History of the construction of the Nikolaev railway. Legends of the Nikolaev Railway

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I would like to immediately note that at the very beginning of my work on the project, I talked and consulted with Galina Nikolaevna Skobelina, a teacher of a special discipline at the Bologovsky College, and half of the information presented below (which I could not find on the Internet) was told by her.

1. The first thing we will consider is how the Nikolaev railway arose and was built. Everything is interesting on the Nikolaevskaya Railway, although at first glance it seems nothing particularly remarkable... However, its preserved antiquity creates a feeling not of antediluvianness, but of a certain historical charm. This is a real reserve, which has no analogues among the railways of the European part of our country. Time and wars have partially spared the original architecture of the station buildings; the fleet of steam-powered locomotives has been preserved, and the ancient semaphore signaling has survived and is operational.

With the advent of railways in the USA and Europe, a discussion arose in Russia as to whether our country needs them. In the 1830s, some skeptics proposed not to lay a rail track (they say that in severe snowy winters it would simply skid), but to build special paths for steam locomotives on wheels with a wide rim (the so-called land steamers). The idea did not take root, and in 1837 full-fledged railway construction began: in October, traffic was opened on the road from St. Petersburg to Tsarskoe Selo.

In the 30-40s of the 19th century, the question of a reliable road connection between St. Petersburg and central regions Russia has become particularly acute. And on February 13, 1842, Nicholas 1, known for his interest in various technical innovations, signed a decree on the construction of the first Russian railway, St. Petersburg-Moscow.

That is, it was built more for entertainment or fun than for quickly transporting people. At that time, just taking a train ride was already special event, and the prince himself was just interested in seeing what would come of it and somehow catching up with the Americans, because their trains were already running at full speed.

There is even a legend about how the Nikolaevskaya drawing was made railway. It is believed that Nicholas I decided to simply connect Moscow and St. Petersburg with a straight line, along a ruler. According to the same legend, along the way there is a bend that supposedly appeared in the place where Nicholas I accidentally circled his own finger on the map.

In reality, as usual, the situation was different. The majority of the members of the committee for the construction of the railway believed that it should be led to Novgorod. The Emperor did not share this opinion. To resolve the protracted disputes, he summoned the engineer, the author of the project, Pavel Melnikov. The expert came to the conclusion that building the railway using the direct option is more profitable. “It would be a big mistake and an incalculable loss in the general state economy to condemn future generations to pay more than 80 miles, over the course of a whole century or more, until direct calculation would force us to build another, shorter road from St. Petersburg to Moscow,” - quotes the architect from a brief historical sketch from 1901. The Emperor was pleased that the engineer shared his views on the future of the road and said: “Drive the road straight.” These words did not mean at all that it was necessary to lead the way in a straight line: the emperor meant that there was no need to stick to the direction of Novgorod.

At the point of the mentioned bend - near the Mstinsky Bridge station - the line was also absolutely straight, but due to the peculiarities of the landscape, the railway workers had to bend the path (later, by the way, when railway technology became more advanced, the bypass was dismantled).

Construction began in 1843. The work was supervised by the then very young engineer Nikolai Mikhailovich Gersevanov (1879-1950), in the future - the founder of the Soviet scientific school in the field of soil mechanics, corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

The line was built as a double-track line on a 1524 mm (5 ft) gauge, which later became standard on Russian railways. The northern directorate supervised the construction from Chudovo, and the southern directorate from Vyshny Volochok; later from Tver. Directorates were divided into sections of 50-60 km, and those, in turn, were divided into sections of 10-12 km. Large bridges, train stations and large stations were allocated as independent construction sites.

Peasants (both serfs and state-owned) were hired to work. Sometimes work was carried out in winter. The workers lived in huts or dugouts, less often in barracks. The working day lasted throughout the daylight hours; in the middle of the day there was a two-hour break for lunch and rest. On earthworks production rates reached 9.2 m³ of soil per day, along with its movement over a certain distance.

Apart from the construction of railways, people had nowhere to go to work, so they went to this painful work. Often, the peasants still remained and owed money to their bosses because when going on sick leave, food and accommodation were deducted from the salary. It turned out that while working people received little and had to pay money for sick leave.

