Already in January 1942, the Bureau of the Leningrad City Party Committee discussed the issue of the revival of the tram. A specific goal was set for the trams: to open freight traffic on March 8, and passenger traffic on April 15. Freight trams were supposed to participate in cleaning the city from snow and help restore passenger traffic.

It was a very difficult and responsible task. But people began to work with even greater enthusiasm. The trackers put the rail track in order, the contactors mounted the wires, one by one the wagons went “to the line of readiness”. Almost already in February, most of them could take to the streets. It was very important to keep in working condition the most vulnerable part of the tram gauge - the arrows. They were saved by the switchmen - in the cold and blizzard, with the last of their strength, they cleared the paths of snow, sprinkled them with salt and translated, endlessly translated the arrows so as not to let the frost forge the metal. It is no coincidence that among the tram workers awarded for selfless work during the years of the siege was the switchman Maria Ivanovna Kolokolchikova, who was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor.

Dozens of kilometers of tracks, 500 kilometers of a contact network, hundreds of wagons were put in order in a short time. Every day, the leaders of the department reported to the secretaries of the city party committee on the progress of work.

On March 7, the Tram and Trolleybus Department was informed that at 6 pm the Klin substation (not far from the Vitebsk railway station) would be energized. Closest to her was a freight car that stood on Zagorodny Prospekt, near Ruzovskaya Street.

A group of trammen headed by the head of department M.X. Magpie went to Zagorodny Prospekt. We decided to try to start the tram. They climbed onto the platform of the car, put the reversing drum on “forward”, raised the yoke, and the head of the Traffic Service V.M. Nemzer turned on the controller. The car shuddered, but did not move. Checked - there is current in the network. We looked under the car: it was standing on a frozen block of ice and snow. I had to work with crowbars. Turned the controller back on. And now the tram rides along Zagorodny ...

The next day, a city-wide Sunday was held to clean up the city. Power was supplied to many sections of the network, and freight trams were used to haul snow and mud to landfills.

The joy of the townspeople knew no bounds - they looked in amazement at the revived tram and everywhere, wherever it appeared, met it with exclamations of "Hurrah!".

Now we had to do the most important thing: open the movement of passenger trams. And it was much more difficult.

In addition to the preparation of cars, tracks, contact network, substations, the most difficult task of organizing the future movement of trams was solved. It was clear that under the conditions of the blockade it would not be possible to restore traffic to the previous volume. This means that it is necessary to develop such a scheme that, with a minimum number of routes, a person can get from one end of the city to the other with no more than one transfer. Dozens of options were considered by movement specialists Vitaly Markovich Nemzer, Alexander Zakharovich Vasiliev, a man of great experience who went from a switchman on a horse-drawn tram to the head of the Linear Department, and then still a young engineer Maria Nikolaevna Kondrashova. And they found such an optimal combination, created a movement scheme.

The revival of the tram was facilitated by the fact that the Military Council of the Leningrad Front withdrew a group of leading transport specialists from military units. He continued to work in the city of the Tram and trolleybus (now Electromechanical) technical school. On the fourth floor of house No. 40 on Mokhovaya Street (now the Technical School of the Chemical Industry is located in this building), in cold, barely heated classrooms, the boys and girls of besieged Leningrad studied physics and electrical engineering, rolling stock and traffic organization ... Future transport commanders not only sat at their desks - working in the parks, they were actively preparing the launch of the tram.

The archive of the October Revolution and Socialist Construction stores the decision of the Leningrad Executive Committee of April 11, 1942 "On the resumption of passenger tram traffic." In the first paragraph it is written: "Start from April 15, 1942, the normal operation of the passenger tram." Five routes are also named here, along which trams should run, they were assigned numbers 3, 7, 9, 10, 12. In some sections, these routes resembled pre-war ones, but, taking into account wartime requirements, the route of the trams was changed. The traffic regulations were also approved: from 6 hours 30 minutes to 21 hours 30 minutes.

