The beginning of the movement on the road of life. Lake Ladoga, Road of Life, Osinovets

They say that during the war years this path was called the "Road of Death". It is not known how many people died of exhaustion, were killed, fell through the ice, froze or went missing here in 1941-42. The route was bombed and shelled, it was covered with snow, cars often fell into the polynyas (after all, they drove at night). People rode trucks, carts, walked. Eyewitnesses write that there were robberies. They took the suitcases from the emaciated. But there was - and this is the main thing - something else: courage, nobility, self-sacrifice, honesty. In total, about 1 million 376 thousand people were evacuated from Leningrad. Among them are my very young grandparents. They called the path - "Road of Life".

Boarding the trams of the evacuating residents of Leningrad, 09/18/1941

The blockade began on September 8, 1941. On this day, the last road connecting Leningrad with the country was cut. A narrow section between the Finnish border and the front line. The 45-kilometer highway ended on the shores of Lake Ladoga. Further - on barges, in winter - on lorries on ice. Of course, on foot - about 30 kilometers. Few came. Towards - to the besieged city - food was brought. On Ladoga at that time there were no marinas or piers. But already on September 12, the first navigation began. On November 22, the first convoy of trucks entered the ice of the Road of Life. The route from September 12, 1941 to March 1943 connected besieged Leningrad with the country.

It is impossible to restore the exact route - from Leningrad to Cape Osinovets. First, closer to the lake there was a whole network of forest roads. Secondly, the modern highway A 128 coincides with the old broken country road only approximately. To understand, to feel how difficult it was ...

The first seven kilometers of the route passed within the city, along the so-called Rzhev corridor. On this route, trucks and special locomotives-trams delivered people to the Rzhevka station. The first control point was located at the corner of Revolution Highway and Bolsheokhtinsky Prospekt. Here:

Further - the road went to the east - along the highway of the Revolution and the Ryabovsky highway. To the railway station Rzhevka. This area was subjected to fierce shelling and bombardment. In particular, on March 29, 1942, the Rzhevka station building was destroyed by a bomb attack. On that day, a large number of trains with ammunition and fuel accumulated at the station, and the explosions of German shells caused explosions of shells in cars and fuel in tanks. As a result of "explosions of enormous force" the station with adjacent buildings was completely destroyed, several hundred people died - railway workers, military personnel, evacuated Leningraders, local residents.

3 km road. Here, in 1968, probably the most famous monument to the dead children, the Flower of Life, was erected. The memorial includes: the monument "Flower of Life", Friendship Alley, and the funeral mound "Tanya Savicheva's Diary", consisting of eight stelae - pages of the blockade diary. The Savichevs are dead. All died. Only Tanya remained ... ”Tanya Savicheva died in evacuation, near Nizhny Novgorod, in July 1944. She survived the move across Lake Ladoga, but the Blockade did not let her go...

Nearby is a birch grove. The trees are tied with red scarves. Earlier, in spring, the birch grove near the monument was red with pioneer ties ...

10 km - a sharp rise up - Rumbolovskaya mountain. At the top there is an observation platform from where on a clear day you can see the panorama of the city. Nearby are memorial cemeteries.

Near the stele "12 kilometer" you can turn into the field. A section of the same, real road has been preserved here. More precisely, this is a restored fragment. There are concrete slabs nearby. After driving a hundred meters along the cobbled stone, one can imagine the conditions in which military drivers worked.

Cobblestone. Perhaps the very...

17 km of the Road of Life. Behind the village of Kornevo, a monument to anti-aircraft gunners - "Katyusha". On the hill where the monument now stands, during the war years, there was an anti-aircraft battery that protected the Road of Life.

Thirty miles. Brotherly grave. Passing by the steles, you involuntarily pay attention to unusual surnames. A lot of them. Petersburg has always been an international city ...

Here the cars descended on the ice of Lake Ladoga. The track was laid on the ice. Repair shops were located along it, traffic controllers were stationed at every kilometer, and water intake points were located every 5 km. Anti-aircraft artillery and fighters defended the sky over the highway, road workers blocked cracks in the ice and
funnels from enemy bombs with wooden bridges ...

45 km. Station Ladoga Lake. Here the road merges with the railway tracks. This and other steam locomotives brought the evacuated residents of the besieged city to the shore of Ladoga, and brought food and ammunition back.

Ladoga mound in the village of Osinovets. Mass grave "Ladoga barrow". The memorial was created on the initiative of the Red Pathfinders of the eight-year Baganovskaya school. "To military sailors, car drivers and other heroes of Ladoga who died during the Siege of Leningrad on the Road of Life in 1941-1943."

