Much has been written about the Leningrad blockade, and almost every new work opens up an insufficiently well-known chapter in the heroic chronicle of the city's defense. In this collective series, little is said about the Leningrad power engineers who worked in the framework of Lenenergo. Most of the documents of Lenenergo were lost, and specific information has to be collected bit by bit. We do not aim to reveal all aspects of the multifaceted activities of Leningrad power engineers and try to highlight only the most important and vivid episodes of their work during the years of the blockade.
In the first days of the war, the power engineers of Leningrad took up arms to defend the Motherland. In less than three weeks after June 22, 1941, more than 40 LGES-2 workers applied to voluntarily join the Armed Forces .1 A 30-year-old boiler shop worker, M. M. Ashurkov, wrote: "I will fight the enemy as my brothers who died fighting Kolchak fought. I remember my father's words-shoot if there are no cartridges-if there is a bayonet, there is no bayonet-hit with the butt, the butt is broken - bite your teeth, but do not retreat. It is better to die a hero than to run away a coward. " 2 More than 450 LGES-2 workers volunteered for the front from June 30 to October 30, 1941, and about 20 workers joined the partisans3 . V. S. Sukritin, an electrician who participated in the Civil War, was one of the first to apply to LGES-1 to be sent to the front. A whole shift of LGES-2 headed by its chief I. A. Alyonok and senior master A. F. Lysenko went to the front. In the first days of the war, two Lenenergo fighter battalions were formed, which later joined the Kirov Division of the People's Militia 4 .
Those left behind in the rear had a difficult and strenuous job ahead of them. Power engineers dismantled turbines, steam boilers, and auxiliary equipment. From Volkhovskaya HPP-6 named after V. I. Lenin, all six generators and 300 wagons with equipment were sent to the Urals and Central Asia, 5 and in total, from July 1941 to October 1943, 22 sets of boiler units, 23 hydro and turbo generators were evacuated from industrial enterprises and power plants in Leningrad to the interior of the country .6 The evacuation of the power plants was still ongoing when Finnish troops captured Lesogorskaya (August 22, 1941) and Nizhne-Svirskaya HPP (August 30). From there, they managed to take out only technical documentation. It was useful later in the restoration of power plants. On September 8, the Leningrad power system lost Dubrovskaya GRES 7 .
Recalls the former head of the electrical shop of this station M. I. Alekseev: "On the afternoon of September 7, returning from the work settlement to the station, I saw that anti-aircraft gunners were hurriedly removing their guns from the access roads to the power plant building... At that time, we assumed that we were on neutral ground, and Dubrovka continued to work and supply power to Leningrad. We kept in touch with the department
1 Party Archive of the Institute of Party History of the Leningrad Regional Committee of the CPSU (LPA), f. 1261, op. 2, 6, l. 2.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid., ll. 1-18.
4 From the personal archive of I. P. Alexandrov.
5 Energetik Publ., 1975, No. 5, p. 7.
6,900 heroic days. Sat. doc. and m-lov. M.-L. 1966, p. 134.
7 Archive of the Lenenergo Museum, doc. II-182, p. 198-202 (hereinafter-AML).
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on power lines through the Fifth LGPP, which is located in the city. We were waiting for orders from the Lenenergo Department. The dismantled turbo generator and steam shale boiler have already been sent. In the evening of the same day, the manager I. P. Karas called and ordered us to stop the power plant completely, not to blow up anything, and to get everyone to Leningrad. We turned off all the boilers and generators and set off on foot in the last group of 10-12 people for Leningrad. We were ready to put the station back into operation tomorrow, Monday, September 8. But half an hour after we left, the Nazis broke into the station, and we were rushing along the Neva River on a raft under enemy fire to the Lenenergo Department, to our families who had not been able to evacuate to the Mainland. Already on the night of September 8, when we were far from the power plant, we saw flashes of fire - it was our Dubrovka that was burning, the Nazis were blowing it up. The feat of our station chief accountant A. K. Piotrovsky is unprecedented. He went on foot to Leningrad to deliver many valuable financial papers, documents, as well as a large sum of money - another of our salaries. Through the Danube swamps, he reached the Mill Stream, which is 25 km of the hardest way, caught an abandoned horse and rode to the Lenenergo Department. And on Monday, September 8, he already gave out salaries to everyone who arrived from Dubrovskaya GRES " 8 .
