MOSCOW, May 7. /TASS/. In October 1941, the Nazi occupied Donbass, seizing 60% of Russia’s coal. Komi became the most important coal supplier. In the complicated conditions of permafrost people in Vorkuta hurried to dig mines and make a rail line to supply coal to Moscow, blockaded Leningrad, Cherepovets, Murmansk, Vologda, Kirov and many other cities. Together with historian Fyodor Kolpakov we pay tribute to heroes of those years.
Over the war years, Vorkuta provided the frontline, industries and houses with more than 6.5 million tonnes of coal. 337 personnel of Vorkutstroi plant were decorated with orders and medals for the heroic work, and the plant’s four enterprises during the war were honored with the Red Flags of the country’s Defense Committee. A new exposition - Vorkuta at War: Everyday Heroism - presents new facts about ordinary people - true heroes in the war-time polar city.
Coal for life
1943 was a game-changing year in the Great Patriotic War (World War II). At that time, General Mikhail Maltsev came to Vorkuta to take the position of GULAG labor camps’ local chief.
From March 9, 1944, Vorkutaugol, the penitentiary authority’s plant, became operational. Maltsev was appointed the plant’s top manager. Since then, he worked at two managing positions.
The appointment to Vorkuta in 1943 was unexpected for Maltsev. He had graduated from the Novocherkassk Polytechnic University in electric engineering. He was the commander of the 10th Engineering Army which was engaged in the construction of protective and defense structures in North Caucasus, participated in the Battle of Stalingrad, Fyodor Kolpakov of the Vorkuta Museum and Exhibition Center said.
"In late February - early March, 1943, Maltsev was summoned to Moscow, where he was tasked of expanding coal production by any means. In 1942, Vorkuta produced 609,000 tonnes, and in 1946 - almost 2.9 million tonnes. All of his organizational, technical and personnel suggestions were accepted. The main goal was to mine coal, without which no tanks, shells or weapons could be made," the historian said.
Never ever the number of new mines in Vorkuta could be compared with the number of mines, opened in the time of Maltsev. When he came to the city, there were two working mines, and in 1946 - already eleven.
"As a manager, Maltsev did understand that just pushing for work could not help, he realized that people needed certain inspiration. Quite an outstanding moment was the organization of Vorkuta’s Music and Drama Theatre, on August 8, 1943. Its first performance, Emmerich Kalman’s Die Csardasfurstin (Silva) took place on October 1, 1943. It was a cultural shock, when people in the middle of nowhere, in the tundra, listened to the marvelous music," he continued.
In the Maltsev time, on November 26, 1943, Vorkuta grew from a village into a city. He promoted Vorkuta both socially and in terms of living conditions.
Within first weeks after the war, he resumed civilian construction, since during the war only industrial facilities and temporary accommodation for workers were built.
It was Maltsev’s order to build Victory Boulevard in downtown Vorkuta. In addition to it, there was a stadium. The old club was rebuilt into a theater.
"Everything was done quickly, promptly, people worked in two-three shifts to reimburse for the gap in housing, in the cultural life during the war," Kolpakov said. "That was all about Maltsev. He was not that much a person of the security forces, but rather a great manager."
We cannot leave unmentioned the people who worked there. For example Simon Schwartzman, who managed the energy department and thermal power plant number 1 - Vorkuta’s first industrial source of electricity. The power plant went operational on December 22, 1942 and continues working to date.
"He was an educated, sensitive person. He used to write short articles for the local newspaper, the Polar Stoker, announcing upcoming performances. It was interesting for him and important, since his wife Natalia Glebova was the prima at the Vorkuta Theater at that time. Maltsev realized the importance of what Schwartzman was doing, and in 1946, when welcoming scriptwriter Leonid Agranovich, he told him: "Remember this name: Simon Bentzionovich. This is the name of gold." It is an example of how highly and allegorically Maltsev used to speak about his people," the scientist told TASS.
Many people, including prisoners, remembered that Maltsev and other high-ranking managers in Vorkuta appreciated professional skills in people and realized the tasks could be reached only jointly with specialists. There were occasions, when prisoners were appointed to manage mines, though after 1948 - another wave of repressions - such cases never happened again, the historian said.
Not only prisoners worked at mines. In 1943, 7,100 civilians and about 30,000 prisoners worked in Vorkuta. They worked in absolutely equal conditions, the scientist stressed.
After business hours - into the mine
Wanda Barsukova was the Soviet Union’s first woman to do the job of a cutter and shovel worker. Her name spread across the Komi Region, the historian said.
"At that time, Wanda worked as a registrar and she called on Vorkuta’s girls: "Go down into the mine!" Many of those who worked on the ground followed her example and after hours they went down into the mines to produce more coal, which the country needed very much. The movement, which Wanda, born in 1921, began, was not that widely known as the movements led by Stakhanov or Gaganova, but for Vorkuta and the Komi Region her name was very important. The team of people, who followed her example, was huge. The amount of coal they produced was dozens of tonnes," Kolpakov said.
Here is a fragment of her speech at a meeting of coal managers: "My norm is 250 tonnes of coal a month. In June, I will make more and in July instead of 250 tonnes I will make 500 tonnes of coal. I want the enemy to know what a Soviet woman can do in a mine, when it comes to defending the Motherland, to supporting the Soviet Army."