At the beginning of the last century, many ships did not reach their destination - they simply drowned in the treacherous Ladoga. Then the naval authorities of the Russian Empire decided to build a lighthouse in Osinovets. The project was drawn up in 1905, but construction was completed only six years later. Our people built something wonderful, but with the most important part of the lighthouse, the system of mirrors, an incident came out - in Russia they had not yet done such things in those years. Therefore, the "top" was ordered from the British. We must pay tribute to the subjects of the queen - the English masters did not disappoint, and the system has been working properly to this day.
This is the highest of the eight lighthouses of Lake Ladoga - 73 meters. 366 steps lead up in a circle. From the top tower you can see 50 kilometers ahead.

Cape Osinovets. In this place on the coast of Lake Ladoga, ships never landed - it was considered impossible. But everything became possible to save the city - and barges loaded with grain came here. From here, barges with people left for the campaign. This voyage was especially dangerous - not only German planes and artillery, the elements themselves raged: only on one night from September 16 to 17, over 1000 people died on barges broken by a storm.

Cape Osinovets, 1941

Museum in the village of Osinovets. Dedicated to the feat of the soldiers of the Leningrad fleet, the Ladoga military flotilla, the heroes of the so-called "Road of Life" - military communication through the southern part of Lake Ladoga, through which Leningrad was connected with the whole country during the blockade of the city. The museum presents ship flags and battle flags, weapons and military equipment of those years, models of ships, aircraft, vehicles involved in transportation; documents and photographs. It's in words. In fact, the outdoor exhibits are crumbling. Literally. In particular, almost to the ground, rust ate the famous lorry - GAZ - AA. And in the 70s I saw her whole and unharmed. If restoration is not carried out, the same will happen with other exhibits.

A bus plying along the Road of Life. Not preserved. Photo taken in 1988

Howitzer 122 mm caliber model 1938. Participated in breakthrough blockades

Towing steamer "Izhorets No. 8" ("Karej")

In September 1941, with ammunition and food, he arrived at the port of Osinovets. During the first navigation he transported a large number of different cargoes. After the war, the ship was repaired. Under the name "Korej" sailed on the White Lake. In 1976, he was brought from Beloozersk to Osinovets and put on eternal parking in the museum.

Patrol boat MO-215

Built in Leningrad. 16 August 1941 entered service. With battles he went to the border with Nazi Germany. Participated in combat operations on Lake Ladoga and in the Gulf of Finland. Walked about 5 thousand miles. Completed 24 military campaigns. He sank 5 enemy barges and boats. In the battles he was damaged.
Wooden paneling was not conducive to preservation in the open air. The hull rotted and sagged on the keel blocks, the artillery and deck equipment were dismantled (the guns were installed at the entrance to the museum).

Self-propelled landing two-hold tender

Military transport aircraft Li-2

Soviet military transport aircraft, the production of which was started in 1942 in Tashkent on the basis of the PS-84 passenger aircraft (1939), created, in turn, on the basis of the licensed production of the American Douglas DC-3. It was on this one that my grandparents were evacuated from Leningrad.

One of the carts carrying Leningraders

T-34 tank turret. The true story is unknown. She probably stood on one of the armored boats of the Ladoga flotilla.

People have been waiting for days water transport on the shore in these tents.

I understand that I have not told much about the Road of Life. There are many more monuments and unique rarities worth writing about. There are dozens of published manuscripts - these are invaluable testimonies. No matter how pathetic it may sound, but I want - so that no one is forgotten and nothing is forgotten.

Our route:

The trip became possible thanks to Ruslan

What is the history of this very forest Road of Life, which began in Zaborye and Podborovye? I found on the Internet an interesting material on this topic, written, apparently, by a school teacher in Issad. http://volhovogni.ru/article/25279/