It is also known that during the construction of the road, people were hindered by a excavation called Kuznetsovskaya (the deepest excavation). Then, due to the lack of logs, people were placed in it during the construction of the road; it was in this excavation that a huge number of people died.

The first trains were not covered, but in the form of platforms. At a certain time (by the way, it was because of the railways that a single time appeared in Rus') a platform was sent out on which ladies and gentlemen boarded. They were all smartly dressed. They ordered new clothes for themselves especially to ride on the platform. After all, ordinary peasants gathered in crowds to look at the trains and the rich personality. But unfortunately, the first opinions about the railway were not very good, because when the stove for trains was lit, passengers got dirty all the time, including their expensive clothes.

Stations were built for a reason; several people were sent to each site where there should be a station, who built and designed it. Then there was not a single similar station, and each of them had its own name, which was more like a description. For example, musical, artistic, technological or in the form of a gallery.

As a main road, Nikolaevskaya was built thoroughly, to last for centuries. It was assumed that the new line would be purely strategic. It ran through a deserted area “with primitive conditions for the population to apply their labor,” as stated in the “Brief Essay on the Development of Our Railway Network,” published in St. Petersburg in 1913. Who needed the original architecture of train stations, the monumentality of water towers with openwork tents, the brickwork of depots in the style of ancient Roman coliseums and high-quality kerosene cellars? After all, any decorations in architecture, especially in official architecture, increase the cost and lengthen the construction. In essence this is clean water cost overrun! IN Soviet era the matter would certainly have ended with a standard project, but then there was the concept of a single architectural style, implying organic unity, integrity of architecture, and not faceless monotony. In the desire to make beautiful what surrounds people in everyday life, one can see a man of that era, who believed beauty to be the basis of any object, and did not allow dullness and soullessness.

On the Nikolaevskaya road, station buildings, even at a remote junction in dense forests or in the middle of swamps, in some Kocha (now Sigovo) or Gorovastitsa, are decorated with wooden decor, decorated with a spire with a weather vane, high windows and a small attic. The expressiveness and aesthetic value of the architecture can be used to judge the enormous social importance attached to railway transport at that time. There is also high level professionalism and general culture of track engineers who worked on the Nikolaevskaya line.

According to the “Regulations approved by the highest on the first day of March 1902”, the Nikolaevskaya road had to fully meet the requirements of the Military Department. Being single-track, along its entire length it had bridge supports and a roadbed adapted for two tracks in case of a sharp increase in traffic flows. At the request of the military, the road was supposed to have passing tracks and switches at alternate sidings (scrapped in the 1990s), warm barracks for recruits, hitching posts and drinking chutes for horses, stills for boiling water, loading areas, food stations and bathhouses at stations III class. Some of the military installations were never built.

Stations, or rather passenger buildings, at stations of class III (main) - Bologoe II, Ostashkov, Toropets, Velikiye Luki, Nevel, Polotsk - were built of brick, and at stations of class IV (linear) - of wood. The best preserved are the III class station at Bologoe II station and the IV class stations with the entire complex of station buildings in Kuzhenkino and Batalino. Each of them had a post office room, a lamp room where the lamps were fueled with kerosene, separate office spaces for the commandant, the traffic service agent, the telegraph operator and, of course, a waiting room with round, so-called “Utermark” stoves. They still stand to this day, are heated with wood and in any frost they warm the station premises well, despite the high ceilings and large windows.

In III class stations there was certainly a buffet with a wooden glacier covered with earth for storing provisions. Men's and ladies' restrooms with water closets were available at all stations. At III class stations, “stone, heated latrines” were built, and at IV class stations, “cold, wooden, with stone cesspools.”

Passenger platforms were made of crushed stone or broken bricks, which were filled with lime mortar. Gardens were set up near each station. Before the opening of the road, all residential and service premises were “fully furnished and equipped with ticket boxes and stamps, weighing equipment, tarpaulins, fire extinguishing devices, signal equipment, tools, pokers, brooms...”.

The railroad brought the best that civilization could give to this abandoned region. Hospitals were built at class III stations. Medical assistance and care were good. Thus, a report for 1910 listed more than 100 diseases with which railway workers went to paramedic stations or hospitals, and, according to what was written, about 90% of them recovered.

In addition to hospitals, one-class schools were built in Ostashkov, Toropets, Velikiye Luki and Polotsk. The Nikolaevskaya road had five churches next to the stations and even a running church car.

