Taking you back to the Second World War

There were no facilities on the shores for receiving and handling large quantities of goods. Sledges with additional sacks of flour were hitched to the lorries, and bread was put even in the drivers’ cabins-any extra loaf could help save yet another life.To protect the route from bombing strike& anti-aircraft gun emplacements were installed along the route. The fighter squadrons were also reinforced. The Military Council, after the opening of the Ladoga lifeline, slightly increased food rations on December 25, 1941, although it was well aware that everything depended on the smooth operation of the line.

Some hummocks reached a height of ten metres. Men would either lay bypass routes around them or cut out tunnels in them. Traffic on the lifeline never stopped for a minute day or night. Road builders and goods inspectors worked round the clock. Drivers would sit at the wheel for two and even three days on end. Things were not any easier for traffic officers. They would spend a whole day standing on wind-swept ice in bitting frost, then gulp down a cup of hot tea, have two to three hours of sleep in a cold tent, and ‘be back at their posts to direct the convoys of lorries ..

It became necessary to change route continuously because the ice was still thin. The drivers were plagued by heavy snowfalls and storms when visibility was almost nil. They often lost their bearings and the lorries would then plunge into unfrozen patches of water. In December 126 lorries sank in the lake. Pools also presented a great danger. Covered with snow, they differed little from thick ice in appearance, and so trail walkers had to mark them with stakes. Strips of unfrozen water several metres wide sometimes would stretch for many kilometres, and 147 bridges and causeways had to be built across them.

A convoy of sledges and carts went to the western bank on the same day to take the first allotment of bread to Leningrad. On November 22 a convoy of 60 lorries set out from Vaganovo to Kobona. The ice was still thin, and it crunched and cracked under the weight of the lorries. But Leningrad gripped by hunger, anxiously awaited them. The first column, which opened traffic on the lifeline three days ahead of schedule, could bring very little to the city, only 33 tons of flour. Each lorry could take not more than 5 to 6 sacks. But a beginning was made. Conditions along the road were particularly hard in the initial period.