The tragic autumn of 1941.
Having captured Tikhvin on November 8, the enemy cut off the only railway line that delivered food, weapons, medicines to Lake Ladoga, that is, to besieged Petrograd, to the front. Echelons with cargo began to arrive at the Zaborye and Podborovye stations. They were located 180 kilometers from Volkhov, but there was no normal road. It was possible to get to Novaya Ladoga or Volkhov only by country roads on horseback. The head of the highway construction department, engineer-colonel I. N. Korovyakin, together with the officers, outlined a highway around Tikhvin. Its length was more than 200 kilometers. The Military Council of the Leningrad Front discussed the issue of delivering food to the dying city for two weeks. In these tragic days, the decision of the Military Council No. 00419 was adopted. Here is its text:
"1. For the transport of food, fuel and ammunition to Leningrad and the evacuation of the population and property from Leningrad, by November 30, 1941, build a front-line road on the route: Zaborye - Serebryanskaya - Veliky Dvor - Lakhta - Nikulskoye - Shangovo - Eremina Gora - New - Yamskoye - Karpino - Novaya Ladoga - Kobona with a total round-trip cargo turnover of 2000 tons per day, with the opening of a transshipment base at Zaborye station.
2. To entrust the construction of the road to the commission of the Leningrad Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (comrade Vorotov) with a deadline of December 1, 1941.
3. Chief of the front road to appoint Major General of the quartermaster service Shilov with subordination to his chief of logistics of the Leningrad Front. Appoint as assistants to the head of the road: engineer 1st rank Shchepennikov - for rail transportation; engineer 1st rank Kuzmin - for road commandant service; quartermaster of the 1st rank Kharitonov - for the quartermaster service. To establish the staff of the road management in the amount of 35 people.
5. To the chairman of the executive committee of the Leningrad City Council of Working People's Deputies Comrade Popkov: a) by November 25, 1941, to mobilize 500 cars of various brands and 100 tankers (serviceable) with a driver's staff from the national economy of the city for the period of operation of the road, transferring them to the commander of the 17th separate motor transport brigade in operation on the road; b) by November 25, 1941, allocate at the disposal of the commander of a separate motor transport brigade at a time 3,000 sets of rubber for the road fleet.
6. By November 26, 1941, to the head of the armored department of the Leningrad Front, Colonel Dementyev, to allocate 100 vehicles and 100 tankers with drivers from the army transport of the Leningrad Front, transferring them to the commander of the 17th OATB for work on the road.
8. By November 27, 1941, to the head of the rear of the Leningrad Front, Major General T Lagunov, to allocate at the disposal of the head of the road a food limit for nutrition points from the Cherepovets base of the Leningrad Front.
9. Divide the road into 4 road maintenance sections within the boundaries:
the first section (Efimovsky district) - Zaborye, Lakhta;
the second section (Kapshinsky district) - Lakhta exclusively, Eremina Gora inclusive;
the third section (Pashsky district) - Eremina Gora exclusively, Shangovo inclusive;
the fourth section (Volkhovsky district) - Shangovo exclusively, Kobona inclusive.
10. Oblige the chairmen of the district executive committees of Efimovsky, Kapshinsky, Pashsky and Volkhovsky within the borders, through the head of the road, to maintain the road in a passable condition.
11. To maintain the road in a passable condition, oblige the commission of the regional committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (comrade Vorotov) to involve the local population in the order of labor duty at the request and requests of the head of the road, Major General Comrade Shilov.
14. Establish a temporary location of the road control - Novaya Ladoga.

Commander of the Leningrad Front, Lieutenant General KHOZIN
Members of the Military Council of the Front
Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks ZHDANOV
Divisional Commissar KUZNETSOV
November 24, 1941."

