Railway line St. Petersburg - Murmansk

The St. Petersburg-Zvanka section was built as part of the construction of the St. Petersburg-Vologda Railway in 1902-1905.

The Duboviki-Petrozavodsk section was built as part of the construction of the Olonets Railway in 1913-1914.

The first project for the construction of the Petrozavodsk-Sorokskaya and Murmanskaya highways was submitted to the government of the Russian Empire in the 1870s. But, due to the high cost of implementation, construction was constantly delayed. With the outbreak of World War I , in view of great strategic importance, in December 1914, the Council of Ministers of the Russian Empire decided to urgently build a railway linking Petrozavodsk and Murman . The strategic importance of the road was to ensure the transportation of military cargo from the allies to the ports of the White and Barents Seas - Soroku , Kandalaksha and Semenovsky .

After the approval on January 1, 1915 by Emperor Nicholas II of the construction of the Murmansk Railway at the expense of the treasury, the Special Construction Directorate of the Murmansk Railway was created under the general supervision of engineer V.V. Goryachkovsky. On the Petrozavodsk – Soroka section of the road, construction was supervised by engineer V. L. Lebedev, and on the Soroka – Murman section, engineer P. E. Solovyov.

The average monthly number of workers employed in the construction amounted to more than 70 thousand people. Altogether, up to 170 thousand people were employed at different stages of construction, among which more than 100 thousand were peasant expatriates , more than 40 thousand were prisoners of war of the Austro-Hungarian and German armies, and more than 2 thousand were soldiers of railway battalions. 10 thousand Chinese from Manchuria and two thousand Kazakhs from the Semipalatinsk region, as well as about 500 Canadians were recruited for the construction ^[2] . Workers liable for duty were granted a deferment from conscription to the front. On the road construction route, 14 treatment centers with 616 beds were opened, each of which had a doctor and 2-3 paramedics. By August 1916, over 10 thousand sick workers were evacuated from the highway, more than 600 people died from illnesses and injuries in medical centers.

During the construction of the road (1,053 km), over 260 km of swamp massifs , over 110 km of rocky exits were overcome, more than 1,100 man-made structures were built.

On November 3 (16), 1916, on the stage between Boyarskaya station and Ambarny stage, where two batches of stackers met to meet each other from the north and the south, a ceremony was held to hammer the last “ golden crutch ” of the Murmansk railway, the world's northernmost railway track ^[3] . The Murmansk railway ended with the northernmost railway station at that time ^[3] - Murmansk ^[4] , which was built simultaneously with the construction of the Murmansk railway and the port of Murmansk in 1915 (in October 1916 the city of Romanov-on was founded in its place) -Murmane ).

The official Act on the acceptance for temporary operation of the Murmansk Railway was signed on November 15, 1916. In the future, it was necessary to replace temporary wooden bridges with metal and reinforced concrete, build station workshops, provide stations with permanent water supply, and strengthen the railway track in some sections. The capacity of the road was 60–90 wagons per day, the average speed of trains - 11-12 km / h.

In full, the completion work was completed after the end of the Civil War in Russia .

In March 1917, the Petrozavodsk station of the private Olonetsk railway was transferred to the Murmansk Railway .

From April 1, 1917, the private Olonets railway (line Zvanka station - Petrozavodsk station ) was attached to the Murmansk Railway .

Temporary commodity movement was opened on January 1, 1917, and on April 1, 1917, the Murmansk Railway was included in direct communication with Russian railways.

On September 15, 1917, regular passenger traffic began, along the entire section of the road from Zvanka to Murmansk, passenger train No. 3/4 passed.

In 1917, the number of permanent workers and employees of the Murmansk Railway was about 16.5 thousand people.

On January 1, 1921, the Rybatskoye station of the Nikolaev railway was transferred to the Murmansk Railway , thus the Petrograd-Murmansk line became the main course of the Murmansk Railway, and since 1935 the Kirov Railway.