With the capture of Shlisselburg (now Petrokrepost), when Leningrad was blocked from land, the Leningrad power system lost more than 60% of its capacity and almost half of its power lines .9 Five small coal-fired and one large peat LGPP-5 "Krasny Oktyabr"remained within the city limits. The Volkhovskaya hydroelectric power station continued to operate from suburban areas, which was serviced by a group of 22 specialists headed by Director I. P. Zhemchuzhnikov, Chief engineer P. A. Kovalchuk and party secretary of the Central Committee of the Party N. A. Radchenko. It was equipped with three rows of barrage nets to catch enemy mines in the water10 . As a result of the enemy's aggressive actions, the main fuel bases of power plants were lost (Tesovo-Netylsky peat workings near Novgorod, Nazievsky and Gatchinsky near Leningrad). The right-bank Neva peat bogs remaining in use (Rakhya, Danube, Shcheglovo, Shuvalovo, etc.) provided no more than 1/10 of the required fuel 11. The power system was provided with Donetsk coal for no more than three months by September 1, 1941, and with firewood for 18 days .12 As for the personnel of power engineers, groups of workers in Shimsk, Tolmachev, Russko-Vysotsky, Krasnoe Selo, Pulkovo and Pushkin worked on the construction of defensive lines and the construction of electrical barriers. In July - August 1941, electrical barriers with a length of about 100 km with 26 substations were almost completely installed in the Luzhsky, Narva, Kingisepp, Krasnoselsky and Krasnogvardeysky districts of the Leningrad Region13 . Such obstacles were of different designs. Some of them were proposed and developed by specialists of Lenenergo's Power Laboratories. Senior engineer of the laboratory G. E. Burtseva compiled a "Guideline for the design, acceptance and operation of electrical obstacles" 14 . They were especially successfully applied in the village of St. Petersburg. Telezi near Krasny Selo, where they were installed by electricians led by A. I. Romanov. About 500 Fascist soldiers and officers were killed there and the enemy's offensive was delayed for several days .15
According to the sketches of the city's architectural and planning department, employees of the power system performed camouflage work at power plants and large substations. LGES-1 was given the appearance of a residential quarter. At the Krasny Oktyabr LGPP-5, which stood out sharply against the background of the undeveloped landscape, the shadows of structures were reduced and distorted by means of painted panels. Extensive terry-
8 From the recording of a conversation with M. I. Alekseev (in the archive of V. B. Gruzdev).
9 Energetik Publ., 1972, No. 9, p. 7.
10 AML, p. 153.
11 Ibid., pp. 198-202.
12 TSGAORL, f. 7384, op. 17, d. 325, ll. 186-187.
13 AML, p. 196.
14 Exposition of the Lenenergo Museum.
15 Ibid.; for more information, see: Russia Electric. Memoirs of the oldest power engineers, Moscow, 1980, pp. 155-158.
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torii torfosklada masked a green carpet of oats and herbs, painted false roads. "The hydroelectric power station has become unrecognizable... However, smoke was still rising from the station. The engineers had to review the technological process and set the operating mode of the boilers, in which the smoke no longer so unmasked the station"16 . Lighting with blue and white lamps in deep-emitting fittings was installed on the control panels of power plants ' equipment. Similar luminaires were used during repairs 17 . The instrument scales also glowed when the general lighting was damaged, which made it possible to increase the reliability of the device . Workers of the main workshops were protected from splinters by wooden structures.