Inhuman labor is behind the dry lines of the resolution. The road was not a single route, it went through several branches so that there was no oncoming traffic.
1. Art. Fence (or Podborovye) - Veliky Dvor (20 km. or 23 km.) - Lakhta - Shugozero (100 km.);
2. New (45) - Karpino - Novaya Ladoga (110 km.);
3. Novelty - Usadishche - Syasskiye Ryadki - Novaya Ladoga (97 km.);
4. Novelty - Kivuya - Zlatyn - Novaya Ladoga (88 km.).
It is hard to believe that without any mechanization, manually, in the frosts and snowstorms of November-December 1941, this lay road was built in two weeks (or rather, in 10 days). The heroism of soldiers, old people, women, children saved the city from destruction. This route functioned for less than a month (from December 6 to 30), but these were the most difficult days of the blockade of Leningrad.
The construction and operation of the road required overcoming enormous difficulties, since the route passed through a deaf, rugged wooded and swampy area. “This path went through thickets and swamps ...,” wrote T.F. Shtykov, a former member of the Military Councils of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts. “The swamps did not freeze under the snow cover. ice on which cars could pass.
An even clearer idea of ​​the roads in the area of ​​the route is given by the materials of reconnaissance surveys and the characteristics of the road between the villages of Kholm and Usadishche, 20 km long, which Gushossdor sent on December 7, 1941 to the head of the road department of the Leningrad Front. “The road is 2.5 m wide,” the document said, “mostly passes through small forests, there are no bridges, it has many potholes and potholes, it crosses a swamp 1.5 km long in the middle of the stretch, there are seven steep climbs with slopes of 12- 15° with a total length of 200 running meters". To arrange this 20 km section of the road, it was necessary to cut down the forest for 14 km, uproot stumps for 16 km, build three bridges, and carry out earthworks in the amount of up to 2000 cubic meters. m and other works. The military road, 300 kilometers long, was laid through the swamps by the incredible efforts of the population and soldiers. "According to the memoirs," collective farmers crashed into swampy soil, dense forest, removed bushes, boulders.
The Leningrad Front sent three separate road maintenance regiments and several road-bridge battalions and companies to build the highway ... Women, teenagers, old people - all more or less able-bodied civilians came out to help the road builders ... , crowbars, shovels crashed into the swampy ground. Around the forest, tussock, boulders. For two weeks, day and night, there was a battle for the road. On December 6, the first vehicles with cargo moved along it ... On December 9, troops under the command of General of the Army K.A. Meretskov they pushed the Nazis back across the Volkhov River and liberated Tikhvin ... There was no longer a need for a dirt road. Soon the road builders crossed over to the old road ... ". (From the memoirs of Z.I. Kondratiev "Roads of War". The author of the book during the war years headed the Main Directorate of Motor Transport and Road Service.)
There were not enough working machines. Building materials were carried by hand. Only about 35 thousand logs were dragged. The mobilized collective farmers of the Volkhov, Pash, Kirishsky, Oyatsky regions worked together with the engineering and construction units. The work was complicated by severe frosts and snow drifts. Two large bridges were built across the Volkhov and Syas. “On December 6, the construction of a highway was completed, which circled Tikhvin, occupied by the enemy, in a huge semicircle. It went from the Zaborye station of the Northern Railway to Lednev, which is 6 kilometers from Kobona. This route turned out to be much more difficult than the road through Lake Ladoga. The cars had to overcome steep ascents and descents, snowdrifts. It lay mainly in uninhabited places. Fortunately, the need for this difficult route soon disappeared, "wrote A.V. Burov in the book "Blockade day by day".
Log to log - hundreds, thousands of logs made up one multi-kilometer bridge. The flooring "breathed" under the wheels of cars: even in the most severe frosts, the swamp did not freeze through. The military units were the first to pass here, having been transferred by forced march for the counteroffensive from Tikhvin. The headquarters of the army of General Meretskov was located in the village of Kaskovo for four days.
The new road, the length of which was about 300 km, was served by the 21st and 22nd road maintenance regiments (DEP) and four motor battalions. The 21st DEP served the section from the station. Fence to Eremina Gora, 22nd DEP - from Eremina Gora to Kobona. The work of motor transport was organized by separate echelons of 10-15 vehicles. The first column of 20 vehicles of the 389th autobattalion under the command of the military commissar of the battalion N.M. Koliverdova made this journey in two weeks. For one trip, the cars had to cover almost 620 km on bad roads. Therefore, they were on the road for 10-20 days.
Transportation was provided by three automobile and three horse-drawn battalions. Duty tractors were placed on wetlands and on the banks of rivers. But already on the fourth or fifth day it became clear that such a road could not feed Leningrad: the cars sat down in the mud along the entire route. Many cars broke down. Only in the section from Eremina Gora to Novaya Ladoga, three hundred and fifty trucks with cargo got stuck.

Where there were no tractors, the soldiers pull out the cars on themselves. During the day, cars traveled thirty-five - forty kilometers ... Only 500 tons of cargo were delivered along this route per day. But this Road of Life, about which little is known, supported Leningrad during the most terrible blockade days of 1941. The route operated until the liberation of Tikhvin, and it is a monument to the great feat of people.
According to Viktor Nikolaev, after the road ceased to function, it was divided into sections and assigned to local residents each. Regularly, NKVD officers passed along the road. And if someone from a fixed area lost, for example, logs, or he simply turned out to be in an inappropriate condition, the whole family of "caretakers" was declared "enemies of the people."

The poet Alexander Gitovich dedicated a poem to the builders of the road:
He walked through the swamp without looking back,
And he called God for help,
He just worked like a Russian soldier
And built this road.
Look west and look north
Swamp, swamp, swamp.
Who uprooted stumps nights and days,
He knows what work means.
Understand to remember always and everywhere:
How to believe in victory
To work waist-deep in water for a month,
Not even complaining to a neighbor!
Endure everything for the sake of your native land,
Do everything so that on time, exactly,
One to one in the swamp lay down
The flooring is heavy logs.
... In the west, a pink smoldering sunset,
A lone bird sings.
Standing by the road and watching the soldiers
To the west where the sun sets.
He smokes and looks far ahead
Thinking accurately and strictly,
What will lead the fighters only to the west
His front road.

