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The construction of the "Dead Road" - the Chum-Salekhard-Igarka railway (1947-1955) began
The construction of the railway along the Salekhard-Igarka Arctic Circle, also known as the "dead road", can be considered one of the most ambitious projects of the Gulag. The need to build a railway was caused by two reasons: economic - the development of the northern territories rich in minerals, and military-strategic - the protection of the Arctic coast.
On April 22, 1947 the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted a resolution in which it ordered the Ministry of Internal Affairs to immediately begin construction of a seaport at Cape Kamenny, as well as to begin laying a railway from the Pechora Mainline to the port. The role of the railway was originally limited to serving the port. For the production of work on April 28, 1947 the Northern Directorate of the Main Directorate of Camp Railway Construction (GULZhDS) was created, construction No. 501, to which the administration of forced labor camps (ITL) was subordinated, and construction No. 502 of the GULZhDS of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs, which was in charge of the construction of the port. In the Gulag system there was the Main Directorate of the camp railway construction, which numbered more than 290 thousand prisoners. It has the best engineers. V. A. Barabanov was appointed head of construction No. 501 of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs. In May-June 1947, the GULZhDS launched its work. On May 13 earthworks began from the station Chum towards the future port. In 1949, when it finally became clear that Cape Kamenny was not suitable for receiving ocean-going ships, work was stopped, and the 502nd construction site was liquidated.
In 1948–1949 the main line of work was transferred to the construction of the Chum-Labytnangi line. By December 5, 1948 196 km of the route had been built. By the Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR of January 29, 1949, the construction site of the port was moved to Igarka, which caused a new direction of the road: Salekhard-Igarka. On February 5, 1949, the GULZhDS was disaggregated, it included the departments of labor camps, construction No. 501 and No. 503, and the GULZhDS of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs. The 501st construction was responsible for the construction of the western part of the route: Chum-Salekhard-r. Pur (900 km), and the 503rd - for the eastern part: Pur-Taz-Ermakovo-Igarka (600 km). The buildings were supposed to move towards each other and connect on the Pur River. General management of the laying of the road from January 1949 to the spring of 1951 continued to carry out V. A. Barabanov, and from April 1951 - A. N. Borovitsky. The total length of the Salekhard-Igarka railway was to be 1263 km, most of it passed through the territory of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area.
The road was built by prisoners. In 1951, 24% of them were convicted on political charges, and 18% were women. Severe natural and climatic conditions were aggravated by unsettled life, harassment from the guards and criminals, poor and monotonous food. As builder-prisoner Aleksey Salangin recalls: “... they arrived in Ermakovo to a completely empty place. The area was fenced with wire. Around the swamps, thickets, mosquitoes in the air. At first they lived in tents 20 meters high, solid bunks in 2 tiers. The moss was chopped up like a brick, they overlaid the tents with it. At the ends - stoves, in the middle - a table. 200 people on bunks - 40 cm per person. In the morning, my hair froze to the wall”.
Since 1951, the authorities' attitude to the construction of the Chum-Salekhard-Igarka line began to change, the pace slowed down. In the summer of 1952 a new reorganization took place. Apparatus 503 was transferred to a new construction site. Both constructions were merged, and it became known as the ITL and construction department No. 501 GULZhDS of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs. From the summer of 1952, he was entrusted with the entire line from Chum to Igarka. On May 25, 195, by a decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, construction No. 501 was transferred to the Ministry of Communications, in September 1953, A. D. Zhigin was appointed head of construction. By the Decree of the Council of Ministers of November 10, 1953, the construction of the Salekhard-Igarka railway was stopped and put into conservation. In 1954, the Ministry of Railways achieved a decision to liquidate all construction departments, except for the Chum-Labytnangi section, which was accepted into permanent operation in 1955. The last columns of builders left the track at the end of 1955. For 1947–1955. The Chum-Salekhard line was completely completed. On the Salekhard-Igarka highway, 848 km of track out of 1263 planned were laid. During the construction period, 75 working settlements, 35 station and storage facilities were built in the tundra and along the banks of the rivers. Temporary train traffic was opened up to Nadym.
Unlike other "constructions of communism", the Northern Railway turned out to be a dead road. The total construction costs at the prices of that time exceeded 4 billion rubles. Only in 1953, 78 million rubles were spent on its liquidation, but due to the remoteness from settlements and the lack of transport, a huge amount of material values could not be taken out. Most of the equipment, furniture, clothing was destroyed in front of the inhabitants of the railway settlements. There were abandoned locomotives, empty barracks, kilometers of barbed wire and thousands of dead construction prisoners.
Lit.: Гриценко В. Н. История «мёртвой дороги». Екатеринбург, 2010; Кочубей А. 501-я стройка. Взгляд со стороны // Ямальский меридиан. 2005. № 3. С. 35–40; Липатова Л. Рассказывает очевидец // Ямальский меридиан. 2004. № 9. С. 26–29; Пиманов А. С. История строительства железной дороги «Чум–Салехард–Игарка» (1947–1955). Тюмень, 1998; Пиманов А. С. «Мёртвая дорога» // Большая Тюменская энциклопедия. Т. 2: И–П. Тюмень, 2004. С. 280–281.
Based on the Presidential Library’s materials:
Мёртвая дорога: [документальный фильм] / реж.: Д. Дьяконов… СПб., 2013
Based on the materials from the Tyumen branch of the Presidential Library