive such an amount of cargo.

Creation of a railway line

Only the railway could cope with large cargo transportations. By 1942, a line was installed on the eastern shore of the lake. This made it possible to increase cargo transportation. Thanks to all of the above methods, the blockade of Leningrad was partially lifted.

Memory of the broken blockade ring

Hundreds of thousands of people were employed to maintain the ice surface. They lived on the ice, filling the cracks that appeared and building wooden decks. The feat of these people, like the drivers themselves, is difficult to truly evaluate. 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.

Along the land section from Leningrad to Ladoga there are monuments dedicated to the “Road of Life”. All of them are part of the Green Belt of Glory memorial, which stretches for many kilometers. The memorial consists of seven monuments, 46 memorial pillars along the highway, 56 pillars along the railway.

The most memorable are the monuments at 40 and 103 kilometers of the highway. The first is the “Broken Ring” memorial (architect V. G. Filippov), which symbolizes the breaking of the blockade ring formed by German-Finnish troops over Leningrad since the fall of 1941. At the 103rd kilometer there is a monument “Legendary lorry” (architect Levenkov A.D.). It depicts a car driving, breaking out of the ice.

Report for class, extracurricular performance or history lesson

Lasted exactly 871 days. This is the longest and most terrible siege of the city in the entire history of mankind. Almost 900 days of pain and suffering, courage and dedication. Many years after the breaking of the siege of Leningrad, many historians, and even ordinary people, wondered: could this nightmare have been avoided? Avoid - apparently not. For Hitler, Leningrad was a “tidbit” - after all, here is the Baltic Fleet and the road to Murmansk and Arkhangelsk, from where help came from the allies during the war, and if the city had surrendered, it would have been destroyed and wiped off the face of the earth. Could the situation have been mitigated and prepared for in advance? The issue is controversial and worthy of separate research.

Memories of the people's siege of Leningrad who survived it, their letters and diaries reveal to us scary picture. A terrible famine struck the city. Money and jewelry have lost value. The evacuation began in the fall of 1941, but only in January 1942 did it become possible to withdraw a large number of people, mainly women and children, through the Road of Life. There were huge queues at the bakeries where daily rations were distributed. In addition to hunger, besieged Leningrad was also attacked by other disasters: very frosty winters, sometimes the thermometer dropped to -40 degrees. The fuel ran out and the water pipes froze - the city was left without electricity and drinking water. Rats became another problem for the besieged city in the first winter of the siege. They not only destroyed food supplies, but also spread all kinds of infections. People died and there was no time to bury them; the corpses lay right on the streets. Cases of cannibalism and robbery appeared.

From the first days of the blockade she began her dangerous and heroic work Road of Life— the pulse of besieged Leningrad. The only way, other than ineffective aviation, for evacuating people from besieged Leningrad, as well as for delivering provisions and military cargo back to the city in September-November 1941, was Lake Ladoga, along which ships of the Ladoga Flotilla sailed daily. On September 12, 1941, the first barges with food arrived in the city along this route, and until late autumn, until storms made navigation impossible, barges traveled along the Road of Life. Each of their flights was a feat - enemy aircraft constantly carried out their bandit raids, weather conditions were also often not in the sailors' hands - the barges continued their flights even in late autumn, until the ice appeared, when navigation was in principle impossible.

However, it was obvious that the German ring around the city would not be broken before the onset of cold weather, and in order to avoid the possibility of a complete blockade of Leningrad in winter, it was necessary to find a way out as soon as possible. And such a solution was found - this is the idea of ​​​​creating ice crossings across Lake Ladoga, which later received the name “Road of Life”.

At first, many were quite skeptical about this idea, since they doubted that the ice would be able to carry the huge amount of cargo that was going to be transported through it. The Germans did not believe in this either; in the leaflets scattered over Leningrad they literally wrote the following: “it is impossible to supply the million-strong population and the army across the ice of Lake Ladoga.” However, leaving a city of three million without supplies for the whole winter actually meant dooming its inhabitants to certain death, and work on creating an ice crossing began. First, as a result of the titanic work of the Logistics Directorate on the Leningrad Front, in less than a month, all the information available at that time about the transportation of heavy cargo on ice, as well as about the ice regime specifically on Lake Ladoga, was collected. As a result of these studies, the most suitable route for the crossing was Novaya Ladoga - Chernoushevo - Lemassar - Kobona. On November 20, 1941, the first horse-drawn carts started walking along the “Road of Life,” and a day later the famous GAZ-AA (one and a half trucks).

Despite the fact that it seemed that a huge amount of theoretical preparation had been carried out before the creation of the ice crossing, and besides, the winter of 1941-1942 was very harsh and snowy, Lake Ladoga presented an unpleasant surprise. It often happened that a convoy of trucks loaded to capacity covered the route without any problems, and the light vehicle following them fell through the ice. Moreover, it failed instantly, leaving no chance for the people inside. This was due to the phenomenon of resonance, little studied at that time, or rather a flexural-gravitational wave, in order to avoid which, all cars were ordered to travel at a strictly defined speed. After several such cases, the crossing received its second, more terrible name - “Death Road”.