Water was supplied to each station. It was supplied by 25 brick hipped water towers called reservoir buildings. Like all buildings on the line, they were built in a single architectural style. The towers in Kuzhenkino and Gorovastitsa are well preserved.

Of course, the work of locomotive workers, railway workers, movers on Nikolaevskaya, as well as on other roads, was not easy. It was especially hard for couplers and repair workers; injuries were the most common among them. Due to the lack of planning of working time standards in Bologoye II, Neveli, Velikiye Luki, Polotsk, crews were on duty on shunting locomotives all day long. But despite this, it was extremely difficult to get a job on the railroad. Indeed, in addition to high salaries and social services, railway workers were provided with free travel (in class and distance according to rank) and good uniforms.

The road was equipped on a grand scale. All operating sidings and stations were equipped with last word technology. The Webb-Thompson electric staff system with semaphores operated on the line, interstation and line communication telephones from the L. M. Erickson and Co. factory and the Max-Yudel traffic control system operated. The design of these devices differs little from those used today.

IN peacetime The size of the train traffic was small: two pairs of passenger and seven pairs of freight trains per day from Bologoi to Velikie Luki. One oiler managed to service 35 cars and, in addition, performed the duties of a tail conductor - a “dog walker”. They called him that because on the way to the train he dragged one of the three lanterns on a rope behind him, like a dog on a leash.

Until the early 1920s, steam locomotives on the Nikolaevskaya Line were heated exclusively with wood. At each station there was a wood point. In 1909, in Ostashkov, for example, 2,400 cubic meters of firewood were loaded into steam locomotive tenders, and 600-800 cubic meters were loaded at line stations.

In 1928, the Kuvshinovo - Soblago branch joined the line. To this day, sand ballast and, most importantly, working semaphores, a now almost extinct type of signaling, have been preserved on it.

Passenger locomotives of the D series ("double parks"), built back in 1874, operated on the line until the mid-1920s. I. A. Bunin, in his story “The New Road,” aptly called such locomotives “barrel-shaped.” These pot-bellied metal “insects” with steam distribution from Stephenson’s times, with two small runner wheels and two huge drive wheels, could drag nine four-axle cars of the then Petersburg-Sedlce fast train from Ostashkov to Velikiye Luki (section length 198 kilometers). Trains stopped at all stations, but at the same time overtook today's schedule! In 1914, train No. 25 departed from Bologoye at 6.40 and arrived in Velikiye Luki at 14.48 - the journey took 8 hours 8 minutes, and today, at the turn of the millennium, train No. 6691 Bologoye - Velikiye Luki covers the same distance in 8 hours 50 minutes , and consisting of not nine (as before), but only five cars.

2. Next, I want to show the role of the Nikolaev Railway in the Great Patriotic War. Of course, the development of the road did not stop there, but now I want to note its role in the Great Patriotic War. As we know, this war began in 1941. And one of Hitler’s main goals was to block all the routes along which soldiers and provisions were delivered. One of these routes was the Nikolaev Railway.

As you know, Hitler had a map on which he marked with a red cross the places that needed to be gotten rid of first. And Bologoe was included in this list. As I said, our railway did not stand still and developed, so by the 20th century our Bologovsky railway junction had already appeared, which connected cities such as Moscow, St. Petersburg, Pskov, Rybinsk, and Polotsk. Trains carrying soldiers and provisions passed through this junction.

Many times a day the road was subjected to severe bombardment. Ostashkov station more than once turned into a continuous crumble of pieces of metal, bricks and debris. A significant part of the line was occupied by the enemy. Then she experienced all the hardships associated with our counter-offensive in 1942, the Battle of Rzhev and the Velikolutsk operation. Ostashkov veteran locomotive drivers V. A. Mosyagin and V. S. Koshelev worked in the front line all this time. They told how they were bombed every trip, and several times. The only way to save the train, or at least part of it, and stay alive was to quickly brake and stand up. Then, in the event of a bomb hitting the train or destroying the track in front of the locomotive, part of the train could survive. In addition, anti-aircraft guns fired more accurately at the planes from the stationary train.

