Presidential Library spotlights one-and-a-half-ton siege trucks, ambulances and trams

As part of a campaign, launched in an effort to collect materials about the siege, the Presidential Library has received 2,000 documents. One war-time photograph shows a Leningrad resident Ivan Shalberov leaning against GAZ-AA truck - the legendary one-and-a-half-ton truck (‘polutorka’), which transported many goods during the Great Patriotic War.

His daughter Lyubov Stepanova (Shalberova) was born in Leningrad in 1941 and thus she does not remember her father, who died in 1943. However, the legendary truck and the above-mentioned photograph miraculously linked the past and the present giving a chance to the siege survivor to learn what her father was like…  

It happened in January 2019 in Palace Square in St. Petersburg during the display of historical motor vehicles “Vehicles of Victory on the Road of Life”. Lyubov Stepanova came up to Alexei Ozorin, a well-known participant in military-historical re-enactments (“Rekon-SPB”, VKontakte social network) and showed him the photo of her father. Not only did he confirm that the same vehicle (GAZ-AA) was in the old picture, but he also leaned against the truck like the father of the siege survivor. As a result of such “re-enactment” Lyubov Stepanova learned that her father was nearly as tall as Alexei - about 1 m 82 cm. He also told her that Ivan Shalberov had the rank of senior sergeant for he had three triangles in his buttonhole.

In Lyubov Stepanova’s family archive there are also several letters from her father. One of them of June 11, 1943 reads in part: “Hello, my dear ones! I send you my cordial greetings. May you family life be happy and peaceful. I am safe and sound, there’s nothing new”.

On July 17, 1943 the driver of the aviation regiment, senior sergeant Ivan Shalberov was mortally wounded during the artillery shelling, his comrade in arms Vasily Petrovich wrote in his letter.

As part of the campaign launched by the Presidential Library another siege survivor Lidiya Khairova provided photographs of her father-in-law Karl Jurgenson, which will be digitized. During the siege, he was an ambulance driver and died of dystrophy on February 5, 1942.

In relation to ‘transport’ subject Boris Lehrman’s memoir may be of great interest. It entered the Presidential Library’s electronic collections in January 2019 as part of an exhibition, which opened ahead of the 75th anniversary of complete liberation of Leningrad from the Nazi siege.

Boris Lehrman was a driver of YATB-1 trolleybus, the first trolleybus model in the streets of Leningrad. During the severe war years he built defensive fortifications near Leningrad, suffered greatly from hunger and cold in the besieged city, caught spies during patrols at Volodarsky tram station. After the evacuation he worked at defense factories, liberated a concentration camp in Poland, took part in the Battle of Berlin and left an inscription on the wall of the Reichstag ...

The Presidential Library had earlier highlighted a letter back into the past, which was written by two Leningrad-St. Petersburg residents to their elder brother, who died during the siege and whom they have never seen.

Other siege-related materials include a letter from the son of the prominent Kazakh poet Syrbai Maulenov, who defended Leningrad on the Volkhov Front, was seriously wounded and kept the memories of that time alive through his whole life. Of particular interest are essays written by schoolchildren of Leningrad in the winter of 1941-1942; a diary, which impressed the author of “Two Captains” Veniamin Kaverin; Ivan Ilyin’s memories of the evacuation and a book about the life of a small girl Alisa Bolshakova in the besieged city.

The Presidential Library was the co-organiser of the unified city information center in St. Petersburg aimed at covering the events marking the 75th anniversary of complete liberation of Leningrad from the Nazi siege. On the portal of the Presidential Library you make take a virtual tour around the exhibition halls of the State Museum of Defense and Siege of Leningrad, which is temporarily closed, and explore the “Defence and Siege of Leningrad” electronic collection, which includes official documents, periodicals, memories of Leningrad residents, ration cards, photographs and newsreel.