Road of Life

The Road of Life (Доро́га жи́зни, doroga zhizni) was the ice road winter transport route across the frozen Lake Ladoga, which provided the only access to the besieged city of Leningrad while the perimeter in the siege was maintained by the German Army Group North and the Finnish Defence Forces. The siege lasted for 29 months from 8 September 1941, to 27 January 1944. Over one million citizens of Leningrad died from starvation, stress, exposure and bombardments. Each winter, the Lake Ladoga ice route was reconstructed by hand, and built according to precise arithmetic calculations depending on traffic volume. In addition to transporting thousands of tons of munitions and food supplies each year, the Road of Life also served as the primary evacuation route for the millions of Soviets trapped within the starving city. The road today forms part of the World Heritage Site.

By 8 September 1941, the German Army Group North under Feldmarschall Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb had almost completely surrounded Leningrad, successfully cutting off all major supply routes. To address this growing concern, a decision was cast by the Military Soviet of the Leningrad Front to establish an evacuation commission in November 1941. As the severity of the siege intensified, the committee proposed the construction of an ice road over Lake Ladoga as both a viable supply line and means for civilian evacuation en masse. The Road of Life began to operate on 19 November 1941 after Captain Mikhail Murov and his transport regiment carried the first supplies over Lake Ladoga via horse-drawn sleigh. However, due to proximal bombardments, ice breakage, and unreliable machinery, the route was far from fully functional at this time. It was only in mid-December, after troops of the Volkhov front recaptured Tikhvin, that construction of a railroad directly connecting the western shore of Lake Ladoga to Leningrad was possible.

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