There were no working hours during the war. A brigade traveling to Toropets could end up in Zharkovsky, and from there move to Rzhev without rest... Despite the increased food rations, the brigades were constantly hungry, did not get off the locomotives for days, and sometimes fell asleep while standing on the way. However, it was dangerous to yawn and sleep. At each station the train was met by a military commandant, and NKVD officers were on duty. It was not customary for them to stand on ceremony with locomotives. Communication between the commandant or the KGB officer and the driver most often came down to shouting, swearing, and even threats with a pistol. “I will kill you, enemy of the people, if we don’t leave in five minutes.” Machinist V.S. Koshelev, for example, was on the verge of being shot by his own three times during the war.

Despite the fierce nature of the fighting in these parts and the accuracy of German bombing, many stations, towers, houses, and other ancient buildings on the Nikolaev railway miraculously survived. The reason for this “luck” apparently lies in the fact that until the last moment the Germans hoped to return to the borders of 1941 and, already knowing what the Russian winter was, tried to save any buildings suitable for housing, including train stations. However, starting from the front line, which passed at the “124th kilometer” mark (now there is a memorial sign “The enemy was stopped here”), to Velikiye Luki, the service architecture suffered much more severely than in the Bologovo section. Stations in Ostashkov, Toropets and Velikiye Luki were completely destroyed. Nowadays, their original appearance has only been partially preserved.

Labor and combat feat of railway workers in the Great Patriotic War is still not properly appreciated, and this is one of the greatest injustices associated with the memory of the war. After all, without the heroism and skill of the railway workers, who performed miracles in the literal sense of the word, we might not even have won!

3. I would also like to note the role of this road in our time.

Firstly, the most environmentally friendly transport is railway. The beauty and view from the window create a unique impression for a person. The train is very effective in transporting goods of any kind, including people. Trains and stations are the beauty of the city.

4. At the end, I would like to summarize the work I have done. In its first part, I refuted the fact that Nicholas I built the Bologovsky section of the railway. This is not true! He just signed a decree on its construction, and all the hard, one might even say hellish, work was done ordinary people, peasants. In the second part of my project, I highlighted the huge injustice towards Bologoye and its railway junction. After all, if you don’t ask anyone, few will answer what Bologoe is and where it is located. Although, as I said earlier, if it were not for the railway and the residents of the city of Bologoye, it is not yet known how the Second World War would have ended.

And of course, it was not for nothing that I noted the role of the Nikolaev Railway in our time. Unfortunately, few people pay attention to trains and don’t really notice them. But if they disappeared at once, it would be very noticeable. Thousands, maybe even millions of people would not be able to get to the desired destination. Various things and food products are delivered mainly by trains, and what would happen if they disappeared? From all of the above, it follows that the Nikolaev railway played a hugely important role in our history.

List of used literature and Internet resources:

1. From the site https://www.nkj.ru/archive/articles/7532/;

2. From Nekrasov’s poems: “Railway”;

3. From Solovyova’s book “Railway transport in Russia in the second half of the 19th century.”

4. From the books: “History railway transport Russia" in 2 volumes

5. Conversations were held with Skobelina Galina Nikolaevna, a teacher of the special discipline of the history of railway transport at the State Budgetary Educational Institution “Bologov College”

The idea of building a railway between the two capitals has been discussed for many years. The culmination of these discussions was that in 1842 the Committee of Ministers came to the conclusion that building a railway between St. Petersburg and Moscow was impossible and useless.

Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich, having given full opportunity to pour out all opinions to the end and was dissatisfied with the majority in the Committee of Ministers for negative results, he himself came to the last meeting on January 13, 1842 and, having listened to all the objections of the city ministers, deigned to announce in a decisive tone the Highest Will his that he recognizes “the construction of a railway between capitals is quite possible and useful, that this implementation should be started immediately, and that as much as he is convinced of the necessity and benefits of building a railway between capitals, he also considers it unnecessary to build railways now in other parts of Russia."

In conclusion, the Emperor said: “...and since all the ministers are against the construction of the railway, I am establishing a special committee for the implementation of this important enterprise, appointing as its chairman the Heir to the Throne, Tsarevich Alexander Nikolaevich, and a special construction commission under the committee.”

The emperor signed the decree on the construction of a railway between St. Petersburg and Moscow on February 1, 1842.

