In September 1941, in the midst of the defensive battles of the Red Army, an order came to Leningrad: to make one million mines. The order is serious and no enterprise would have mastered it in a short time. Therefore, the local authorities decided to use the entire industry of the city and adjacent areas. Received its quota of 70 thousand pieces and the Kronstadt Marine Plant.
At that time, there was already a shortage of metal in the sea fortress. Therefore, whatever the reserves of the largest shipbuilding enterprise were, additional resources had to be sought. And then the factory bosses turned their eyes to the pavement. She was truly unique in Kronstadt at that time.
More precisely, the unique part of it was the part that connected the Marine Plant with the Petrovsky Admiralty. Instead of the usual cobblestone, or more modern asphalt, a fancy lace was woven here from cast-iron gears or checkers. The people called this pavement - openwork.
It owes its birth to the builder of the Marine, and then the Steamship plant, engineer V. P. Lebedev. He saw his task as much broader than building hangars alone, and therefore, during one of his trips to the United States, he drew attention to how the streets of Boston and Chicago were paved. These were the very checkers or gears.
For the enterprise, which came close to the sea, the question of the condition of the access roads was very acute. The cobblestone did not stay on them for a long time, moisture penetrated under it, rendering the entire coating unusable. The problem, apparently, worried the engineer Lebedev. From the United States, he takes several American-made cast iron samples to Russia.
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And already on the spot, a small batch of tiles was cast on them to lay out the factory yard. Everyone liked the results of the experiment, and as the next experimental site they decided to use the access road to the plant, leading through the Penkovy bridge. Some 160 meters literally flew into a pretty penny, 40 thousand rubles in silver - huge money at that time. But the effect had a citywide significance, which means that the costs were justified.
The quality of the road was appreciated by many. A year later, the work had to be resumed in order to lay out another three kilometers of track - from the Steamship Plant to the Petrovsky Admiralty. This section of the city's transport artery stood for 80 years without repair. And only the extreme military necessity forced to encroach on cast-iron checkers. Naturally, the hulls of the mines were cast by the appointed time. And in Kronstadt, only a small section of the openwork pavement remained - in the area of the Penkovy Bridge and on Anchor Square, almost at the very foot of the Kronstadt Cathedral.
