· Day 154 of 1418
The Road of Life
Lake Ladoga
- across the ice, shore to shore
- ≈ 30 km
- across the ice, shore to shore
- people were evacuated across Ladoga during the siege
- ≈ 1.3 million
- people were evacuated across Ladoga during the siege
The only way into besieged Leningrad crossed Lake Ladoga. When the ice grew thick enough, the first trucks of bread drove over it on 22 November 1941. Drivers kept their doors open to jump out if the ice cracked. On the way back they carried children to safety.
The ice was still thin, and the first lorries carried only a few sacks of flour each. Once the ice thickened, hundreds of vehicles a day used the route. Anti-aircraft gunners guarded the road, traffic girls stood in the wind around the clock, and many vehicles and people were lost in holes in the ice.
In the first siege winter hundreds of thousands of Leningraders, children above all, were carried out across the ice. Many later remembered the lorry driving across the lake at night and how badly they wanted it not to stop.
See it on the map