Premiere of the Presidential Library’s film about urban electric transport

On May 15, 2023 St. Petersburg hosted the premiere screening of the Presidential Library’s film about the origin and development of urban electric transport From the Horse Car to a Drone. Pages of History. The film is available for viewing on the Presidential Library’s portal in the Documentaries section.

The event was attended by representatives of the leadership of the Committee for Transport of St. Petersburg and the leadership of the Presidential Library, the director of St. Petersburg State Unitary Enterprise Gorelectrotrans Denis Minkin, the filmmaker Tatyana Dyakonova.

The history of the original St. Petersburg transport - the tram - began in 1863, when the first horse-drawn carriages appeared on the streets of the city, running on rails. Later, engineer Fyodor Pirotsky conducted his famous experiment on launching horse tram car № 114, equipped with electric motor. Thus, St. Petersburg became the birthplace of the electric tram.

The richest history of the development of electric transport is illustrated in the two-part film directed by Tatyana Dyakonova From the Horse Car to a Drone. Pages of History filmed under the cooperation agreement between St. Petersburg State Unitary Enterprise Gorelectrotrans and the Presidential Library. The film provides materials from the Presidential Library’s collections and the Exposition and Exhibition Complex of Urban Electric Transport as well as the Central Archive of "Gorelectrotrans".

Flipping through the pages of the history of electric transport in St. Petersburg and telling about them and about the fate of Gorelektrotrans specialists, the author shows the daily life of all departments of the enterprise: from tram and trolleybus depots to the logistics service and the service of computer technology and communications.

Filming took place right at the workplace: in the cabs of trams and trolleybuses, at the machine in the depot, in the offices. Employees tell how they got into the profession, how they see their future and the future of urban transport.

Two series of conversations with people of various specialties will allow looking behind the scenes of the oldest transport company in the city and get to know the team that ensures safe, fast and comfortable travel by trams and trolleybuses in St. Petersburg daily.

The Presidential Library has been developing cooperation with St. Petersburg State Unitary Enterprise Gorelectrotrans since 2017. During this time, numerous joint projects have been implemented: the exchange of historical materials that entered the library collections and the collections of the Exposition and Exhibition Complex of Urban Electric Transport, video lectures dedicated to the history of the tram, joint exhibitions, the contest "Trams and Trolleybuses in the city on the Neva" as well as the multimedia exhibitions on its results, etc.

The Presidential Library’s portal features the electronic collection Petersburg Tram. It includes plans, drawings, archival materials, newspaper articles covering the history of the development of the tram traffic in St. Petersburg, talking about the technical arrangement of cars, parks and tracks, the work of the tram in besieged Leningrad; there are also photographs depicting museum objects of the Exposition and Exhibition Complex of Urban Electric Transport.