On the same day, a special order was issued for the Tram and Trolleybus Department. It provided for the readiness by April 14 of 116 trains (317 wagons) to be released, the creation of a reserve of 24 trains (72 wagons). And again, contrary to the conditions of the besieged city, not allowing themselves any discounts and concessions, the trams sought to provide a high culture of passenger service. The order, in particular, demanded that the wagons be brought into good condition - to remove them, wash them, and tint them. A timetable was developed in advance and, just in case, detour routes. Established control over the observance of the schedule and the collection of fares. Particular attention was paid to the appearance of transport workers: the order demanded that drivers, conductors, and line agents not dressed in uniform or untidy be allowed to work.

And when it seemed that everything was already ready, every little thing was checked a hundred times, - suddenly a surprise. However, why "surprise"? It should have been foreseen, because the tram went out onto a huge battlefield, into a zone of fire. On the night of April 14-15, the Nazis rained down a lot of shells on the area between the Bolshevik plant and the Volodarsky bridge. It was here that the "seven" was supposed to go in the morning. The contact network turned out to be broken again, the paths reared up. But at exactly the appointed time, the tram went here too: teams of fitters, who worked until the morning, managed to restore the line.

It was April 15, 1942 - the two hundred and nineteenth day of the blockade. As if on cue, the bright spring sun rose over the city. And in the early morning, tram trains from several parks simultaneously entered the line.

On the eve of 1975, speaking on Leningrad television, the carriage driver, holder of the Order of Lenin Efrosinya Fedorovna Agapova, who was the first to leave the Blokhin Park that memorable day, recalled:

“We went to the park, as if to a holiday, we knew: we had to go to the line. Everyone who was present gathered. They tell me: “Get in, go!” And here I am in the cockpit. I touched the handle of the controller, put it in the first position. And suddenly the car came to life. I can't describe what I felt at that moment. Brought the tram out of the park. At the bus stops, people come in, laugh, cry with joy. Many people ask: “How much will a ticket cost now?” And I also laugh, and wipe my tears with joy, I say: “All the same 15 kopecks, my dears, all the same 15 kopecks” ... Sadovaya, Moskovsky Prospekt. And everywhere along the way people - lively, on emaciated faces - joy. Tram bell, like a victory. Although Victory Day was still far away. And it's not close to lifting the blockade. Elektrosila is the last stop. Nearby - Blagodatnaya street, tram ring. And there is a stone's throw to the front line. There were many flights. Difficult, dangerous, under bombing and shelling.

But that flight, April 15, I will never forget. And I always remember the faces of those of my blockade passengers.

On April 15, 1942, Alexandra Nikolaevna Vasilyeva also pulled out her tram. Thirty-five years later, she wrote in the Smena newspaper:

“I was transferred to the Leonov tram park, on Vasilyevsky Island, after the Kotlyakovsky Park, where I used to work, was bombed. I barely managed to escape. But these bombings were not yet the worst signs of the war. Children who were evacuated were gathered at the Mining Institute. They were put on my tram, and I drove them to the Moscow railway station. My heart broke when I saw how mothers and children said goodbye.

When the tram rails froze, the electricity in the city went out - the movement stopped. We, drivers and park workers, set out to dig trenches, knock ice off the tracks, warm up the wagons. And then one day they told us: on April 15, trams should go on the line! In spite of all the cold, bombs, damned fascists, we had to make a holiday in our city, to please tired Leningraders, to bring movement to the streets. And movement is life.

On that day, not even a holiday in our park was especially memorable - we knew that it would come, and we were preparing for it. The most joyful thing was to see passers-by, who slowly turned around at the familiar sound of an approaching tram. To see the incredulous, surprised eyes of people and somewhere in the very depths of these eyes the already forgotten smile of Leningraders.

After the war, recalling that April day, the writer Vera Ketlinskaya, at a meeting with transport workers, said with great excitement:

“During the blockade, we all understood what such a familiar thing from childhood as a tram is for us ...

We all remember these dangling, twisted wires, shot cars, littered with snowdrifts.

And then you did an unheard-of work under these conditions. With weak hands, exhausted, then you raised the contact network and gave the opportunity to run again to a simple Leningrad tram car. It was for us a symbol of rebirth, a symbol of life.

We ran, we were also weak, but we ran on our fragile, swollen legs behind this car. I remember shouting: “Call again!” This tram car was such a joy!”