In the late autumn of 1941, the Department of Emergency Recovery Operations (UAVR) was established in Lenenergo, which restored power equipment "on the go". It became part of the emergency recovery service of the city's MPVO and included Lenenergo employees of all specialties and builders of the Sevenergostroy Trust, up to 300 people in total .19 Even before the war, Lenenergo created enterprises for centralized repair of heat and mechanical (Central Repair Plant) and electrical equipment (Transformer Repair Plant). At the beginning of the war, they were inactive, as almost all the personnel went to the front. Road transport and large rigging works were performed by 220 people, having up to 90 cars on the line .20 To solve the problem of personnel, the city party committee appealed to the citizens. Leningraders responded to the call. "These days, a lot of 15-16 - year-old boys have appeared in the workshops of the Lenenergo Department on the Field of Mars. Their mentor was a wonderful locksmith and turner F. I. Bushtuev. These boys (many of them were standing on crates, as they did not reach the machine) fulfilled many orders of both Lenenergo and Lenfront."21 The City Committee of the party obliged the factory workshops to help the UAVR, and in 1942 they produced products for the stations for 1.8 million rubles, in 1943-for 4.6 million, and in 1944 - for 6.6 million rubles .22
Komsomol youth brigades became the organizing element of the new generation that joined Lenenergo. Training in labor skills was conducted, and a minimum of technical knowledge was given. Classes were conducted by highly qualified employees. During the three years of the blockade, about 9 thousand people received a specialty, about 600-a second, related profession. More than 900 engineering and technical employees of the system participated in the training of these personnel 23 . Many women came to Lenenergo. By 1942, at LGPP-2, they were 39%, and by 1943-more than 60% .24 Women worked in the most critical areas, sometimes performing jobs that were not easy for men either. "I remember one case when the boiler driver's assistant V. M. Ignatieva coped quickly and expertly. At one of the boilers, peat suddenly stopped flowing through the feeder. This threatened to stop the boiler and reduce the power of the station, " recalled I. P. Aleksandrov, chief engineer of LGPP-5. - Then Ignatieva almost ran to the top of the boiler, and the accident was prevented. Our Leningraders, sparing no effort and life itself, fought for the life of power plants. One of the shells broke the steam assembly box of a working boiler. Fireman T. N. Anisimova knew that this threatened to stop several city enterprises. Then she sharply increased the flow rate of water to the boiler in order to somehow make up for the loss of steam, which with a strong roar escaped from the boiler and filled the boiler shop with a thick fog. Together with shop manager A. I. Kozlov and shift supervisor V. E. Nikolaeva, I groped my way to the steering wheels of the valves, and we barely disconnected the boiler from the common steam line. The accident was eliminated " 25 .
16 Burov A.V. Blokada - day by day, L. 1979, p. 25.
17 TSGAORL, f. 7384, op. 17, d. 420, ll. 30-31.
18 From the personal archive of I. P. Alexandrov.
19 AML, p. 42.
20 Ibid., pp. 194, 47.
21 From the recording of a conversation with A. P. Shcheglov (in the archive of V. B. Gruzdev).
22 AML, p. 193.
23 LPA, f. 1154, op. 2, St. 13, l. 27.
24 Ibid., f. 1261, op. 2, St. 7, l. 8.
25 From the recording of a conversation with I. P. Alexandrov (in the archive of V. B. Gruzdev),
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Even during the years of the blockade, socialist competition among the labor collectives of power plants did not stop. Engineer of the power laboratory S. S. Zaitsev organized Stakhanov circles. One of their main tasks was the strictest fuel and energy savings. The struggle for savings unfolded at all enterprises of the city. If you turn to the newspapers of the blockade period, then in almost every issue of Leningradskaya Pravda you will find an editorial, article or note entitled: "For the strictest saving of electricity", "Overconsumption of electricity is a crime"," Protect every kilogram of peat","Saving fuel and electricity is a contribution to the cause of our victory!". Posters appeared in factories: "Don't let the electric motor idle. By saving 500 kWh of electricity, you give the front 500 minutes!"26 . We have reviewed the schemes for the own needs of power plants and power engineering. This made it possible to save more than 11 million kWh of electricity and about 40 thousand tons of fuel in 1943 alone , 27 by increasing the production of shells, ammunition and mines.