The Germans also did not forget about the “Road of Life”, regularly carrying out air raids and artillery strikes on the lake, since their positions were literally a few kilometers from the crossing. Therefore, many lorry drivers, when driving at night, drove without turning on their headlights, in order to somehow protect themselves from air strikes; one might say that they were driving almost blindly. The drivers who worked on the “Road of Life” deserve a separate story. They spent 12 hours behind the wheel in terrible cold (most even drove with the doors open so they could jump out in case of falling through the ice), making 5-7 flights a day across the entire Lake Ladoga, but at the same time they received the same meager rations, like ordinary blockade survivors. However, none of them complained, since everyone understood how important their work was for the siege survivors and the soldiers who defended Leningrad.

The ice crossing in the winter of 1942-1943 posed an even greater danger than the year before. As a result of a mild winter with frequent thaws, the ice often broke, and this led to an even greater number of failures, but the “Road of Life”, even in such conditions, continued to operate until April 24, 1943, that is, even after the siege of Leningrad was lifted. In just two years, according to official statistics, more than 640 thousand people were evacuated across the ice of Lake Ladoga, 575 thousand tons of various cargo were delivered to the city, and about 300 thousand soldiers and officers were transported to the Leningrad Front. That is, it is obvious that the creation of the “Road of Life” in November 1941 was one of the key factors, which, at least minimally, made it possible to provide food for the city residents and the Leningrad defense soldiers, and this, in turn, directly influenced the overall outcome of the Battle of Leningrad.

Was connected to the country. Transportation along the road of life was carried out from September 12, 1941 to March 1943. During the navigation period, delivery was carried out on tugs with barges and ships, and in winter the vehicles traveled along the ice road.

During this period, over 1,600 thousand tons of cargo, mainly food, fodder and fuels and lubricants, were brought to the besieged city along the legendary Road of Life, which was officially listed as military highway No. 101. During the 500 days of the blockade (before it was broken), more than a million people were evacuated along the highway.

For reference: The Siege of Leningrad lasted 872 days from September 8, 1941 to January 27, 1944, when it was completely lifted. The blockade ring was broken on January 18, 1943.

If you fly in a helicopter over Ladoga these days, you can see hundreds of dark rectangles under the water; these are the skeletons of trucks that went under the ice during the first and second blockade winters. Along with the vehicles that carried flour and shells, drivers and road workers often died.

Olga Berggolts wrote about 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
scarier and more joyful than the road.

The road of life - how to get there

Most of the monuments are located along the modern A-128 highway, which is called the “Road of Life”. The most convenient way to get to all the monuments is by car, stopping at each of them (see map below).

You can also take the train to the Ladoga Lake station (departure from the Finlyandsky Station). In the village you can see the Road of Life Museum, the Osinovetsky lighthouse and the Esh-4375 steam locomotive (located right at the station). In addition, the village has a beautiful sandy beach, so in summer the excursion can be combined with swimming and sunbathing. Please note that in Lake Ladoga the water is clean, but always cold.

Road of life - map

From history

On September 8, 1941, the Germans captured Shlisselburg and cut off all land routes and the waterway along the Neva. The blockade of Leningrad began and Ladoga became the only route connecting the city with the mainland.

On September 12, the delivery of goods to the besieged city began. Food was brought first to Volkhov, from there to Novaya Ladoga, and then transported on barges to the western bank to the Osinovets lighthouse.

In the autumn of 1941, the ice on Ladoga did not form for a long time and barges walked along the lake, avoiding ice areas. The first sleigh train left on November 17, delivering 63 tons of flour to the city, and soon the movement of vehicles began. The ice was still very fragile and in order to prevent the transport from failing, part of the cargo was placed on sleighs, which reduced the pressure on the ice and made it possible to transport more products.

The movement was organized in both directions along two routes located at a distance of 100 - 150 meters from each other. The Germans constantly shelled and bombed the highway, but they failed to stop the movement. The truck drivers kept their doors open so they could jump out if the truck started to sink. In the first winter alone, about a thousand trucks went under the ice, and it is unknown how many people died here. In memory of the feat that ordinary people accomplished every day, on the shores of Lake Ladoga there is a bronze copy of the legendary GAZ-AA lorry.

Here is how the Leningrad poet Anatoly Molchanov wrote:

And somewhere on Ladoga, in the white expanse
Ice floes explode from bombs and frost,
And the engines howl, and the engines groan,
And they pull cars loaded with bread -
In a snowstorm and shelling, without sleep and peace,
We are responsible for the life and struggle of Leningrad.
And there was such traffic on the highway,
Just like in peacetime on Nevsky Prospekt.

Thanks to the delivery of food along the ice route, on December 25, 1941, people standing in line at bakeries suddenly learned that the bread quota had been increased by 75 grams. Children and women cried with happiness - it would seem that such a small piece of bread, but it gave them a chance to escape from starvation!

The population was evacuated along the Road of Life - first of all, women and children, the sick and the elderly were taken out.

During the first winter of the blockade, the ice route was in operation for 152 days until April 24, 1942. In April, during thaws, cars had to move on water.