On November 14, 1921, a detachment of white Finns attacked a railway bridge across the Onda River at 546 versts of the Murmansk Railway . The multi-span bridge was burned. Within a few days, saboteurs destroyed four more bridges. Train traffic has stopped. The railway workers of the third section, based in the city of Petrozavodsk, were given the responsible task: to restore the route within 24 days. Railway workers managed in 18 days, which at that time was a miracle. For the dedication and heroism of the railway workers of the Northern branch, MurDZhR was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor of the RSFSR ^[5] - the second in a row award of the Russian Federation approved a year before the events described ^[6] . Later, the reward for this feat will be lost, but in 1990 it will be possible to return it to Petrozavodsk.

On November 16, 1922, the Duboviki junction was renamed Volkhovstroy .

On December 19, 1936, the electrified Kandalaksha - Apatity section was put into operation.

On July 14, 1944, the railway connection with Petrozavodsk interrupted by the Great Patriotic War was restored - the first train came to the station from the north.

On July 16, 1944, through traffic along the main passage of the highway was restored.

On January 22, 1959, diesel traction was first deployed on the Kem – Volkhovstroy section — fast train No. 15 drove the diesel locomotive for the first time ^[7]

On July 13, 1959, by decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 748 “On Strengthening Railways,” the line became part of the October Railway.

• I. G. Inozemtsev, Winged Defenders of the North. - M .: Military Publishing , 1975. - 156 pp. (Series "Heroic Past of Our Homeland").
• Party archive of the Murmansk regional committee of the CPSU (PAMO CPSU), - f. 2, op. 1, d. 1925, l. 67-69; f. 431, op. 1, d. 4, l. 456.
• Kharitonov S.F. The Story of the Great Northern Route, Petrozavodsk. 1984.
• Kharitonov S.F., Zvyagin Yu.I. Murmanskaya. Kirovskaya. October, Petrozavodsk. 1996.
• The history of Karelia from ancient times to the present day / Scientific. ed. N. A. Korablev, V. G. Makurov, Yu. A. Savvateev, M. I. Shumilov. - Petrozavodsk: Periodicals, 2001.P. 317–944 p.: Ill. ISBN 5-88170-049-X
• Karelia: encyclopedia: in 3 tons / hl. ed. A.F. Titov. T. 2: K - P. - Petrozavodsk: Publishing House PetroPress, 2009. P. 302-464 p., Ill., Maps. ISBN 978-5-8430-0125-4 (t. 2)
• Golubev A.A. Murmansk railway: the history of construction (1894-1917). SPb .: Petersburg State University of Communications, 2011. - 250 p.
• Fedorov P.V. The northern vector in Russian history: the center and the Kola Arctic in the 16th-20th centuries - Murmansk, 2009 .-- 388 p.
• Fedorov P.V. Second Dardanelles. - Murmansk, 2003 .-- 63 p.
• Fedorov P.V. Murmansk railway as a factor of strategy: security or threat? // International relations in the North of Europe and the Barents region: history and historiography: Mat. Ros.-Nor. seminar, Murmansk, May 19-20, 2007 - Murmansk: Moscow State Pedagogical University, 2008. - P. 160-172.
• Fedorov P.V. The military situation in the Balkans in 1914-1915. and the question of opening the northern corridors for communication with allies // Uchenye Zapiski. Moscow State University Historical sciences. - Murmansk: Moscow State University for the Humanities, 2012 .-- Issue 12. - S.60-66.

• Line St. Petersburg-Glavniy - Murmansk (photos, information, map, etc.) - on the Oktyabrskaya Railway site (unofficial site)
• Born World War I
• Murmansk Construction
• Map of the Kirov Railway , Scheme of Railways and Waterways of the USSR, Military Publishing House of the People’s Commissariat of Defense, 1943.
• Above the Kirov Railway, I. G. Inozemtsev, Winged Defenders of the North.
• National Archives of the Republic of Karelia. Overview of documents on the history of the Olonets and Murmansk railways