Construction of the road was slow and difficult. There is a story that at some reception the Emperor found himself face to face with Count Kleinmichel, who was in charge of the construction. And I immediately remembered: “When will you build it?” He was taken aback and immediately blurted out: “In a year!” And he built it. :)

Opening of the St. Petersburg - Moscow road, the head of which was appointed A.N. Romanov, took place on November 1 (13), 1851 - eight and a half years after the start of construction. The first train left St. Petersburg at 11:15 a.m. and arrived in Moscow at 9 a.m. the next day, traveling for 21 hours and 45 minutes. Thus, with the putting into operation of the road, the travel time from St. Petersburg to Moscow was reduced by three times (compared to the time of travel on the highway).

Well, you and I will go to reverse side: from Moscow to St. Petersburg, with short stops.

Close to the Red Gate
There is a left turn.
The place has changed again
There a wonder was revealed,
And in place, on empty,
Suddenly a huge house grew up.
There is a big tower at home,
And the whistle there is very scary
The self-whistle is intricate,
Noble overseas, cunning.
And when you get to the yard
Well, what else will you find?
There's a cast iron road
Unprecedented beauty
These are simply miracles.
(from the folk poem "The Railway" 19th century)

3. Nikolaevskaya road near Moscow

For the safe passage of trains and the safety of passengers located near stations, on the Nikolaevskaya railway. were used sound signals: bells, whistles, musical organs (!). Optical telegraphs, hand flags, red and green discs, single- and double-winged semaphores were used as visual signals.

5. Railway bridge on the Nikolaevskaya railway. Its exact location has not been determined, but judging by the sequence of photographs in the album, it is somewhere between modern Khimki and Skhodnya

In guidebooks of the late 19th - early 20th centuries. The area along the Nikolaevskaya road between Khimki and Klin was described as “wonderful dacha settlements.” The following three photographs confirm this.

On February 13, 1842, Nicholas I signed a decree on the construction of the St. Petersburg - Moscow railway. Already in 1851, the first train departed from St. Petersburg. In 1855, after the death of the emperor, the railway received the name Nikolaevskaya, and in 1923 it was renamed Oktyabrskaya.

It’s hard to imagine now, but with the advent of railways in the USA and Europe, a discussion arose in Russia about whether our country needs them. In the 1830s, some skeptics proposed not to lay a rail track (they say that it would simply slide in severe snowy winters), but to build special tracks for steam locomotives on wheels with a wide rim (the so-called land steamships). The idea did not take root, and in 1837 full-fledged railway construction began: in October, traffic was opened on the road from St. Petersburg to Tsarskoe Selo.

In the 30-40s of the 19th century, the question of a reliable road connection between St. Petersburg and the central regions of Russia became especially acute. And on February 13, 1842, Nicholas I, known for his interest in various technical innovations, signed a decree on the construction of the first Russian railway, St. Petersburg - Moscow.

About how the road was built - in the material "RG".

The Legend of the Emperor's Finger

The road was laid according to optimal parameters: both economic feasibility and throughput taking into account future traffic growth.

American measure

Work on the construction of the road began on May 27, 1843, simultaneously on both sides - from St. Petersburg to Bologoe and from Moscow to Bologoe.

The road was built by artels, often consisting of serfs from the Vitebsk and Vilna provinces. They were directly dependent on each other: if one of the workers fell ill, the costs of his treatment were deducted from the earnings of the entire artel. According to contemporaries, dozens of builders died from exhausting labor, epidemics of typhus and fever, especially in open areas blown through by winds. According to various estimates, up to 40 thousand people worked on construction.

It is characteristic that it was during the construction of the Nikolaev railway that for the first time in Russia a track width of 1,524 millimeters began to be used. Historians attribute this to the fact that consultants from America worked on the construction, and above all George Washington Whistler, an American railway engineer. It was he who, having studied the conditions for laying the highway, insisted on a width of 5 feet (such a track was laid in those days, for example, in the southern states). There is a version that it was precisely this width that was proposed by Russian engineers Pavel Melnikov and Nikolai Kraft. True, they most likely brought the idea from the same USA, where they visited on the eve of the start of the Russian project.

According to rumors, the military aspect also played a role in choosing the gauge - a gauge different from the European one would make it difficult for the supposed enemy to supply troops in the event of an invasion of Russian territory. True, researchers have not found historical evidence for this version.