Her heroism was noted. On September 15, 1943, a few weeks before Vorkuta was announced a city, Wanda and another 140 people received state awards. Wanda received the Order of the Badge of Honor. She was among the youngest awarded workers.
"Wanda and her followers continued working that way to the war end, to 1945, when life changed for the peaceful mood. However, in the war years, her call was very valuable. She lived in Vorkuta all the time, and was buried there in 1979. Her last occupation was a simple worker at the mining and technical institute. Nothing special. Unfortunately, no memoirs or notes are available. Nothing has been put on paper. At that time, leaving notes was not the point," the historian said.
Coal as gift
Another hero of the World War II time is Vasily Pogorelsky. He worked as a cutter and shovel worker. Nowadays, that position is mostly in history - the productivity of cutting by hand cannot be compared with work of special machines and complexes.
Vasily Pogorelsky was an experienced miner - he was almost 50. He was among those people, who had been sent to work in the polar regions in 1941-1942. In 1941, to Vorkuta were coming miners from Donbass until it was seized by the Nazi, and in 1941 - 1942 - miners from the Karaganda coal basin.
In 1944, Vasily Pogorelsky announced that after every shift, after getting upstairs and taking a quick break, he would again go down the mine to make more coal. At those times, miners mostly used primitive hand instruments. Only experienced miners could use jackhammers, which appeared in Vorkuta in 1941.
"When not at the shift, Pogorelsky would go into the mine to make extra coal. Then, he bought that coal, produced beyond the plan, with his own money and presented to Leningrad. A few dozen tonnes of coal. It is beyond words, and this is the source of our victory oover Nazism, the endless dedication of those people. We do not have written proofs of how much coal Pogorelsky sent. His norm was 100 tonnes a week, about 400-500 tonnes a month. On what money did he live? In addition to the salary, with which he bought coal, people had food cards. Miners received hot food twice a day and 300 grams of bread," the historian said.
According to him, not so long ago scientists found in the national archive interesting information: in 1943, in Vorkuta were about 1,000 people who for different reasons refused to work in mines. They suffered repressions for not meeting the production targets. Against them were all possible corrective measures, beginning from persuading them to putting into barracks similar to lockups. However, even in such lockups everyone received the daily bread limit of 300 grams.
"Here is what the communist ideologists decided to do. They collected a team of refusers and showed to them the Leningrad on Fight docu movie, produced in 1942. In that movie were the well-known stories about the bread limit of 125 gram for children and dependents, the images of hunger victims’ bodies wrapped in cloth. Those images make blood stop. Witnesses say, on the day following that movie’s demonstration, only about a hundred people out of that 1,000 still did not go into the mine. People understood that there, in Vorkuta, they were in hell, but yet there were other people who suffered even more. Pogorelsky continued working as he did until the Victory. Over the war, only extra, unplanned, trains of coal to Leningrad amounted 651. One train had 25-30 carriages, 25 tonnes of coal each," the expert said.
Though the very notion of working safety in mines was only beginning, miners used wooden supporters, and no metal and concrete structures were in use, human casualties were not often. During the war, miners were developing yet upper horizons of the Vorkuta layer, where methane emissions were much less than in further mines.
Railroaders’ heroism
When speaking about railroaders, who delivered trains of coal to sieged Leningrad we cannot avoid mentioning Pyotr Dunayev - he drove the first coal train from Vorkuta. Quite probably, it got to the blockaded city.
Here is what Dunayev wrote about the newly built North-Pechora Rail Line. "That road was called alive, since the rails were moving in all directions. We drove in severe frost, in polar night, through snowstorms and snow hills. Until semaphores were installed, we moved searching for station lights. No signs, we encrypted wooden plates. No water pumping towers - we took water from under ice holes. Oil in carriage parts froze up. We did everything possible and impossible to cover the distance."
Another train driver, Pyotr Dyachenko, in 1944 brought to Leningrad the first train of "gifted" coal - the coal, which people in Vorkuta produced above to the plan and after shifts. "To that event is devoted a monument at Vorkuta’s rail station - a steam locomotive. The engraving reads: "This locomotive, driven by Dyachenko P.P., on July 28, 1944 took ten coal carriages, which Vorkuta workers sent as gift to liberated Leningrad"."
Another name to mention is Elena Chukhnyuk - she was among the first railroaders, awarded with the Hero of Socialist Labor order. She was born in the Podolsk Region (presently Ukraine), and from 1938 drove cargo trains to Orsha, Mogilev, Chernigov. During the war, she drove trains with ammunition to the front - near Yelets, Stalingrad, Kursk and the Dnepr. In winter 1943-1944, she drove coal trains along the North-Pechora rail line. In severe frosts, she organized three-times quicker deliveries.
"In 1943-1944, Elena Chukhyuk was driving trains to take coal to central Russia. At that time, there were no teams, which work in shifts, replacing one another. From Moscow to Vorkuta she drove trains for five days running - in frosts, often in unbearable conditions. Formally, back then two drivers and three firemen worked during trips without any shifts," Kolpakov said.
Producing coal was a part of the objective. Delivering it was equally important. Thus, important was the role of railroad workers, the scientist added.