And the bridge in the village of Issad, built in the winter of 1941, "worked" until the summer of 1954.
On the initiative of the inhabitants of the village of Podborovye, in 1968, a monument dedicated to all those motorists and cars that transported vital goods in both directions took place. The monument to the car "ZIS-5" is part of the "Green Belt of Glory of Leningrad". There is a board in front of the truck, which shows a diagram of the Road of Life section, and there is also an inscription "The Road of Life began here. November-December 1941." Near the front left wheel of the truck on a high pedestal, a guards ribbon is painted with paint. Until now, this Road of Life, about which so little information has come down to us, is still “alive” in the mind local residents. It was through it that the legendary ZIS-5 trucks passed up to five hundred tons of cargo per day, which did not allow Leningraders to die in the most terrible days of the blockade of 1941.
Much has been written about the help and miracles of the icon of the Kazan Intercessor during the war years. There is less about the Neva Skoroshlushnitsa - the Blockade Intercessor. However, it is enough to remember that it was on the day of the Quick Hearer - November 22, 1941 - that the first cars with food went to the besieged city, and thus the famous Road of Life was opened. The Mother of God, with her image of the "Quick Hearer", kept this road, the only thread that connected the city with the rear. In memory of this intercession of the Mother of God to the besieged city, on November 22, 1997 in the village of Zaborye, from where lorry-lorries departed for Kobona and then followed along the Road of Life to the besieged city, a temple was laid in honor of the icon of the Mother of God "Quick Hearer". Within five years the temple was built. In 2002, on the patronal feast, the first liturgy was served in it, and in 2006, the church was consecrated on November 22.

November 18th 1941
The beginning of laying "Roads of Life". During the Great Patriotic War, the 88th separate bridge-building battalion began ice reconnaissance of Lake Ladoga in order to create an ice road to the besieged Leningrad. Works on the creation of the route, which led about 20 thousand people started in October. On November 19, an order was signed for the troops of the Leningrad Front "On the organization of an autotractor road across Lake Ladoga."
On November 22, the first convoy of GAZ-AA trucks entered the ice. The ice road, which became known as the Military Highway No. 101 (VAD-101), began operating on November 26, 1941. Due to the fatigue of the ice, the whole road had to be moved to a new track. And during the first month of work, the road was transferred to new routes four times, and some of its sections even more often. Trucks regularly delivered food

The route was laid, marked with milestones. The ice road was a well-organized highway that provided drivers with a confident ride at high speed. The track was serviced by 350 traffic controllers, whose task was to disperse cars, indicate the direction of movement, monitor the safety of ice and other duties. The road has become the most complex engineering structure. Its builders made road signs, milestones, portable shields, bridges, built bases, warehouses, heating and medical stations, food and technical assistance points, workshops, telephone and telegraph stations, and adapted various means of camouflage. This work required dedication and courage, as it had to be carried out under any conditions - severe frosts, freezing winds, snowstorms, shelling and enemy air raids. In addition, lighthouse lanterns with blue glasses were exhibited - at first for every 450-500 m, and then for 150-200 m
On November 24, 1941, the Military Council of the Leningrad Front adopted Decree No. 00419 “On the construction of the Military Highway No. 102 (VAD-102).” Thus, now the delivery of goods for Leningrad began to be carried out along two roads.
The road consisted of two ring roads, each of which had two separate directions of traffic - for freight traffic (to the city) and for empty or evacuation (out of the city). The first route for transporting goods to the city ran along the route Zhikharevo - Zhelannoye - Troitskoye - Lavrovo - st. Lake Ladoga, the length of the direction was 44 km; for empty and evacuation from the city - Art. Lake Ladoga or Borisov Griva - Vaganovsky descent - Lavrovo - Gorodishe - Zhikharevo with a length of 43 km. The total length of the flight along the first ring route was 83 km.
The second route for the transportation of goods passed along the route Voybokalo - Kobona - Vaganovsky descent - st. Lake Ladoga or Borisov Griva (58 km) and for empty or evacuation - st. Lake Ladoga or Borisova Griva - Vaganovsky descent - Lavrovo - Babanovo - Voybokalo (53 km). The total length of the second ring route was 111 km. The former route Tikhvin - Novaya Ladoga ceased to function, but was maintained in working order.
Despite frosts and blizzards, the fire of enemy artillery and air strikes, the occupation of Tikhvin by the enemy on November 8, the movement of trucks did not stop for almost a single day. In November-December, 16,449 tons of cargo was delivered along the route.
The "Road of Life" is not only a track on the ice of the lake, it is a path that had to be overcome from the railway station on the western shore of the lake to the railway station on the eastern shore and back. The road worked until the last opportunity. In mid-April, the air temperature began to rise to 12 - 15 ° C 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 April 21 - the cars went through solid water, in some places up to 45 cm deep. On the last trips, the cars did not reach the shore and carried the loads on their hands. Further movement on the ice became dangerous, and on April 21, the Ladoga ice track was officially closed, but in fact it functioned until April 24, as some drivers, despite the order to close the track, continued to drive along Ladoga. When the lake began to break up and the movement of cars along the highway stopped, the workers of the route transferred 65 tons of food products from the eastern to the western shore. In total, during the winter of 1941/42, 361,109 tons of various cargoes were delivered to Leningrad along the ice route, including 262,419 tons of food.