• During the first winter of the siege, more than 550 thousand Leningraders and more than 35 thousand wounded were evacuated from Leningrad, 361 thousand tons of various cargo were delivered to the city, including 262.5 thousand tons of food and about 32 thousand tons of ammunition
• During the second navigation, more than 1 million tons of various cargoes were transported in both directions, and about 540 thousand people were evacuated from their cities.

On December 19, 1942, the ice route began to operate again, and already on January 18, 1943, Soviet troops liberated Shlisselburg, breaking through the Leningrad blockade. To deliver goods along the southern coast of Lake Ladoga, a railway was built to the Polyany station, later called the Victory Road.

But the Ladoga route continued to operate for almost another year, until the final lifting of the blockade of Leningrad on January 27, 1944.

Railway of life

There is a page in the history of the Road of Life that is not written about and people try to remember less.

In the second year of the siege of Leningrad, an attempt was made to build an ice railway, the Road of Life, which was supposed to connect the Kobona station on the eastern side of Ladoga with the Ladoga Lake station on the western side. The builders were given two months for all work.

At the same time, the construction of a 35 km long wooden railway bridge, the so-called “pile-ice railway crossing”, began on the two shores of Lake Ladoga. At the same time, two tracks were built - a narrow-gauge railway and a regular-gauge track located 100-200 meters from it.

Builders, mostly women, cut holes and drove piles. The flooring was laid, and the railway track was mounted on top. The work went on in the cold and under enemy fire. In January 1943, when half of the track was built and work trains began to run along it, troops of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts broke the blockade of Leningrad.

The need for the route disappeared and all the efforts of the builders turned out to be meaningless. Perhaps for this reason they preferred to forget about this railway line.

Small Road of Life

The Small Road of Life began from the Bronka station, located near Oranienbaum (Lomonosov) and walked along the ice through Kronstadt to Lisiy Nos and Gorskaya. Residents of Oranienbaum and defenders of the city experienced the same difficulties as residents of Leningrad. They also starved, they also died of hunger.

In 1941, the bread distribution rate was reduced. But thanks to the action of the Small Road of Life, in January 1942 there was a slight increase in the rate of bread distribution, but despite this, in 1941-1942, 5,000 people died from hunger here.

Monuments on the Road of Life

In total, there are 7 monuments installed on the Road of Life, 46 memorial pillars along the highway and 56 pillars along the railway. All structures of the Road of Life are included in the Green Belt of Glory.

Flower of Life

The monument, located on the high bank of the small Lubya River, is made in the form of a white stone flower on a 10-meter stem, towering above the granite boulders. The words “May there always be sunshine” are carved into the petals of the flower. From the memorial, a 40-meter staircase and a birch alley of Friendship will lead you to a mound where stone sheets of the diary of Tanya Savicheva, a Leningrad pioneer schoolgirl who lost all her loved ones and survived the blockade winter of 1941 - 1942, are installed. Tanya Savicheva died in evacuation in July 1944, while in one of the orphanages in the Nizhny Novgorod region.

Broken ring

The monument is made in the form of two reinforced concrete arches 7 meters high, symbolizing the ring of the blockade, the gap between them is the Road of Life. Under the arches in the concrete you can see car tread marks. Nearby are two reinforced concrete balls simulating searchlights, as well as a 45 mm anti-aircraft gun.

Osinovetsky lighthouse

Lake Ladoga has a harsh character and in some places swimming is very dangerous. Ships never moored at the Osinovsky lighthouse - this was considered impossible, since not only was German artillery shelling taking place here, but the elements themselves were raging. On the night of September 16-17, during a storm, barges crashed in this place and more than 1,000 people died.

Ships sank, people died, but to save Leningrad, barges loaded with grain moored at the Osinovsky lighthouse.

Katyusha

The memorial is made in the form of five 14-meter steel beams, installed at an angle to the horizon and symbolizing the famous rocket launcher. On the low granite wall there is an inscription:

1941-1943 Remember these terrible years
The Road of Life passed here
Leningrad was saved by the courage of the brave
Immortal glory to the fallen heroes.

The Road of Life - this name fully corresponded to the role it played: without it, Leningrad would simply have perished.

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 defense and blockade of Leningrad

To save the city and help the front, it was necessary to do the incredible: create an entire infrastructure from scratch, which 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 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 explored, 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 lorries 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 surveys of 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 axes, 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, across the lake to westward From a separate supply company, vehicles with flour were sent to 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.

The drivers stood on the steps and, if there was a danger of the car falling through the ice, they had to jump out. The detachment drove about 20 km from Kobona, but there was no further way - the ice was ending and the 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 impact. 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, sled trains 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 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 to 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 that 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 South Ladoga, because since the time Russian Empire it was Shlisselburg that was the main port in this part of the lake, notes Sergei Kurnosov. - Fishing villages, where there was virtually no infrastructure, had to be turned into two powerful ports in a matter of weeks: one on the west coast, 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 tracks were laid - and all this was done literally on the “mossy, muddy” banks. By the end of navigation in 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 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 rifle division The NKVD, which defended Shlisselburg until September 8, on the Osinovets side - 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 to 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