The launch of the tram also had an impact on the morale of the Nazi soldiers who besieged the city. Here is what the captured German artilleryman Corporal Folkenhorst said during interrogation:

By the night of the fifteenth of April, we, as always, came to the point: me and Kurt Schmitzbube, my second number ... It was a damp April night with low clouds. Everything around looked as usual. The same darkness, the same cold. But there, over Leningrad, some strange blue flashes ran through the clouds. Not rockets, no, something completely different! “Kurt,” I said, “what is this strange illumination? Are the Russians going to use some new secret weapon? Kurt climbed onto the roof of the dugout and looked towards the city for a long time. “Damn me completely, Folkenhorst! he muttered at last. - They let the tram! .. ”Let the tram go? Russians? In Leningrad, in the seventh month of the blockade?! I thought. Why did we freeze here all winter? Why did forests of crosses grow in our divisional cemeteries? Why were we shouting about the inevitable death of the inhabitants of the city, about our victory, if they ... started the tram?!.

The resumption of traffic became possible thanks to the inhuman efforts of not only transport workers, but also thousands of Leningraders. To provide the tram with electricity, it was necessary to restore the third boiler at the fifth hydroelectric power station. In preparation for the evacuation, it was dismantled at the time. Now it was decided not only to assemble the boiler again, but also to reconstruct it. People who could barely stand on their feet completed this work in a very short time, and electricity again ran through the tram wires.

In the first winter of the war, Leningrad was left without a tram service. Tram depot workers performed feats of labor to save traction substations. In the spring, the army of Leningraders cleared the streets of snow and on March 8 freight trams drove through the city. On April 15, passenger traffic resumed. Until now, at the address of nab. Fontanka River 3a there is a memorial plaque “TO THE FEAT OF TRAMS OF THE BLOCKED LENINGRAD”, which reads “After the harsh winter of 1941-1942, this traction substation provided energy to the network and ensured the movement of the revived tram.”

On April 15, 1942, in the besieged Leningrad, the city tram started working again. At the very beginning of the blockade, when there was not enough electricity in the city, the wagons froze on the streets before they could reach the depot. It is hard to imagine how much strength and determination it took the people of Leningrad to revive the tram. And they succeeded. It was possible to prove that they are alive, that they will not surrender. We have collected for you excerpts from the memories of the blockade, who on that spring day again heard the long-awaited call.

“The city has become pedestrian. Distances have become reality. They were measured by the strength of their legs. Not in time, as before, but in steps. Sometimes the number of steps.
Blockade Book, A. Adamovich, D. Granin
“With our own money, we bought rubber bandages at the pharmacy, which athletes usually bandage the ligaments with, smeared the pipe with red lead, which, fortunately, was enough, wound a bandage around this place, smeared it again with red lead, and wrapped it tightly on top with the so-called strong keeper tape. Above - again red lead. This method of treatment fully justified itself ... Thus, water cooling was restored at most substations: Klinskaya, Central, Nekrasovskaya, Lesnoy and others ... "Many years later, in the 1980s, water supply pipes were changed at many substations and locksmiths were very surprised by the strange" patches on pipes”, which stood for more than 40 years”.
Physicist L.A. Sena

February 1942. The fuel situation began to improve. The 5th CHPP was launched and produced on February 26, 8 thousand kilowatts, and on March 13 - already 14 thousand. The Bureau of the Regional Committee of the Party makes a decision: to resume the movement of the tram. March 8 - to launch cargo, April 15 - passenger routes. Dozens of kilometers of tracks, 500 kilometers of the contact network, hundreds of wagons were put in order in a short time.
From the memoirs of A. Marinin, director of HPP No. 5
He woke up Leningraders in April 1942 The Great Patriotic War, history, leningrad, blockade, transport
“I look, and from the General Headquarters a tram leaves for the Nevsky. Through the front glass of the motor car one can see the face of the car driver shining with joy. And her foot now and then squeezes out the bell pedal, which calls people from everywhere - look, rejoice, we survived!

