Siege tram like long-time friend

On April 15, 1942, the citizens of Leningrad heard again the sound of a tram — a familiar rattling sound which they almost forgot during the first long winter of the siege. After a forced four-month break, at 6:30 in the morning, the tram rolled again through the streets of the northern capital, giving hope and allowing one to believe in the coming victory...  

On this day, April 15, the article “A tram goes on its route” was published in Leningradskaya Pravda. “Car № 2035 is led by Adrian Fedorovich Titkov. He leads it confidently and at the same time carefully. After all, this is the first time route. Trial. Dozens tram will follow it next morning. Regular passenger traffic will be open, - we read in the article. - The car is picking up speed, it goes along route № 9, a route that every Leningrad citizen knows, from Lesnoy to the Narva Gate. And, having seen the familiar route again, the people of Leningrad joyfully greet it like long-time friend who has returned from absenteeism. Moreover, Leningrad residents know that the tram goes along the paths cleared by their hands. Their work allowed the resumption of regular passenger traffic”.  

The article “Yesterday on the tram tracks”, published in Leningradskaya Pravda on April 16, focused on how everything had passed the day before: “Streetcar workers were well prepared for this serious test. All day they diligently served Leningraders. When there was a hitch in movement, emergency recovery teams quickly eliminated them. Each tram fleet, in addition to the scheduled ones, had several spare trains on hand”.

On April 17, according to the same Leningradskaya Pravda, the head of the tram-trolleybus department, Mikhail Soroka, reported that in two days the trams carried more than a million passengers!

As a result, the saving tram remained the only public transport in the city during the entire siege period! Only in May 1944, the trolleybuses were also restored. The movement of buses was launched already at the end of the war, in August 1945.

About the transport…

Let us return again to the harsh siege years. From the very beginning of the war, the trams played a very important role in the life of the city and the front. They were transported soldiers, evacuated the wounded, they were used to deliver shells and other goods. From July to December 1941, two thousand tram cars departed to the military units, with the help of which a quarter of a million servicemen were transported.

Because of the lack of gasoline the buses stopped. The fuel at the remaining thermal power plants was running out, and on December 8, 1941, the trams and trolleybuses also stopped. Therefore, during the first siege winter, it was possible to see trams left in the middle of the road, frozen to the rails...  

However, the workers of the tram and trolleybus department did not stop working - they had to maintain the transport system in a state that allowed them to breathe life into it again at the earliest opportunity. As a result, on March 8, 1942 in Leningrad, a freight tram traffic was launched, carrying garbage, ice and snow, and on April 15 - passenger traffic.

At first, trams ran along only five routes: №. 3, 7, 9, 10, 12. But by the summer of 1943 — already by 15. By June 1942, a trunk pipeline was laid along the Ladoga bottom, by November — the laying of electrical cables was completed (The cable of life).

In honor of the 77th anniversary of the "restart" of the siege tram, on April 2, 2019, a video lecture "The siege tram: struggling for the life of Leningrad" was held at the Presidential Library. The head of the Technical Policy Service - Advisor to the Director of St. Petersburg State Unitary Enterprise Gorelektrotrans Sergei Kitayev told about the pre-war condition of the tram economy of the city on the Neva River and its transfer to the front rails.

In his speech, he summed up the sad result: in 1941-1944, 3,177 people were dismissed from the tram and trolleybus administration with the wording “due to death”. "missing" - 71 people. During the years of the siege, 1,050 direct hits of projectiles and bombs were recorded in the tram facilities, which completely destroyed 69 km of tram tracks. On the contact network occurred 980 destruction. 101 km of the cable network were damaged, 153 trams were completely destroyed, 13 trolleybuses and 25 buildings were broken. And this figure: on the eve of World War II, about 800 trams ran along 42 routes in Leningrad. In April 1942, 116 trams (317 cars) took the line along five extended routes ...

Anyone can visit the Presidential Library's portal, which houses the large electronic collection Petersburg Tram, including plans, drawings, archival materials, newspaper articles on the history of the development of the tram traffic in our city, the technical structure of cars, parks and tracks and much more. A separate section of the collection is called "The Tram during the Great Patriotic War".

Let us remind that last November the newspaper Petersburg Diary together with the Presidential Library and Radio Rossiya - St. Petersburg launched a project dedicated to preserving the historical memory of the siege of Leningrad. More than 250 people responded to the call to share memories of that time, providing more than 2500 documents for digitization.