Stations for two

By the way, Konstantin Ton - the court architect of Nicholas I - was the author of numerous projects in several cities of Russia, but his main brainchild was the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow.

According to witnesses of the era, Ton was a true German: extremely unsmiling, he really did not like all sorts of noise and idle talk, and was a man of action. In 1847, he began the construction of the Nikolaevskaya Railway station entrusted to him in St. Petersburg and Moscow. By the way, the first station in Russia - Tsarskoselsky - was also built according to his design.

The architect decided to construct the entire 651 kilometer of the road as a single ensemble. To do this, in particular, the ends of the road needed to be “ringed” with similar buildings. Even today they seem almost identical: two-story, with identical towers. The tone used motifs from the town halls of Western European cities, where the clock tower indicates the direction of the main entrance. True, meticulous architecture experts note that there are still differences in the stations. Thus, the façade of the station in St. Petersburg is two pairs of windows wider (the capital, after all), while the tower is more restrained and is, as it were, a continuation of the Admiralty spire and the City Duma tower.

By the way, the ensemble in Moscow on Kalanchevskaya Square remained unfinished. According to Thon's plan, two buildings were to be built at the station: one for customs (it was built), the other - housing for road workers (now the lobby of the metro station).

Note that Tone did not design the intermediate stations. This part of the work was on the shoulders of his assistant Rudolf Zhelyazevich. However, all railway stations look like a single ensemble, as intended.

Safe and comfortable

First new way Travel from St. Petersburg to Moscow was tested by the military - the train with them moved to its destination on August 28, 1851. Two days later, the royal train of 9 carriages set off for Moscow. The official opening of the St. Petersburg-Moscow highway took place on November 13: at 11.15 a train of 6 cars set off, and at 9 am the next day it arrived in the city, covering the journey in 21 hours 45 minutes. Thus, the travel time was reduced by three times thanks to the hardware.

The train had one baggage car and five passenger cars. At first, in winter, special stoves were used to heat travelers, which were metal boxes filled with heated bricks.

The trains moved at a speed of 40 kilometers per hour and were initially not equipped with booths for drivers (trains were equipped with them only in the 1860s). From the first years of railway operation, telegraph communication was a means of regulating the movement of trains.

Safety on the first railways was ensured by sound signals: bells, whistles, musical organs. Hand flags, red and green disks, and semaphores were used as visual signals. Initially, all railroad switches were manually switched. By the way, the first domestic system for switching switches and sending signals, developed by scientist and signal specialist Yakov Gordeenko, was used in 1885 at Sablino station. His development received a prize at the Paris World Exhibition in 1900.

The modern Sapsan trains were still a long way off, then trains ran at a speed of 40 kilometers per hour, and yet on February 13, 1842, Nicholas I signed a decree on the construction of the St. Petersburg - Moscow railway. Already in 1851, the first train departed from St. Petersburg. For that time it was a grandiose event. I’ll tell you the most interesting things about the road. In 1855, after the death of the emperor, the railway received the name Nikolaevskaya.

In the 1830s, some skeptics proposed not to lay a rail track in Russia (they say that Russia does not need railways - in severe snowy winters it will simply skid), but to build special tracks for steam locomotives on wheels with a wide rim (the so-called overland ones). steamships). The idea did not take root, and in 1837 full-fledged railway construction began: in October, traffic was opened on the road from St. Petersburg to Tsarskoe Selo.

According to a well-known legend, the path from St. Petersburg to Moscow ran in a straight line because the emperor, wanting to demonstrate how he saw the future highway, drew a line using a ruler between the two cities. According to the same legend, along the way there is a bend that supposedly appeared in the place where Nicholas 1 accidentally circled his own finger on the map. In reality, as usual, the situation was different. The majority of the members of the committee for the construction of the railway believed that it should be led to Novgorod. The Emperor did not share this opinion. To resolve the protracted disputes, he summoned the engineer, the author of the project, Pavel Melnikov. The expert came to the conclusion that building the railway using the direct option is more profitable. “It would be a big mistake and an incalculable loss in the general state economy to condemn future generations to pay more than 80 miles, over the course of a whole century or more, until direct calculation would force us to build another, shorter road from St. Petersburg to Moscow,” - quotes the architect from a brief historical sketch from 1901. The Emperor was pleased that the engineer shared his views on the future of the road and said: “Drive the road straight.” These words did not mean at all that it was necessary to lead the way in a straight line: the emperor meant that there was no need to stick to the direction of Novgorod.

