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It is impossible to describe in words the feelings that everyone had, without exception, when a rusty frame slowly appeared under the water column, then the engine, wheels, and the remains of the body. Well, what is the beauty in this set of iron, wood and rubber? But everyone who was present at the ascent - no matter twenty years of age or eighty - exploded with applause. Some cried. And when the find, in which the shape of a lorry was hardly recognizable, was unloaded to the ground, everyone came up to touch the wet cold metal. Probably the only way you can feel the connection of time - that thread that did not break in the forty-first.
MUSEUM PIECE
Five years ago on Lake Ladoga we met people who, almost with bare enthusiasm, tried to preserve a living memory of the past war, of those who saved the city of millions during the blockade. In the village of Osinovets, they even managed to organize a small museum "Road of Life". Each summer, we, together with the director of the museum, Alexander Wojciechowski, retired major Konstantin Ovchinnikov and his fellow divers, plunged into the cold water of Ladoga in search of the vehicles that had once died. And they found them - over the years they described more than 60 cars, railway platforms, airplanes … As it turned out, military equipment, it turned out, the bottom of the lake is dotted with densely! A broken lorry or a fuselage from the Il-2 in Ladoga water can last very, very long.
Depth is 7 meters. It seems that the car was well preserved
Depth is 7 meters. It seems that the car was well preserved. Depth is 7 meters. It seems that the car was well preserved.
The chronicle of our findings all lengthened, but even well-preserved objects could not be lifted to the shore. Ladoga is troubled, and a flurry can fly at any moment. Once we already lifted the frame from the ZIS-5 on plastic floats, but a strong gust of wind threw it out in shallow water. It was not possible to pull her out of there.
VITAL
The road of life (officially military road No. 101 ") is the only transport route that connected the besieged Leningrad with the whole country during the Great Patriotic War through Lake Ladoga. Passed during periods of navigation on water, in winter - on ice. In the first blockade winter, the ice road opened on November 19 and operated until April 24, 1942 (152 days!); the last flight of the car was done already by a hub in the water, in some places they had to unload and carry goods manually. The work of drivers here was very dangerous: the track was under constant bombardment and bombing of German artillery and aircraft. About one in four out of 4 thousand cars that went along the highway went under the ice. Nevertheless, up to 6 thousand tons of cargo were transported round-trip every day. Over 20 thousand people served the Road of Life - drivers, mechanics, anti-aircraft gunners, builders, road workers, etc. Up to 700 people worked alone on the ice as regulating girls!
The total number of goods delivered to Leningrad along the Road of Life in two and a half years amounted to over 1.6 million tons; during the same time, about 1.4 million people were evacuated from the city.
ON A SURFACE
A whole flotilla advanced in search
A whole flotilla advanced in search. A whole flotilla advanced in search.
This year, the Ministry of Transport joined our water adventures. It became clear: we will raise the car, otherwise it just should not be! Everyone helped: the road workers - with transport and money, river workers - they did send the Norilsk ferry with an experienced team at the most difficult moment. When we had already found and liberated a well-preserved one and a half truck from the sand cover at a depth of 7 meters, we only had to get the cables - and a powerful crane easily pulled the car lying there from the bottom from 1942.
We lifted part of the well-preserved frame of another car ourselves and, having fixed it on inflatable pontoons, towed it to the pier. And then they loaded onto a KamAZ truck with an ordinary crane to deliver it to the museum. All the work took some two days, but it required many months of preparation.
But it was worth it! Because then there was a holiday and dozens of veterans saw, felt that they remember their feat, and their victory is also our common victory. I recalled the inconspicuous, but so important work and courage of military motorists, Deputy Transport Minister Nikolai Asaul.
A. Wojciechowski, director of the Road of Life Museum, demonstrates a car that has just been raised one and a half years ago and restored several years ago
A. Wojciechowski, director of the Road of Life Museum, demonstrates a car that has just been raised one and a half years ago and restored several years ago. A. Wojciechowski, director of the Road of Life Museum, demonstrates a car that has just been raised one and a half years ago and restored several years ago.
Veterans spoke of their comrades - those who are no longer there; listened to war songs and even danced. And from time to time, everyone came up to “our” cars - to touch them, take pictures next to them, admire that some of the tires still hold air, and the battery is charged … In appearance, the ZIS-5 frames decided that the plane and the aircraft were chasing the truck the shell cut the car almost in half. The diversion confirmed the guess. “The shell hit somewhere in the body area, near the cab. Turned the front part strongly. The engine lay separately, the front axle about ten meters away. And the rear axle and part of the frame - what we dragged to the shore - are more or less preserved,”said K. Ovchinnikov.
But the protagonist of the holiday, of course, was a lorry. We found it in the area of the Zeleniec islands, about the middle of the road. There was almost nothing left of the cab, but any veteran immediately recognized the legendary GAZ-AA. It seems that he has become one of the symbols of victory - for Leningraders, perhaps even more significant than the legendary T-34!
The rear axle ZIS-5 was raised already in the presence of veterans and leaders of the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation
The rear axle ZIS-5 was raised already in the presence of veterans and leaders of the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation. The rear axle ZIS-5 was raised already in the presence of veterans and leaders of the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation.
In the real history of that war there are very few beauties, but in excess of blood, deprivation, hunger, cold, pain. To Leningrad, which spent 900 days in the blockade, all of this applies in full. But human memory is selective, and Vera Ryabinina, 17 years old sent to work as a loader (!) To the port of Kobon, today more often recalls not immensely hard work for 12-14 hours a day, not hungry nights in an ice hut, but how they with her friends gathered for dancing. For the first time in my life.
And I touch the cold and still wet metal of the frame of the old lorry and I hope that her driver must have survived, jumped out of the truck at the last instant. That his comrades picked him up, and a day later he again brought food to Leningrad, and from there the inhabitants. And after the war, children were born to him. And maybe I even know his grandson. After all, the thread connecting the times was not interrupted!
We will try to find out what part belonged to the trucks lifted from the bottom of Ladoga, as well as the names of their drivers. We decided not to restore the machines, but, having studied, preserved, and in this way transferred to the museum the “Road of Life”.
BATTLE STORIES
Vera Ivanovna Rogova, traffic controller on the Road of Life
Vera Ivanovna Rogova, traffic controller on the Road of Life. Vera Ivanovna Rogova, traffic controller on the Road of Life.
Vera Rogova, during the war years - a traffic controller on the Road of Life:
“At our trucks, the cab doors were always open or removed so that the driver could jump out.” I remember the young driver of a lorry: I don’t know why he didn’t jump, but the car went under the ice - and he and her. And the headlights were still burning for a very long time under the water … We, the traffic police, sometimes ran across the line and did not let desperate drivers forward when we saw that there was a wormwood ahead.
Vera Ivanovna Ryabinina loaded cars with food for besieged Leningrad
Vera Ivanovna Ryabinina loaded cars with food for besieged Leningrad. Vera Ivanovna Ryabinina loaded cars with food for besieged Leningrad.
Vera Ryabinina, during the war years - a fighter of the labor front in Ladoga:
- I was 17 years old when I became a loader in Cobon. In summer, we loaded barges, in winter - cars. Once, right before my eyes, German planes sank a freshly loaded flour barge for Leningrad. We cried, seeing how our work was sinking. But immediately the next ship began to ship. And in the winter it was very cold, the drivers felt sorry for me - in the interval between the loads they were seated on the front of the car, closer to the hot radiator, where it was possible to warm up at least a little.