It was forty years ago. Having failed to capture Leningrad by storm without overcoming its defenses, the enemy hoped for an early death of the city from starvation as a result of a complete blockade. Obviously, the German command did not even think about the possibility of organizing any serious communication across Lake Ladoga. But the concept of the impossible became very relative when it came to saving Leningrad. 152 days, from November 22, 1941 to April 24, 1942, and 98 days, from December 23, 1942 to March 30, 1943, there was the Road of Life - an ice track laid along Lake Ladoga, along which the city received the most necessary things in order to live and fight. Chauffeur Ivan Vasilievich Maksimov from first to last day drove cars with cargo for Leningrad and took people out. He tells how it was. Photos of the war years, collected by participants in the Ladoga epic, explain his story.

Not yet known on earth
Scarier and happier road.

“On the night of November 22, the first convoy of ten vehicles descended onto the ice from the western shore. I was in this convoy. It was a dark and windy night over the lake. There was no snow yet, and the black stripes of the ice field often seemed like open water. fear chilled my heart, my hands shook: probably from both tension and weakness - for four days, like all Leningraders, we received a cracker a day ... But our motorcade had just been in Leningrad. And I saw how people died from famine ... Rescue was on the east coast. We understood that we had to get there at any cost. Not all the cars reached the coast, but the first group crossing was made. Even the first hot stew we got was remembered. The next day, these cars went back while the ice was thin, it was impossible to fully load the car.Adapted to the situation - used sled trailers to reduce the load on the ice.
The first flights ran into memory as the most difficult. We drove slowly, tensely, as if probing the way ... After a few days, we looked closely, felt the road, and confidence appeared.
The harsh winter of 1941, as it were, hurried to our rescue. Every day the ice became thicker and stronger. The intensity of traffic and the loading of cars increased. The first month I did not leave the car. It was my home too... Having crossed the lake, I quickly handed over the load, drove off to the side, covered the "front" with the cab with a tarpaulin in order to keep the heat from the hot engine longer, and fell asleep. Two or three hours later, I woke up from the cold, started the engine, took the load and again - on the flight.
People from Leningrad were transported from the western to the eastern coast. These flights were the most stressful and painful for me. Exhausted from hunger, people lay and sat motionless, seemingly indifferent. There were cases when the orderlies, removing people from the car, reported that someone had died on the road. My heart contracted from pity, anger and grief, a lump rolled up in my throat ... I was always in a hurry when I was traveling with people, everything seemed to be out of time and I was terribly afraid of delays on the road.
At the end of December, the number of flights increased. When counting, I was among the foremost. Once, on the east coast, in Kobon, where food warehouses were located, before loading the car, I was summoned to the commander and handed a gift from Leningraders. They were warm things. Clutching the gift in my hands, I listened to the words of gratitude, but in response I could not say a single word ... I did not cry, only tears flowed and flowed down my cheeks.
I was given a day off. They sent me to a sanitary station - in a month I was overgrown so that my eyes were not visible, a long beard grew, my clothes became salty and stiff. It was the first respite since the beginning of work on the ice track.
The road developed quickly. Mass transportation has begun. Trucks on the highway went in a blizzard and a snowstorm, day and night, often fell into polynyas pierced by bombs and shells, before reaching the shore they perished, drowned. But despite the incredible difficulties, the delivery of products did not stop. Soon we gave up even disguise, and at night with the headlights on, the cars were in a continuous stream.
The road was shelled all the time. However, most of the bombs and shells fell near, nearby. Drivers maneuvered, changed speed. The road builders immediately found new, bypass roads or "patched" the road - they laid wooden footbridges, frozen decks. The track was destroyed, but the road continued to live.
Driving on the ice itself was a difficult and dangerous business. Under the influence of strong winds, changes in the water level in the lake, frequent shifts of ice fields occurred, ice mountains sometimes appeared on the way, sometimes five to ten meters high. There were cracks and splits. It was necessary to build a lot of crossover shields and walkways. During the winter of 1941 - 1942, the bridge-building battalion installed 147 collapsible bridges on the ice of the lake, capable of withstanding the weight of not only loaded vehicles, but even tanks.
Gradually, the road, one might say, settled down. Along the route there were tents and snow houses of road workers, repairmen who lived here in order to come to the aid of drivers at any moment. In such houses, "potbelly stoves" were installed, telephone cables were pulled to them.
On the seventh kilometer of the route there was a tent of a sanitary and medical center. Olya Pisarenko, a military paramedic, lived there throughout the harsh winter. She surprised even the veterans of the Ice Road with her courage and endurance. She worked without rest and sleep, often providing medical assistance to the wounded and frostbite under fierce fire.
Once her section of the road was bombed by sixteen fascist planes. Bombs riddled the track. Olya got into a hole. With difficulty they helped her get out, but she did not leave the track, she herself was a little alive and frostbite, she continued to help the wounded.
The front actually passed along the highway. And each completed flight was like a battle won. The track lived unusually hard. Here are entries from the diary of the headquarters of the 64th regiment, whose personnel were on the ice all the time and served the road.
On November 23, 1941, several horses and vehicles fell through the ice.
5th of December. A Nazi air raid on the fourteenth kilometer ... A car with gasoline was set on fire. Between the tenth and fifteenth kilometers thirty shells exploded, about one hundred and forty bombs were dropped along the entire route. Between the twentieth and twenty-fifth kilometers, a longitudinal crack formed.
Despite everything, traffic on the highway did not stop. Immediately after the raids, road workers went out onto the ice, laying new roads. Immediately, the traffic controllers ran to the cars, showing the drivers a new way. And the traffic controllers were Leningrad Komsomol girls. They stood under the icy wind or snow at a distance of 350-400 meters from each other during the day with flags, and at night with lit lanterns "bat". Round the clock in any weather they carried their heroic watch.
In January, heavy anti-aircraft artillery could be installed on the strengthened ice. When it appeared, the enemy almost failed to bombard the road with precision.
The route was covered by the troops of the Ladoga air defense region, regiments of anti-aircraft artillery and fighter aircraft of the front and fleet, soldiers of rifle units and marines, border troops and a division of the NKVD. All approaches to the Ice Road were mined. As a result of all these measures, the flow of goods to Leningrad increased every day.
A brigade was even organized to lift cars and tanks from the bottom of the lake. After the repair, they returned to service again.
Participants of the road rejoiced at every increase in rations for Leningraders. December 25 was the first increase in the bread ration. The minimum was 250 grams per day for workers, and 125 grams for everyone else. But already in April, Leningraders were given an average of half a kilogram of bread and the norms for other products were increased. The city lived and continued to fight.
In April, the snow began to melt, the water rose, it filled the rut of the road. That's when our torment began. You start to skid a little or slow down, and the ice under you goes into the water. On April 24, the track was closed.
The legendary Road of Life lasted 152 days.