Work on the construction of the road began on May 27, 1843, simultaneously on both sides - from St. Petersburg to Bologoe and from Moscow to Bologoe.

At the beginning of 1842, the post of Minister of War was held by Peter Kleinmichel. State buildings under him were erected quickly, but they cost the budget a lot of money, and the people - human casualties. The road was built by artels, often consisting of serfs from the Vitebsk and Vilna provinces. They were directly dependent on each other: if one of the workers fell ill, the costs of his treatment were deducted from the earnings of the entire artel. According to contemporaries, dozens of builders died from exhausting labor, epidemics of typhus and fever, especially in open areas blown through by winds. According to various estimates, up to 40 thousand people worked on construction.

34 stations were built on the St. Petersburg - Moscow line. The buildings in the capital cities (the current Moskovsky and Leningradsky railway stations) were designed by the architect Konstantin Ton. By the way, Konstantin Ton - the court architect of Nicholas I - was the author of numerous projects in several cities of Russia, but his main brainchild was the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. According to witnesses of the era, Ton was a true German: extremely unsmiling, he really did not like all sorts of noise and idle talk, and was a man of action. In 1847, he began the construction of the Nikolaevskaya Railway station entrusted to him in St. Petersburg and Moscow. By the way, the first station in Russia - Tsarskoselsky - was also built according to his design.

The military were the first to try out a new way of traveling from St. Petersburg to Moscow - the train with them moved to its destination on August 28, 1851. Two days later, the royal train of 9 carriages set off for Moscow. The official opening of the St. Petersburg-Moscow highway took place on November 13: at 11.15 a train of 6 cars set off, and at 9 am the next day it arrived in the city, covering the journey in 21 hours 45 minutes. Thus, the travel time was reduced by three times thanks to the hardware.

Trains of that time were significantly different from modern ones. Firewood was used as fuel. Because of this, each passenger train consisted of a steam locomotive and a tender - a special carriage designed to carry the locomotive's fuel supply. The train had one baggage car and five passenger cars. At first, in winter, special stoves were used to heat travelers, which were metal boxes filled with heated bricks. The trains moved at a speed of 40 kilometers per hour and were initially not equipped with booths for drivers (trains were equipped with them only in the 1860s). From the first years of railway operation, telegraph communication was a means of regulating the movement of trains.

When the novelist Akunin told LiveJournal a long time ago that nothing had really been invented in Russia, I wrote to him that even railway switches were invented in Russia, but he did not react, captured by the idea that Russia had not given anything to the world.

The first railway in Russia is a landmark phenomenon. What were they afraid of and what did the people of Nikolaev Russia believe in when a grandiose highway connecting the capitals was being built before their eyes?

The Emperor's Famous Finger

Perhaps the most famous legend associated with the Nikolaevskaya (now Oktyabrskaya) railway is the legend about the bend in the road near the Oksochi station - the Verbyinsky bypass. According to legend, when planning where the road would go, Nicholas I drew a straight line on the map between St. Petersburg and Moscow - under a ruler. And in this place, where the Verbyinsky Bypass is now (which, by the way, was “straightened” several years ago), it turned out to be crooked because the emperor’s pencil tripped over his finger. The executive builders, of course, did not dare to disobey the imperial plan and built everything exactly according to the plan. And among the people this place received a new name - “the emperor’s finger”.

This beautiful legend does not stand up to scrutiny. A.I. Frolov writes in his book that in this place there was a difference in profile, which “impeded the movement of trains with steam locomotives that did not have a very large traction force. To pass the ascent, it was necessary to attach an additional locomotive or uncouple the train into two parts. To overcome the inconveniences, “was created.” bend" - Verebyinsky bypass from Oksochi station, the longitudinal profile of the route has become more favorable."

Devil's idea

Div ClearThere were also rumors among people that no one dared to be the first to board the train. This scary car, it is unclear how it was moving at a terrible speed, releasing clouds of smoke and roaring furiously, was controlled only by evil spirits: the devils spun the wheels, and their leader led the train. Therefore, the first to be put on the train were... the prisoners. And then, having made sure that the train was going exactly along the laid path and was capable of stopping, the first “official” passengers boarded it, including the emperor.
As you know, not only the people were distrustful of the innovation of Nicholas the First. Among educated people who understood how the train works, there were also those who saw the modernization of the country as negative side. Herzen, for example, publicly stated that the expressway was needed only so that Moscow would find out a couple of days earlier what other books were banned by the government.