The most difficult problem was nutrition. One of the employees of Lenenergo wrote in his diary: "For two days we receive cabbage soup from gray cabbage-a hard wooden leaf in salt water without signs of oil and with such a smell that the whole room becomes infected. You have to eat without breathing. And when this sauerkraut is washed and boiled out of its sauerkraut state, the stench is suffocating. " 28 Women were also involved in delivering food to the power plants. So, O. N. Bychkova, despite the cold and hunger, brought food on a sleigh for the employees of LGPP-7, and in her spare time took care of dystrophics 29 . From November 1941 to February 15, 1942, more than 10% of the power system's personnel died, and another 30% of employees were listed on sick lists. In total, during the days of the blockade, the power grid lost about 60% of its 30 people . In order to somehow provide the power engineers with food, subsidiary farms "Thais" and "Mensari" were created on an area of about 90 hectares, which had two tractors. They employed more than 400 people on a permanent basis .31 More than 200 people received individual plots for vegetable gardens at Vyborgskaya CHPP and on the Field of Mars 32 . Director of the united subsidiary farm M. I. Igonin reported that already at the end of September 1941, about 28 tons of vegetables were collected from 22 hectares .33
Considerable damage to the power grid was caused by enemy air raids and shelling. At that time, more than 300 high-explosive bombs, more than 1 thousand incendiary bombs and about 3 thousand shells were dropped on Lenenergo's enterprises. 34 G. F. Ermakova, who worked at LGES-5, recalls: "Once in 1942, the fascists dropped leaflets from airplanes over our station. I was on shift that day. Suddenly, one of the employees brings this leaflet to our station control panel, written in Russian, which said that tomorrow morning we should all leave the station and light signal fires, and they would come and bomb our station; they also demanded to stop the entire power plant. All the leaflets that we could collect, collected, burned them in the boiler furnaces and reported everything to the Lenenergo Department, a new day came, the day of the bombing, but we all remained at our jobs, and our station continued to work. " 35 On November 6, 1941. A 250-kilogram bomb, breaking through the ceiling, fell in the office of the chief engineer of the power supply company. It didn't explode, but you could hear the clockwork working inside it. He ended up with a "secret". Then they assembled a self-defense unit of Lenenergo to detonate a bomb on the Field of Mars, chose volunteers, and they carried the deadly cargo to the lobby of the building. There was an explosion... Today, a memorial plaque has been installed in the lobby of the Lenenergo Management Building, on which the names of these volunteers are immortalized.
26 On the Defense of the Neva Fortress, L. 1965, p. 479.
27 Leningradskaya pravda, 5. I. 1944.
28 Karasev A.V. Leningraders during the Siege of 1941-1943, Moscow, 1959, p. 135.
29 LPA, f. 1154, op. 3, St. 14, l. 33.
30 Ibid., f. 4000, op. 10, d. 1007, ll. 6, 6ob., 65.
31 Ibid., f. 1154, op. 2, St. 12, l. 104.
32 Ibid., St. 13, l. 31.
33 Ibid., St. 12, l. 45-46.
34 AML, p. 43.
35 From the recording of a conversation with G. F. Ermakova (in the archive of V. B. Gruzdev).
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A very difficult day for the power engineers was January 25, 1942. Energy production decreased by up to 2.5% compared to pre-war levels due to fuel shortages .36 Lenenergo's coal reserves were exhausted; coal imported from other locations was not energy-efficient, so not all boilers could burn it. Electricity was only enough for bakeries, Smolny and air raid sirens. Because of this, even Leningradskaya Pravda was not published on January 25 and 26, 194237 . During these days, only LGPP-1 was operating, while the rest of the power plants were idle - there was no fuel. The chief engineer of the power system, S. V. Usov, and his colleagues solved a difficult task-to put the system to idle, so that with minimal fuel consumption, city power plants could be kept in working order to increase their maneuverability: by extinguishing the boilers at the fired station, it would be possible to connect others. The dispatching service helped to carry out the planned maneuver - 11 people, including four communists. All of them worked two shifts 38 .