He woke up Leningraders in April 1942 The Great Patriotic War, history, leningrad, blockade, transport
“Despite all the cold, bombs, damned fascists, we had to make a holiday in our city, please tired Leningraders, bring movement to the streets. And movement is life. On that day, not even a holiday in our park was especially memorable - we knew that it would come, and we were preparing for it. The most joyful thing was to see passers-by, who slowly turned around at the familiar sound of an approaching tram. To see the incredulous, surprised eyes of people and somewhere in the very depths of these eyes the already forgotten smile of Leningraders.
Car driver of the tram park them. Leonova A.N. Vasilyeva
“We went to the park as if to a holiday, we knew: we had to go to the line ... And here I am in the cab. I touched the handle of the controller, put it in the first position. And suddenly the car came to life. I can't describe what I felt at that moment. Brought the tram out of the park. At the bus stops, people come in, laugh, cry for joy… Then there were many flights. Difficult, dangerous under bombing and shelling. But that flight, April 15, I will never forget. And I always remember the faces of those blockade passengers.
Car driver of the tram park them. Blokhin E.F.Agapova
He woke up Leningraders in April 1942 The Great Patriotic War, history, leningrad, blockade, transport
“And the unusual tram of the spring of 1942 is ringing, ringing, passing along the Nevsky. Tram-winner, tram-legend!”
“Leningrad is acting”, P.N. Luknitsky
He woke up Leningraders in April 1942 The Great Patriotic War, history, leningrad, blockade, transport
“During the blockade, we all understood what such a familiar thing for us from childhood as a tram is ... We all remember these dangling, twisted wires, shot cars, littered with snowdrifts. And then you did an unheard-of work under these conditions. With weak hands, exhausted, then you raised the contact network and gave the opportunity to run again to a simple Leningrad tram car. It was for us a symbol of rebirth, a symbol of life. We ran, we were also weak, but we ran on our fragile, swollen legs behind this car. I remember how they shouted: “Call again!” This tram car was such a joy!”
Writer V.K.Ketlinskaya
He woke up Leningraders in April 1942 The Great Patriotic War, history, leningrad, blockade, transport
“By the night of the 15th ... it was a damp April night with low clouds. Everything was as usual, but there, over Leningrad, some strange blue flashes were running through the clouds. “Kurt,” I said, “what kind of strange illumination is this, are the Russians going to use a new secret weapon?” “Damn it, Folkenhorst, they started the tram.” They started the tram in the seventh month of the blockade! .. I thought: why did we freeze here all winter, why did we shout about the inevitable death of the inhabitants of the city if they started the tram?
Hans Folkenhorst, corporal, artilleryman
“1944, January 7th. It looks like the city is living out the last months of the blockade. I remember the general rejoicing of Leningraders when, for the first time after a 5-month break, trams rumbled through the streets. It was April 15, 1942. And today the tram has already become a common occurrence, and when you have to wait for it for more than 5 minutes, this causes discontent.”
From the diary of Vladimir Ge

“I don’t really like to use the so-called“ big words ”unnecessarily, but for what the Leningrad tram drivers did during the Great Patriotic War, I can’t pick up any other definition than a feat ... ".
Head of the Tram and Trolleybus Department M.Kh.Soroka

On April 15, 1942, in besieged Leningrad, after a four-month break, trams started again. It would seem that this is so life-affirming? After all, the tram in the city has always been one of the most popular and familiar modes of transport. Until September 1941, the movement of trams in the city was stable, about 800 trains, usually consisting of two cars, moved along 42 routes. Trams also carried out evacuation at the beginning of the war. After all, the rest of the transport disappeared from the city back in June: almost all of it was sent to the needs of the front, except for trolleybuses, which soon went out of order due to network disruptions.

Those who went to the rear traveled by tram to the railway stations, until on August 27 the railway connection with the mainland was interrupted. The Hermitage collection was evacuated to the railroad on the trams delivered to Palace Square, with the subsequent reloading of cultural property into trains. Freight trams, of which there were always many in Leningrad, delivered equipment intended for evacuation to railway stations, transported raw materials and fuel for plants and factories, products to shops and sand for foundry needs.

With the beginning of the war, part of the tram cars were converted into sanitary cars - for transporting the wounded to the hospital. Passenger seats were removed and stretcher mounts were installed - in three tiers, up to the ceiling. The cars were provided with blackout and installed heating devices and hot water tanks, so that, if necessary, urgent operations could be done right in the car while moving.