Russian riding

A comic story about how the emperor first tried out the new railway was passed from mouth to mouth and caused general laughter. Some wit came up with the idea that the emperor decided not to wait for the opening of the railway and ordered his horse-drawn carriage to be placed with its wheels on the rails. The horses, of course, remained in harness. So in a simple way Nicholas the First allegedly drove from St. Petersburg to the nearest station and, satisfied, disembarked at it. "Good job!" - the satisfied ruler supposedly said, but he was no longer riding back on the rails.

Frightened Nikolai

Another version about the behavior of Nicholas the First during the first test of the new railway. When the road was already ready, Nikolai traveled the entire distance from St. Petersburg to Moscow to accept the work. But at the Verebiensky Bridge (and this is very long bridge, 590 meters long and with a support height of 53 meters) an unscheduled stop occurred, and a high commission headed by the emperor went out to breathe fresh air. The Emperor, seeing the bulk of the colossal bridge, was allegedly afraid to drive across it, not trusting its reliability. He gave the order to drive an empty train across the Verebiensky Bridge, and only after making sure that the bridge was strong enough did the commission continue its journey.
It is this bridge that is depicted on the bas-relief, which is located on the monument to Nicholas I on St. Isaac's Square in St. Petersburg. The bridge was designed by D.I. Zhuravsky.

Painted rails

Another version of the same legend says that the train on this section... stalled. The railway took a long time to build, almost ten years, and therefore the rails had time to rust. Shame and disgrace are rusty rails for the sovereign with verification! It was decided to quickly paint them - and one of the craftsmen, extremely efficient, painted them not only on the sides, but also on the top. This was done in Russian, at the last possible moment. And now the imperial train is stalling on this section. We had to lighten the train - and at the same time disembark passengers, pour sand under the huge wheels and with difficulty push the train further.
The bas-relief near St. Isaac's Square depicts a scene where the entire commission and Nicholas the First are not on the train, but for some reason got off it...

Folklore

The grandiose railway could not help but enter folklore, and not only folklore, but even Russian poetry. "Berezaika station, who needs to get out!" - passengers still say, although this saying is already a century and a half old.
They say that this railway used to be truly musical: for the safety of passengers and people living near the stations, sound signals were used on the Nikolaevskaya Railway: bells, whistles and - attention! - even musical organs. For visual signals, optical telegraphs, hand flags, red and green discs, and single- and double-winged semaphores were used.
But not only cheerful memories remained about the construction and the beginning of operation of this road. Nekrasov, for example, wrote with his characteristic naturalistic directness:
The path is straight: the embankments are narrow,
Columns, rails, bridges.
And on the sides all the bones are Russian...
How many of them! Vanechka, do you know?
After these lines, the numbers are perceived differently: 278 artificial structures, including 184 bridges, 69 stone and cast iron pipes and 19 overpasses. The cost of building the railway by 1851 was 64,664,751 rubles, the cost of one kilometer was 100,400 rubles.

Station competition

The legend that train stations can be used to judge the eternal competition between Moscow and St. Petersburg has every basis. And the stories that the stations are similar, but not very similar, make sense. In general, this was the idea of the architect Ton, who designed the entire space of the road - 651 kilometers - as a single ensemble, as a huge area. Both sides of it are “closed” by symmetrical buildings - the St. Petersburg and Moscow stations. The facade of the station in St. Petersburg is two pairs of windows wider - it is the capital after all! The tower, on the contrary, is more modest - it is a discreet replica of the main verticals of Nevsky Prospect - the Admiralty spire and the City Duma tower. An imperceptible but significant discrepancy in the decoration of the windows: in St. Petersburg there was a “weight” hanging between two arches, which was characteristic feature Moscow architecture of the 17th century, and in Moscow, on the contrary, the station is decorated with baroque lace as a reminder of the St. Petersburg decor of Bartolomeo Rastrelli.
And, although St. Petersburg is no longer the capital of the empire, the distance is still measured from Znamenskaya Square.