"In January 1942, I arrived to work at LGES-5," recalls I. P. Aleksandrov. - A. M. was the director. Marinov, an old friend of mine from the institute and from working at this power plant. During the inspection, I was struck by the serious condition of the boiler shop: dirt, ash up to the ceiling of the shop, ash removal does not work, exhausted people manually take ash out on trolleys to the dump. Engineers and stronger workers worked on the fuel supply bunkers. There was a thick fog in the workshop, and frost covered all the equipment. Windows were blown out by explosions, frosty air was blowing through the lower floors, and people walked like shadows in this cold fog. It was necessary to save the Fifth LGPP. I run as fast as I can to Marinov, report to him about the results of the round, about the emergency state of affairs in the boiler shop. After listening to me and my suggestions, he appoints me deputy head of the boiler shop-there was a vacancy-and instructs me to eliminate all the shortcomings. I run to the shop again. I see that several people are busy with the feed pump, repairing it, when almost all the pumps are in operation and there are still backup ones. I introduced myself to them and directed everyone to repair the broken windows and doors of the shop-at least basic working conditions are needed for the workers. After the temperature regime in the boiler room returned to normal, they started to remove the ash immediately. We worked around the clock. Only by spring we managed to remove the ash from the shop. Our second problem was frequent shutdowns of boilers due to pipeline breaks, because the water feeding the boilers was not chemically purified, scale formed in the pipes, which led to their overheating and rupture. We had to make raids on urban enterprises that have boiler installations, get out various pipes and weld them with inserts into the pipelines of our boilers. I remember very well how at the beginning of 1942 our station photographer N. S. Vorobyova came to the party bureau of the station and offered her 500 rubles for the construction of an aviation squadron called "Leningrad Power Engineer". So our Fifth LGPP initiated fundraising among Leningrad power engineers 39 . Only our power plant has collected 150 thousand rubles for this purpose. " 40
The problem of supplying power plants with fuel could only be solved by using milled peat. But it seemed impossible to make it burn in the furnaces of boilers, since it consisted of almost 60% water, and there were no boilers designed to burn it in the power system. Then they decided to reconstruct the furnace of boiler No. 3 of the northern boiler house of LGPP-5. The boiler was dismantled for evacuation in the fall of 1941, and it was most convenient to deliver fuel here. With this proposal, the power engineers of Lenenergo appealed to the regional committee and the city party committee. There was a huge amount of work to be done, and specialists and handymen were needed. Communists of the city supported the pre-
36 Manakov N. A. V koltse blokady [In the ring of the blockade]. l. 1961, p. 123.
37 In " Essays on the History of the Leningrad Organization of the CPSU "(Vol. 2. L. 1980, p. 516), it is stated that Leningradskaya Pravda was not published on January 25, 1942; in fact, the newspaper for January 24, 1942 was published under No. 20 (8126), and for January 27, 1942-under No. 21 (8127), i.e. it was not published on January 25 and 26, 1942.
38 LPA, f. 1154, op. 2, St. 12, ll. 22-23.
39 On April 16, 1943, Leningradskaya Pravda published a letter of gratitude from the Supreme Commander-in-Chief to the Director, the Party Committee of the Central Committee of the CPSU(b), the chairman of the Head Committee and all employees of LGES-5 for raising money for the Leningrad Power Engineering squadron.
40 From the recording of a conversation with I. P. Alexandrov (in the archive of V. B. Gruzdev).
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the position of power engineers, understanding the importance of the task. Designers and designers of Lenenergo started drawing up technical documentation.
Military conditions, which required quick technical solutions and an immediate turn of work, rebuilt all the activities of Lenenergo's design organization-the Central Design Bureau (CDB) "Elektroproekt". The design was based on the following: the availability of materials or equipment in the warehouses of enterprises, as well as the maximum use of welding, blanks in existing workshops of individual components and their assembly on the job site. And such a restructuring soon affected the timing of the start-up of the main equipment of the stations. So, the design of a new power line from the Volkhovskaya hydroelectric power station to Leningrad with the Shlisselburg crossing over the Neva River took 20 days instead of two to three months. The designers had to work very hard both day and night. Their unique projects still surprise specialists, for example, laying a high-voltage cable under the water of Ladoga.
