On this day in 1941 when the ice on Lake Ladoga reached a thickness of 20 cm, the first Soviet trucks brought supplies to besieged Leningrad. Trucks returned with civilians and wounded soldiers. This route on Lake Ladoga was tbeing called as the “Доро́га жи́зни” (Road of Life)

15 comments

  1. The Nazis and their Finnish accomplices starved to death more than half a milion of people. Never forget.

  3. Oh boy, it’s time to pull out my Wehraboo bingo.

    I already got *both sides* and *systematic ethnic cleansing denial* crossed out.

  4. And now to smth completely different: checked the weather in Shlisselburg near Ladoga for last 10 years. Only 1 year it has negative temperature in 1st half of November, but still positive at 2nd half. Global warming, apparently

  5. War is hell and some wars are more hellish than others. The Continuation War came from this backdrop of the Winter War:

    “Winter WarMain articles: Winter War and Interim PeaceOn 23 August 1939, the Soviet Union (USSR) and Germany signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, in which the two parties agreed to divide the independent countries of Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Romania into spheres of interest, with Finland falling within the Soviet sphere.[30] One week later, Germany invaded Poland, leading to the United Kingdom and France declaring war on Germany. The Soviet Union invaded eastern Poland on 17 September.[31] Moscow turned its attention to the Baltic states, demanding that they allow Soviet military bases to be established and troops stationed on their soil. The Baltic governments acquiesced to these demands and signed agreements in September and October.[32]In October 1939, the Soviet Union attempted to negotiate with Finland to cede Finnish territory on the Karelian Isthmus and the islands of the Gulf of Finland, and to establish a Soviet military base near the Finnish capital of Helsinki.[33] The Finnish government refused, and the Red Army invaded Finland on 30 November 1939.[34] The USSR was expelled from the League of Nations and was condemned by the international community for the illegal attack.[35] Foreign support for Finland was promised, but very little actual help materialised, except from Sweden.[36] The Moscow Peace Treaty concluded the 105-day Winter War on 13 March 1940 and started the Interim Peace.[37] By the terms of the treaty, Finland ceded 8% of its national territory and 13% of its economic capacity to the Soviet Union.[38] Some 420,000 evacuees were resettled from the ceded territories.[39] Finland avoided total conquest of the country by the Soviet Union and retained its sovereignty.[40]Prior to the war, Finnish foreign policy had been based on multilateral guarantees of support from the League of Nations and Nordic countries, but this policy was considered a failure.[41] After the war, Finnish public opinion favored the reconquest of Finnish Karelia. The government declared national defence to be its first priority, and military expenditure rose to nearly half of public spending. Finland purchased and received donations of war materiel during and immediately after the Winter War.[39] Likewise, Finnish leadership wanted to preserve the spirit of unanimity that was felt throughout the country during the Winter War. The divisive White Guard tradition of the Finnish Civil War’s 16 May victory-day celebration was therefore discontinued.[42]The Soviet Union had received the Hanko Naval Base, on Finland’s southern coast near the capital Helsinki, where it deployed over 30,000 Soviet military personnel.[39] Relations between Finland and the Soviet Union remained strained after the signing of the one-sided peace treaty, and there were disputes regarding the implementation of the treaty. Finland sought security against further territorial depredations by the USSR and proposed mutual defence agreements with Norway and Sweden, but these initiatives were quashed by Moscow.” Source: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuation_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuation_War)

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    After that Finns were understandably a bit pissed and wanted back the territories lost in the Winter War.

  9. My grandmother was stuck in besieged Leningrad as a teenager. She used to tell that while bomb alarms were sounding, she just put a pillow over her head – and didn’t hide in the bunker, since she would prefer quick death to the possibility of slow suffocation in a bunker buried under rubbish (she was a fun women). Also cannibalism is not so far away if you bread consist mostly of wood.

  13. It is said to have been called Death Road at the time due to shelling losses. And The Road of Life is the media version.

  14. Any reason the Nazis weren’t shelling the lake just to keep the ice broken up? Or does that not work?

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