In September 1941, the fighting moved so close to the city that defensive lines ran along the territory of the Leningrad outskirts. At the tram park Konyashin, pillboxes and barriers were built, and the territory near the tram park named after. Kotlyakov was mined: the front came too close. The final stop of one of the tram lines - Sosnovaya Polyana station - was captured by enemy troops, on the other - in Rybatsky - was the headquarters of the 55th Army of the Leningrad Front.

In addition, by November, the contact network was damaged in places and part of the routes ceased to function. Power outages have also become more frequent. “Back in September, a resolution was issued on saving electricity,” says Chief Researcher of the Central Museum of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation Vladimir Afanasiev . - Heating was not supplied to the houses, the water supply stopped working, they saved on lighting, many enterprises curtailed their work, and where it is impossible to stop the process, they installed gasoline, gas and diesel generators, their own block stations. On November 17, most consumers were disconnected from electricity. Nevertheless, individual trams still continued to carry goods and the wounded, and in some places passenger traffic was also maintained.

The trams finally stopped on December 8, 1942. A record of the on-duty engineer of the energy service of the tram department has been preserved about this: “The supply of electricity stopped on the morning of 12/08/1941. Traffic did not resume. 52 tram trains that left that day remained on the line.

On January 3, 1942, all electrical substations were finally mothballed. What this meant for Leningraders, only those who survived the blockade know. On stiff legs, swollen from hunger, barely moving from weakness, they had to overcome the distance from home to work and back throughout the terrible blockade winter of 1941-1942, and also go to the Neva for water, and every day for bread - stand in endless lines , and many still go to kindergarten and back, with children. Daniil Granin and Ales Adamovich wrote in their Blockade Book: “The city has become on foot. Distances have become reality. They were measured by the strength of their legs. Not in time, as before, but in steps. Sometimes the number of steps.

The trams stood in the middle of the street, where the power outage found them - dead, dark, with broken windows. “Where the tram or trolleybus stopped, it stood with a snow and ice cap,” says Konstantin Alekseevich Korshunov, born in 1934, from the blockade. And there were corpses everywhere. Nobody buried anyone - the corpses were taken out in cars and burned.

In January-February and March 1942, tens of thousands of people died every month, the death rate reached 500-560 per thousand. In the conditions of a de-energized city, in which sewage was poured all winter directly into the yards. All this, with the approach of spring, when the snow begins to melt, threatened with mass epidemics. Therefore, the question arose of the need for a radical improvement in the sanitary situation in Leningrad. The State Defense Committee in February 1942 decided to clean up the city. Everyone who could still work was put on their feet. In March 1942, the first Sundays were held to clean up the city, and at the end of the month, by decision of the Executive Committee of the Leningrad City Council, the entire able-bodied population, including schoolchildren, was mobilized to clean the streets. But how to clean the city if there is nothing to take out the snow and garbage mixed with sewage? The trucks, of which there were so few, could hardly cope with the removal of the corpses.

The city needed a tram. Even in winter, all the forces of the employees of the Tram and Trolleybus Department were thrown into the restoration of tram traffic. Almost 90% of rolling stock repairmen, electricians in the energy service, and track repair workers during the siege were women and teenagers. It was necessary to restore almost half of the city's contact network - about 150 km. And on March 8, 1942, the first freight trams returned to the line and those to which, instead of passenger cars, open platforms were attached, onto which garbage, ice and snow were loaded. With their help, just before the warming, the city coped with cleaning the streets from sewage. By mid-April, about 1 million tons of garbage, sewage and ice had been removed from the streets. The epidemic no longer threatened Leningrad.

And since April 15, an almost unbelievable thing happened - passenger trams again went through the streets of the besieged city! Here is how he later wrote about this historic day in his book Head of the Tram and Trolleybus Department Mikhail Khrisanfovich Soroka: “I’m walking along Nevsky to Palace Square. I know that the movement should begin at six. Why is there no one yet? I'm nervous like a boy before an exam. And suddenly, from somewhere far away, a chime is heard. Did it seem? Not! But why doesn't the driver take his feet off the pedal? Did someone get in the way? Impossible to drive? Involuntarily he took a step forward. I look, and from the General Staff Headquarters, a tram leaves for the Nevsky. Through the front glass of the motor car one can see the face of the car driver shining with joy. And her foot now and then squeezes the bell pedal, which calls people from everywhere - look, rejoice, we survived!