During design and construction, it was often necessary to deviate from the accepted standards, but these deviations were technically justified, subjected to careful analysis, strict mathematical calculation and approved by the technical management of the power system. The progress of work on the transfer of LGES-5 boilers to freztorf was advised by Professor, designer of the mounted furnace T. F. Makaryev. In peacetime, it would have taken three or four months, but now the job was completed in a month and a half. S. S. Zaitsev recalls: "At the beginning of December 1941, I was admitted to the Lenenergo hospital, because my legs were very swollen from hunger and it was very difficult to move around. For about two or three weeks I was heavily fed, glucose was administered, and in late December-early January 1942, when I began to feel much better, Lenenergo's manager I. P. Karas and Chief Engineer S. V. Usov put me in their car and drove me to the Fifth LGPP, where a meeting was held on the issue of energy efficiency. reconstruction of the third boiler at freztorf. After the meeting, I stayed at the station, where the installation site of the boiler was in full swing. Soon, all the necessary devices for commissioning were delivered from our laboratory to Lenenergo. I remember that the hardest work for us was setting up and regulating the air supply to the boiler furnace. The air must be evenly supplied so that a uniform air torch is also formed inside the furnace, and then this torch must pass into a vortex (cyclone), where the crushed millboard must burn. Therefore, I often had to climb inside the boiler furnace, measure the air pressure with instruments, and the frosty air, like in a pipe, penetrated me to the very bones, it was hard. The site was mostly occupied by Leningrad women who worked all day at their main job, and in the evening they came to us to reconstruct the boiler. Work was carried out around the clock. They went through the entire boiler furnace, the chief engineer of the station, E. P. Bandura, did not leave the site for days to solve many technical and economic issues right on the spot. During these three months of work, a lot of people passed through the installation site, some of them, exhausted by hunger and severe cold, fell dead right at the workplace. Realizing the importance of the work at the Fifth LGPP, the Military Council of the Leningrad Front decided to increase the rate of power supply for those working on the reconstruction of the boiler as an exception. A. N. repeatedly came to the site. Kosygin, was interested in the progress of work and the situation of employees " 41 .
On March 17, 1942, boiler No. 3 LGES-5 started working. This made it possible to launch the freight tram 42 on April 1 and the passenger tram 42 on April 15 . The energy blockade of the city managed to break through from inside the blockade ring. Tram operators established a connection between LGPP-1 and LGPP-7, which began to transport coal from LGPP-1. LGPP-7 came to life, it began to supply heat and hot water to the nearest industrial enterprises. Soon, boiler furnaces were reconstructed at other power plants for the combustion of freztorf. Since March 20, Leningrad has received electricity
41 See for more details: Lavrenenko K. D., Dyakov B. A. Light of Life, Moscow 1980, pp. 317-320; Russia Electric, pp. 161-165; Leningrad Power system for 50 years, L. 1967, pp. 56-58; et al. Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR A. N. Kosygin was in Leningrad from January to July 1942 as an authorized representative of the State Defense Committee.
42 Burov A.V. Uk. soch., p. 156.
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more than 3 times as compared to January-February 43 . Many mothballed enterprises were put into operation, and this made it possible to increase production for the front. A month before the launch of boiler No. 3 at LGPP-5, Smolny received a telegram from the head of works N. V. Sevastyanov about the early completion of the task of the Lenfront Military Council: electricity was supplied to the Naziev peat enterprises liberated from the enemy to export 600 thousand tons of lump peat for Moscow and Yaroslavl power plants (there was no way to Leningrad). .
