The siege of Leningrad was one of the most dramatic episodes of the Second World War. For three years the city turned into an impregnable fortress, which did not surrender under enemy fire, enemy propaganda, and raging hunger. The feat of Leningraders should live for centuries, but we should not forget about all those who made incredible efforts to prevent the city from falling before the enemy, including sailors, divers and engineers who worked on the "Cable of Life".
The blockade of Leningrad became one of the most dramatic pages.
The Soviet Union was not heaven on earth, but it was definitely not the embodiment of hell. They hardly heard about "feminism" in the USSR, but the woman in it has been a friend, comrade and person since the time of the Revolution. Today's fighters for "all the best in the world" rarely remember such trifles that it was in the USSR that there was the first woman minister and the first woman diplomat (Alexandra Kollontai) without any inadequate impositions in the spirit of "your board of directors should have at least 50 % of women ". Women performed many glorious deeds on the labor and military fronts, including during the Second World War. Today it is seldom remembered that analogies with "The Road of Life" also pulled the "Cable of Life" into besieged Leningrad. And the appearance of the latter is largely due to the Soviet female divers who worked in the icy water of Ladoga.
The city needed more than just food supplies.
The Nazis did not need Leningrad and its inhabitants. All they were interested in was the local port and the ability to free up troops for a further offensive. The city itself was to be destroyed and its inhabitants destroyed. Immediately after the encirclement of Leningrad, the Wehrmacht made quite a few efforts to leave the city without communication with the outside world and communications, in that it was required to leave it without electricity, which was done.
The besieged city needed electricity.
Electricity to Leningrad had to be returned as well as food delivered. By September 1942, the Volkhovskaya HPP was urgently restored. From it to Ladoga, an overhead power transmission line with a voltage of 60 kV was erected, which passed into an underwater cable. It should have been extended to the city along the bottom of the Shlisselburg Bay (in fact, it was several cables with a voltage of 10 kV). This operation was undertaken by the soldiers of the Ladoga military flotilla, as well as civilian specialists and volunteers.
A new power transmission line was erected.
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A special submarine cable for an ambitious operation was produced in Leningrad itself at the Sevkabel plant. By the beginning of August 1942, about 100 km of this were produced in the city under the SKS brand with a section of 3x120 mm.
The weight of a full meter of cable was 16 mm. One drum recorded 500 meters of communication. To connect the fragments, special sealed couplings were used, each of which weighed 187 kg. In August 1942, 40 drums were transported to the Maurier Bay.
The cable was made in Leningrad itself.
Laying began on September 1, 1942 and continued until December 31. The work was carried out by the 27th squad of underwater technical works of the ACC KBF. The project took 80 hours to complete (excluding preparatory work). A total of 102.5 km of cable was laid under the water. They had to work exclusively at night due to the threat of German aviation. In order to speed up the work, the engineers came up with the idea of first installing the cable on barges, and only then “ready” to lower it under the water. They worked 12 hours a day.
The most amazing thing is that most of the women dived. This is because, as in the case of industrial production, most of the representatives of the strong half of humanity were called to the front. The women worked in shifts of 6-10 hours in very cold water. After the war, several monuments were erected in honor of these brave divers in the USSR.
Under water, the cable was laid, among other things, by Soviet female divers.
The laying of the electric cable under water made it inaccessible to Nazi air raids and shelling. With his help, it was possible not only to supply the city's factories with electricity, but also to return electricity to houses and even restore tram transport links during the blockade.
Today the cable can be seen in the city museum.