The feelings of the Leningraders who heard the ringing of the first besieged tram cannot be conveyed! People stood along the tram line, crying and laughing; previously unfamiliar, they congratulated each other and hugged each other as if they were the closest and dearest. And this common joy, these smiles and thousands of happy eyes are dearer to us than any, the highest awards.

A little-known fact: tram travel during the blockade was paid, the fare was 15 kopecks, as in pre-war times. This ticket price was maintained until the 50s, except for those lines where the tram went far beyond the city. In such cases, the route was divided into 2-3 tariff zones.

The blockade children were perfectly happy.“When the tram was launched again in the city, the guys and I took turns racing with it on the only scooter,” recalls Pavel Pavlovich Kolanov, born in 1939. “I got to the police, and my mother was given a certificate that I was a homeless child.”.

« I remember with great joy how, after all this horror, the first tram went, - says Zinaida Ignatievna Staroverova, who was 7 years old in 1942. - Only one trailer, but how he rang! People rejoiced, cried with happiness, kissed each other ... ".

On April 15, 1942, trams entered the line on only five routes. More routes could not be opened due to a shortage of electricity supplied to the city. But where did the electricity for these five routes come from? After all, the most severe savings continued!

“On each route, a minimum of trams were launched,” says military historian Vladimir Afanasiev . - The fuel line laid along the bottom, which was put into operation on July 18, 1941, helped out, and its productivity was 300-350 tons of fuel and lubricants per day. Now it is difficult to say how much it was really possible to transport through it, but it was and functioned. Plus a power underwater electric cable from the Volkhovskaya hydroelectric power station, laid along the bottom and working almost the entire time of the blockade. In addition, the workers of those enterprises that were mothballed were used in peat extraction on the right bank of the Neva: they extracted fuel for five thermal power plants that worked for defense needs. And in the spring, when navigation opened, fuel tanks were lowered along the slipway into the water, and then towed along the Road of Life by ships, since oil products are lighter than water and they could be towed afloat.”

The launch of the trams was not only an incredible joy and a sign of the coming victory for the people of Leningrad. It became a serious psychological blow to the enemies besieging the city. One of the prisonersGermanscorporal, artilleryman Hans Folkenhorst, later said: “There, over Leningrad, some strange blue flashes ran through the clouds. Not rockets, no, something completely different! Damn it...they started the tram! In Leningrad, in the seventh month of the blockade?!.. Why did we freeze here all winter? Why did we shout about the inevitable death of the inhabitants of the city, about our victory, if they ... started the tram?!”

By the summer of 1943, trams were carrying passengers along 15 routes.

Currently, in memory of the blockade tram, annually on April 15, a memorial “Blockade flight” takes place, on which wartime trams leave the Museum of City Electric Transport.

Tatyana Trofimova

Yesterday, April 15, 1942, 73 years have passed since the launch of the tram service in the besieged city after a three-month break.

A few facts about the work of the tram in the besieged city:

Until September 1941, the movement of trams in the city was quite stable. But with the encirclement of the blockade, less and less electricity began to flow into the city. Accordingly, the number of trams on the streets of the city began to decrease.

The tram played an important role in the evacuation of the city. The Hermitage collection was evacuated to railway stations on trams delivered to Palace Square, followed by reloading to railway trains. The residents of the city were also evacuated by tram to the points of departure of trains.

On December 8, 1941, the traffic of trams in the city stopped. There was no order to close the tram traffic, so a long-term power outage was met by a large number of tram trains on the line, and they remained there until the spring of 1942.

The exact date of the termination of tram traffic in the city is not exactly set. According to some sources, this was December 8, 1941 (a power outage for a long period), according to other sources, tram traffic was periodically carried out by a small number of cars until January 3, 1942, when all electrical substations were extinguished and mothballed.

After stopping the tram traffic in the city, the work of trams did not stop. The wagons were repaired, the material base was maintained in working order, some of the workers were sent to other work needed by the city.

In mid-February 1942, a decision was made to restore tram traffic in the besieged city. First of all, it was about the restoration of the freight tram. These plans, thanks to the heroism of the Leningraders, managed to come true and on March 7, 1942, the first freight tram train drove along Zagorodny Prospekt. In addition to the freight tram, small steam locomotives also traveled along the tram lines.