At the beginning of 1942, the request of the director of the Hermitage, Academician I. A. Orbeli, was fulfilled: employees of Lenenergo used a 200-meter high-voltage cable from one of the warships stationed on the Neva to supply voltage to the museum to heat the rooms and halls 45 . After the defeat of the enemy at Tikhvin in December 1941. The military council of the Leningrad Front decided to restore the first stage of the Volkhovskaya HPP. Now it was necessary to urgently return the evacuated equipment. "To restore the first stage of the Volkhovskaya HPP," recalls the head of the construction and installation department No. 1, S. A. Levshin, " our department was created, which was part of the Svirstroy Trust and in which the Special Purpose Works Department No. 2 was formed, headed by the trust manager B. A. Nikolsky. But along with the restoration of the plant, we had to restore the working capacity of the workers and specialists themselves, who were about 270 people. Weakened by hunger, they would not be able to work for 11 hours. per day, and in some areas even for 16 hours. The enthusiasm of the entire team of installers was very great, because we all perfectly understood what the electricity of the Volkhovskaya HPP meant to Leningrad residents! The main equipment arrived at the station from Chirchikstroy in 61 cars on February 22, 1942, and we immediately began assembling the main unit No. 4 of the first stage. The Military Council of the Leningrad Front determined the installation time of each unit in 45 days. We installed the fourth hydrogenerator in 36 days, and the third and second - in 50. And on August 14, 1942, all installation work on the first stage of the Volkhovskaya hydroelectric power station is coming to an end. Thus, the entire installation period took 171 days, including all days of downtime due to lack of equipment. I would especially like to note that thanks to our resourcefulness and technical ingenuity, we managed to get out of difficult situations with such an unusual installation of complex equipment. Many of our comrades 'proposals were technical innovations and entailed a large production risk, but this risk was well thought out and always justified." 46
To transmit electricity to the Volkhovskaya HPP, Lenenergo engineers developed a technical and economic project for the construction of 80 km, restoration of 113 km and reconstruction of 29 km of overhead power lines, laying five strands of underwater cable at a depth of up to 18 m along the bottom of Lake Ladoga, mounting 170 underwater connecting couplings, cable washing in the ground on coastal areas of 5.5 km, substations, etc. 47 . All work was given two months. In January 1942, a special group of 40 power engineers, technicians and highly qualified workers of the Leningrad Metal Plant, Electrosila, and Lenenergo was formed to restore and build new power lines. This group was transferred across the ice of Ladoga beyond the blockade ring to Volkhov. Already on August 24, the first drums with an electric cable, manufactured within three months at the Sevkabel plant, arrived by rail from Leningrad to the coast of Ladoga, in Morye Bay. Employees of the Lenenergo cable network headed by Chief network Engineer I. I. Yezhov took part in laying the underwater cable. 175 male and female workers from the Krasny Vyborgets factory and the Ilyich abrasive factory were mobilized to help them, as well as a 100-man communications company, a railway platoon with a 75-ton crane for unloading and feeding 273 drums with cable of 8-12 tons each .48
43 Ibid., p. 157.
44 From the personal archive of V. N. Gerasimov.
45 From the recording of a conversation with A. P. Shcheglov (in the archive of V. B. Gruzdev).
46 From the personal archive of S. A. Levshin.
47 The original project is kept in the Lenenergo Museum in Leningrad.
48 AML, p. 202.
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The route of the cable crossing on the lake was chosen slightly north of the liquid fuel supply pipeline to Leningrad. We decided to use a barge with a lifting capacity of 400 tons, in the hold of which we laid 21 km of cable at once. The cable was manually lowered into the water in the course of the barge's movement by a team of riggers led by engineer M. G. Korolyuk. Connecting couplings weighing 200 kg were lifted from the barge and lowered into the water by tenders, the work on which was supervised by the foreman of divers L. G. Molchanov. At the bottom of the lake, divers from the Epron detachment laid a cable so that there were no large deflections and kinks. Installation of each coupling took 6-8 hours, and laying the cable in the hold together with the installation of couplings - more than a week 49 . Finally, the hard and dedicated work of many labor collectives was crowned with success: on September 23, 1942, the first two cable lines from the Volkhovskaya hydroelectric power station were switched on. The energy blockade of the city has now been broken through from outside the blockade ring! On November 7, the day of the 25th anniversary of the Great October, 3 thousand homes of Leningrad residents received electricity. Then it was released under strict limits: for a family per day from 19.00 to 24.00 - only 0.2 kWh, i.e. during these five hours only one electric bulb with a power of 40 watts 50 could burn . But even this was a big event in the life of besieged Leningrad!