Our tribute to the heroes of the war sometimes bypasses the names of those who ensured victory in the rear. But in vain.
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"Dear life" during the Second World War was called the only highway that passed through Ladoga. During the navigation period, the path went on water, in winter - on frozen ice. In September 1941, as a result of the unsuccessful start of the war and the failure of the defense of Leningrad, Germany and its allied Finland encircled the city, in addition to one section - the Ladoga coast. Thus, the troops and all the inhabitants of the huge metropolis fell into a blockade. For the delivery of food and other goods, it was necessary to use aviation, or arrange delivery by waterway. The air bridge was created quickly, but he could not completely "feed" Leningrad. The main bet was made on the water route. Delivering cargo along the "Road of Life" is a titanic work and incredible efforts that people had to make under shelling and in a state of constant hostilities.

Story

The matter was complicated by the fact that the vessels of the northwestern river shipping company, which served the waterway before the war, usually worked around Ladoga, along shipping channels. As a result, not every ship of the shipping company could work in the lake. It was necessary to equip piers for receiving goods, reload them onto barges, onto a narrow gauge railway, and drag them along the ground.

In winter, the route was supposed to pass through the ice of Ladoga. For this, special training was carried out, based on the characteristics of the ice regime of Lake Ladoga. The route stretched from Vaganovsky descent along the eastern shore of Ladoga to Osinovets.

When laying the road, it became known that the phenomenon of resonance is dangerous for cars following the ice. The heavily laden truck passed without incident, but the lighter vehicle following it fell through the ice.

"Road of Life" today

During two winters - 1941-1943. The "Road of Life" was the only artery connecting Leningrad with the mainland. Now she is immortalized in monuments located along the A128 St. Petersburg - Morie highway, called the Green Belt of Glory. The initiative to create this complex of monuments belonged to Mikhail Dudin, the blockade poet. Parts of the memorial, from the station "Rzhevka" to the lighthouse Osinovets, 43 kilometer posts "Roads of Life" officially belong to the important monuments of the history of the region and the city.