Why was freight tram traffic necessary in the city? City in the cold and hungry winter of 1941-1942. almost never cleaned up. Spring is warming. And warming threatened the start of an epidemic. There were practically no cars left in the city, so only the tram could cope with the solution of this issue, especially in the pre-war time, freight tram transportation in the city was very developed. Thus, with the help of a tram and residents, the city was cleared of winter sewage!

On April 15, in the besieged city, surrounded on all sides, the movement of passenger trams was also opened. The tram has become a symbol of faith in Victory and hope for life! The life of the townspeople was somewhat simplified - now they did not have to walk daily, in hunger and cold, from work to home. The tram came to the rescue!

On April 15, 1942, trams entered the line on only five routes. More routes could not be opened due to a shortage of electricity supplied to the city. But even these five routes served all the main directions of the route network. The routes passed from one end of the city to the other through the center: almost any place in the city could be reached with just one transfer.

For the townspeople, the launch of the tram is happiness, but for the German troops it is a complete shock. One of the captured fascists said: “There, over Leningrad, some strange blue flashes ran through the clouds. Not rockets, no, something completely different! …. Damn it…they started the tram! In Leningrad, in the seventh month of the siege?!.. Why did we freeze here all winter?.. Why did we shout about the inevitable death of the inhabitants of the city, about our victory, if they ... started the tram?!”

The tram was constantly shelled, there were casualties both among the employees of the tram management and among the passengers. How to minimize losses? First, the cars were subjected to the strictest blackout. Secondly, to make it more difficult to target the trams, the places of tram stops were periodically transferred from one place to another, the movement of cars alternated periodically along different parallel lines. Thirdly, in order to get rid of sparks and violation of blackout, two pantographs (yokes) were installed on the cars. Fourthly, they tried to produce short trains on the line, from one or two small tram cars, so that in case of damage to the contact network, the passengers themselves could push the tram to a serviceable section.

Interesting, but true: tram travel during the blockade was paid, the fare was 15 kopecks as in pre-war times.

In addition to passenger and freight transportation, sanitary tram transportation was also carried out in the city. Temporary tram lines were laid to many hospitals. Hospital trains, mostly converted trams of the LM/LP-33 type, picked up wounded soldiers at the front line and transported them to hospitals in Leningrad. Instead of seats in sanitary trams, stretchers were located in three tiers along the walls of the car. Wounded fighters were loaded into the car through a specially designed end door.

During the blockade in the city, the following dialogue could be heard

How are you, how are you?

Yes, like a tram of the fourth route: "I'll get hungry, I'll get hungry and on Volkovo."

This dialogue describes the route of one of the wartime tram routes: from Goloday Island (now the Decembrist Island) to Rasstannaya Street to the Volkovsky Cemetery ... Such is the specific blockade humor.

By the summer of 1943, trams were carrying passengers along 15 routes. The thing is that in the fall of 1942, a cable was laid along the bottom of Lake Ladoga, connecting our city with the Volkhovskaya hydroelectric power station, and more electricity began to flow into the cities.

By the way, the tram was the only mode of transport in the besieged city, although in the pre-war period passenger transportation around the city was also carried out by buses and trolleybuses. But the buses all went to the front, the trolleybus network was not particularly developed and was seriously damaged by hostilities, so only the tram was involved in the transportation of passengers.

During the blockade, it was supposed to resume trolleybus traffic, but not along city streets. For the winter of 1942 - 1943, it was planned to build a trolleybus line on the ice of Lake Ladoga, that is, it was supposed to release trolleybuses for freight transportation on the "Road of Life" - by analogy with the "ice tram", which was operated in our city from 1895 to 1910. But these plans were not destined to come true for at least two reasons. First, the winter of 1942-1943. was warm enough and by January 1943 the ice on Ladoga had not risen, and, secondly, on January 18, 1943, the ring of the blockade of Leningrad was broken and a railway line was built - the Victory Road, which surpassed the Road of Life in terms of traffic.

Well, trolleybus traffic in the city was resumed on May 24, 1944, trolleybuses of the 4th route connected the area of ​​the Elektrosila plant and the Admiralty.