The Ladoga power transmission line allowed increasing the city's electricity supply by 4 times compared to the beginning of 1942, connecting a large group of industrial enterprises to the network, expanding tram traffic, and saving organic fuel at city power plants. However, about 40% of the Volkhovskaya HPP's energy was lost due to the unreliability of the underwater cable section. In this regard, at the suggestion of Lenenergo engineer L. D. Naumovsky and a number of other specialists, the construction of an ice power transmission line began by decisions of the Lenfront Military Council of November 12, 1942 and December 9, 1942. In 12 days, it was mounted on wooden supports frozen in the ice of Lake Ladoga. On January 13, 1943, the 29 km long overhead transmission line was successfully put into operation, and the cable section was turned off in reserve. Power transmission at the Volkhovskaya HPP has almost doubled 51 . This made it possible to save fuel and increase its reserves at thermal power plants (lump peat-8 times, firewood-13 times, coal-9 times). The ice transmission line lasted 68 days, and there was not a single accident due to technical reasons, with the exception of two cases of damage after enemy bombardment .52
The work of public organizations of Lenenergo became more active 53 . Power engineers conducted a large explanatory work in the houses assigned to them about the need to evacuate those residents who were not employed at defense enterprises, and 345 people agreed. Agitators issued battle leaflets, wall newspapers, revived the work of red corners, created self-defense groups. In 1942, the Lenenergo and LGPP-2 Departments held 51 film screenings in the red corner, which was attended by about 6 thousand people. In the last months of 1942, four youth evenings were organized, which were attended by about 600 people, and for children - a New Year's tree for 100 people with gifts and festive dinners 54 . On March 8, 1943, the men of the Lenenergo Power Laboratory, having exchanged special food stamps, set a festive table for the women. It was the first holiday in Lenenergo during the entire blockade, where laughter sounded and people danced .55
On January 18, 1943, the siege of Leningrad was broken. The enemy retreated from a small strip of land along the southern coast of Ladoga. Railway workers in the shortest possible time built a wooden bridge across the Neva 56, and Lenenergo's power engineers laid an electric cable on the remote consoles of this bridge, through which the energy supply was transferred.
49 See for more information on laying Ladoga power transmission: Pervenets electrifikatsii, L. 1976; Rossiya elektricheskaya; Energeticheskiy sbornik VNITOE. Issue 3, 4. L. 1946; Leningrad Power System for 50 years; Electric Stations, 1982, No. 9; Energetik, 1972, No. 9; 1975, No. 5; Nauka I zhizn, 1982, No. 5.
50 TSGAORL, f. 7179, op. 21, 3, l. 2.
51 Electric Power Stations, 1982, No. 9, p. 76.
52 LPA, f. 1154, op. 2, St. 13, ll. 51-52.
53 Ibid., l. 77.
54 Ibid., pp. 51-52.
55 From the memoirs of S. S. Zaitsev (in the archive of V. B. Gruzdev).
56 Voprosy istorii, 1983, N 11, p. 76.
page 107
Volkhovskaya HPP was delivered to Leningrad 57 . After the break of the blockade, railway trains from all over the country rushed to Leningrad. Miners of the Pechora coal basin sent ten trains of extra-planned coal, Ukhta oil workers-several trains of oil 58 . The whole country helped revive Leningrad's industry. After breaking the blockade, the enemy increased the intensity of shelling and bombing, especially LGES-5. Realizing the importance of the power plants for the recovering city, the enemy sought to disable them. 2 thousand shells and more than 30 aerial bombs were dropped on LGES-5 .59 But the employees of the power plant invariably found a way out of emergency situations, behaved heroically, working at the risk of their lives. LGPP-5 "Krasny Oktyabr" was awarded a high government award - the Order of the Red Banner of Labor for exemplary performance of the government's tasks on the power supply of Leningrad 60 .
By the end of 1943, the successful operation of the Volkhovskaya hydroelectric power station, city power plants and accumulated fuel reserves made it possible to remove the issue of electricity shortage in Leningrad from the agenda, and on March 29, 1944, the GKO decided "On priority measures for the restoration of Leningrad's industry and urban economy in 194461 . Leningraders faced new big challenges, but the most difficult part was left behind.
57 AML, p. 204.
58 Yezhov V. A. Workers of Leningrad in the struggle for the restoration of the city in 1944-1945. l. 1961, pp. 19-20.
59 Electric Power Stations, 1982, N 10, p. 75.
60 Leningradskaya pravda, 23. V. 1942.
61 Directives of the CPSU and the Soviet Government on economic issues. Sb. dokl. Vol. 2. Moscow, 1957, p. 829.
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