Monuments included in the Green Belt of Glory and the "Road of Life"

• the first 7 km around the city from the station "Rzhevka", called the "Rzhevsky corridor";
• the memorial complex "Flower of Life", symbolizing the diary of the Leningrad schoolgirl Tanya Savicheva;
• memorial "Rumbolovskaya Gora" at 10 km "Roads" in Vsevolozhsk;
• monument "Katyusha" at 17 km near the village of Kornevo;
• 56 commemorative milestones on the line Finlyandsky Station - Lake Ladoga;
• 46 commemorative milestones on the highway from Rzhevka to Lake Ladoga;
• memorial complex "Broken Ring";
• monument "Crossing" near the village. Morozov on the right bank of the Neva;
• Stella "Steel Way" at the station "Peterkrepost";
• Stella Kobona in the village of Kobona;
• a monument to the car "Legendary lorry" at 103 km of the Petrozavodsk highway;
• Stella "Voybokalo" at the station Voybokalo;
• a monument dedicated to the "Small Road of Life" on the shore of the bay near Malaya Izhora.

A dropper placed on a seriously wounded soldier right on the front line will not be able to instantly heal him and magically cover him from shells and bullets; she just had to keep him from dying. The Road of Life played the same role for the besieged Leningrad. In the hardest 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.

The German high command in any case 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 linking Leningrad with the country. The Soviet command decided to evacuate civilians through Ladoga. This lake is known for its strong storms in bad weather. To ensure safety, ships with people had to go along the Old and New Ladoga 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 possibility for the movement of water transport along the canals that entered the Neva near the same Shlisselburg.

As a result, the 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 that were not inferior in fury to sea ones. In addition, they have not yet managed to equip lighthouses or mark the fairway.

Nevertheless, the first barges arrived in Osinovets already 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 tug "Eagle", got into a storm. According to various estimates, it was from 1200 to 1500 people. 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 deteriorate rapidly. The besieged city of flour alone needed 1100 tons daily. In the first blockade autumn, hardly half of this volume was delivered 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 took out 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 turn east of these cities.

But Tikhvin itself nevertheless fell on November 9, 1941, and the supply of goods for Leningrad from the east by rail was interrupted. This put the supply of the besieged city at risk, he was on the verge of death.

How the "Road of Life" was laid

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

Horse transport 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 column 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, having spent a whole day on the ice, managed on November 18 to find a way from the port of Osinovets on the "Leningrad" side of Lake Ladoga to the village of Kobona on the eastern shore. The ice track turned from an idea into a tangible fact. For the first few days, horse carts were supposed to go along it, and by the end of November - car columns.

On November 21, 350 horse teams arrived in Osinovets, delivering the first 63 tons of flour for Leningraders. So 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). She was led by Major General of the quartermaster service Afanasy Mitrofanovich Shilov.

VAD-102 in operation and in combat

Each kilogram delivered along the "Road of Life" was worth a lot of effort and loss. Cars fell through and sank, they were smashed by German aircraft, the track itself had to be moved every now and then, because the ice could not withstand the loads. The transportation management established a special mode of traffic, in which the movement of cars would not overload the ice cover. With all efforts, only in January 1942, for a day of work, the Road of Life was able to deliver at least the minimum daily norm of flour.

The population was evacuated back from the city along the same highway and troops continued to be transferred from Leningrad. And not only rifle units. In February 1942, the 124th tank brigade was carried out on the ice of Ladoga - several dozen heavy KVs. For safety reasons, the turrets were removed from the tanks, thereby reducing the mass, and they were transported behind the combat vehicles on a sled.

Map "Roads of Life"

The Germans categorically did not like 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 the movement on the ice opened up, enemy artillery began to "handle" the route. The German command even prepared the 8th Panzer Division for a breakthrough on the ice in order to interrupt the supply of Leningrad. They failed to fulfill 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 the ground and air. Here the pilot of the 4th Guards Fighter Regiment Leonid Georgievich Belousov repeated the feat of Alexei Maresyev. He froze his legs in flight, gangrene set in, they had to be amputated. Despite this, the pilot returned to service 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 Sukho Island, located next to the highway. The Soviet garrison fought back with the help of the Ladoga flotilla.

In summer, the track along Ladoga became exclusively water

Leningrad was ready for the second blockade winter. The supply on Lake Ladoga functioned properly, the operation of the route provided the conditions for several major offensive operations of the Leningrad Front. By the winter of 1942-1943, several projects for organizing movement on ice 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 through the blockade of Leningrad. And although the movement along the "Road of Life" continued until March, the main load was assumed by a new artery - the iron "Road of Victory" built in a record 17 days.

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

Sources:

1. Kovalchuk V. M. Leningrad and the "Great Land". The history of the Ladoga communication of besieged Leningrad. L., 1975.
2. Battle for Leningrad // Ed. S. P. Platonov. M., 1964.
3. Tsybulsky I., Chechin O. Soldiers of Ladoga. M., 1977.
4. Ladoga native // ​​Comp. Z. G. Rusakov. L., 1969.
5. Documents of the 28th Army Corps of the 18th Army from the NARA collection.