At present, in memory of the besieged tram, about the people of Leningrad, there is an annual "Blockade flight" on which wartime trams leave the Museum of City Electric Transport.

That's all. In general, the topic of the blockade tram is very extensive, interesting and inexhaustible.

For a long time there was the fourth number,
Someone died on the platform
Didn't get to the end.
Lamza-dritsa gop-tsatsa ...
blockade ditty

E it happened in April 1942 ... in the besieged Leningrad, passenger trams were pushed ...
For St. Petersburg, the tram service is still very important, and even during the blockade, it was perceived not as a means of transportation, but as a breath of air, hope for life, it was a symbol, helped to survive and gave hope.

Part of the tram fleet was mobilized for the needs of the front. The mobilized and volunteers left for the army, important sections of the tram and trolleybus economy were exposed.

Men went to the front, they were replaced by women and teenagers, old production workers returned to their jobs - those who were not subject to conscription. The work experience of new personnel was acquired in the conditions of war and blockade.

Newcomers were taught to drive trains and repair cars, they became conductors and mechanics, electricians.

It was necessary to immediately prepare wagons for the transport of the wounded, as well as begin laying roads to hospitals and hospitals - hospitals named after I.M. Mechnikov, Nechaev, Erisman, etc.

Stretchers in three tiers were placed in tram cars for transporting the wounded. The car had side and end doors for the convenience of transporting the stretcher. The windows of the cars were carefully draped with curtains and shields so that even at night it was possible to drive with the lights on (blackout). Heating devices and tanks with boiled water were placed in the car. Accompanying conductors were provided with first aid kits. Many of them have taken courses in the medical service.

In June-September 1941, 700 thousand people were employed in defense construction work around Leningrad. Four thousand trams carried them to the defensive lines.

All road transport of the city was mobilized to the front. The only form of public transport left in Leningrad is the tram.

Of the routes, only the longest ones were left, for example, the legendary number 4, which began on Golodai Island (now the island of the Decembrists), crossed Vasilyevsky, passed along the Palace Bridge, Nevsky Prospekt, turned to Ligovka and ended at the Volkov cemetery.

It was about him that they told a blockade anecdote:

Two friends meet on the street. " How are you doing?" - asks one another. "Yes, like tram number 4: on the Golodayu, on the Golodayu - and on Volkovo."

The tram was loved, ditties were composed about it, painted in the gloomy tones of that difficult time ...
On December 8, 1941, the tram traffic was stopped due to hostile actions, limiting the consumption of electricity due to the blockade of the city.

The duty engineer of the Energy Service wrote in his journal: “The supply of electricity was interrupted on the morning of 12/08/1941. Traffic has not resumed. The 52 tram trains that left that day remained on the line, and a number of trolleybus vehicles also remained on the line. From now on, people moved to and from work on foot.

There are two lines about this that hurt the soul in the “Blockade Book” by Ales Adamovich and Daniil Granin: “The city became footable. Distances have become reality. They were measured by the strength of their legs. Not in time, as before, but in steps. Sometimes the number of steps.

The tram stopped. By that day, there was so little electricity in the city that the contact network had to be turned off so that the enterprises that carried out military orders would not freeze.

A tram destroyed by a bomb on Vladimirskaya Square.

But on February 28, 1942, freight tram traffic was reopened. Passengers were taken on April 15. There were so few trams that they called them: Wait for me and I will come back“.

The start of the tram caused rage and even panic among the Nazis. One of the captured fascists said: “There, over Leningrad, some strange blue flashes ran through the clouds. Not rockets, no, something completely different! …. Damn it…they started the tram! In Leningrad, in the seventh month of the siege?!.. Why did we freeze here all winter?.. Why did we shout about the inevitable death of the inhabitants of the city, about our victory, if they ... started the tram?!”

Lev Uspensky: “Didn’t the fascists from Voronya Gora look askance at your green sparks with anger and fear in the spring of 1942? Oh, our dear tram, dear tram! For many months you were covered by the cold snowdrifts of the evil blockade, which also chilled our hearts, and on that sunny bright day on April 15, you, like all of us, suddenly came to life, rang, sparkled and ran through the harsh hero city as the first herald of the coming victory.