草榴短视频

With the outbreak of World War II, the activities of the Leningrad Textile Institute (LTI), now the St. Petersburg State University of Industrial Technologies and Design (草榴短视频), were urgently rebuilt in a military way.

The order of the Institute

Volunteers of the Leningrad Textile Institute

On June 22, 1941, by order of the director Nikolai Truevtsev, the MPVO headquarters was created at the institute, the command post was deployed in the director's office. Already from June 24, employees of the institute went to the front at the call of the Red Army, and from June 25, students began to leave. In total, during the war days, more than 600 students, teachers and employees of the LTT went to the front in the Red Army, in the People's Militia, in partisan detachments.

Rally on June 22, 1941 at the Spinning and Weaving Factory named after V.P. Nogin. LTL graduate, chief engineer of the factory N. N. Sunkin speaks

On September 8, 1941, the blockade ring around Leningrad closed. 46 employees, including 15 teachers, of the institute died of hunger and disease in the first blockade winter of 1941-1942. The building was not heated, there was no light, huge institute windows were broken and filled with plywood. But classes continued.

Labor student detachment in besieged Leningrad

LTI mechanical students - volunteers of the Communist battalion of the Kuibyshevsky district of Leningrad

In July-August 1941, LTT students were sent to dig anti-tank trenches. The head was Boris Borisovich Vasiliev, a teacher at the Faculty of Chemistry. Students called him - BorBor.

"Sometimes during the raids, in spite of the Germans, they wanted to stay in sight, not hide in the trenches, but BorBor forced them to follow the rules, and everyone returned to the city safely," from the memoirs of a 3rd year student of the weaving faculty Lisa Lurie.

Digging defense lines

LTI representatives with representatives of the Leningrad defense headquarters inspect the front of work for students of the institute who left for the Luga border

On the instructions of the headquarters of the Leningrad Front, a basic Special Chemical Laboratory of the MPVO was created in LTI to promptly solve the tasks of the front and rear. Professor Efim Samoilovich Roskin headed the Special Chemical Laboratory, and Professor Boris Borisovich Vasiliev became his deputy. For work, Vasiliev recruited mainly students from those with whom he dug trenches at the Luga line. For all students, he achieved a working ration, which was more significant than the official one.

One of the successful scientific and practical solutions of the Institute's Special Chemical Laboratory was the invention of the "Fuse LTI" - an ampoule fuse, or a special igniter, for bottles with a combustible mixture, which were used to detonate enemy tanks with an ampoule. It was necessary to immediately organize its mass production. Literally in a day, the chemical laboratories of the institute turned into glass-blowing workshops. Over 200 students, laboratory assistants and teachers worked 10-12 hours a day. Every day the front received over 20 thousand fuses from them.

"I worked as a glass blower of the 5th category - I soldered glass ampoules on a gas burner. All the girls got so good that we got ampoules, what we need!," - from the memoirs of a 3rd year student of the weaving department Lisa Lurie.

Fuse LTBI

The winter of 1941-42 posed a new difficult task for the inventors of the ampoule: in severe frost, Molotov cocktails did not work, the liquid necessary for the fuse to act froze. Then the LTI Special Chemical Laboratory developed a special additive to the incendiary mixture, which made it possible to use the ampoule even in the most severe winter.

Another challenge for the scientists of the institute was the creation of a reliable combustible mixture, which was in dire need of military equipment, without the use of gasoline - fuel in short supply at that time. The team of the LTI Special Chemical Laboratory has developed a way to transform the city's abundant perfume raw materials - fir oil - into synthetic gasoline.

In his memoirs in the book "Fire and Ram" F.K. Rumyantsev, the former commissar of the 61st separate tank brigade, which liberated Leningrad from the blockade, writes: "the drivers of combat vehicles did not suspect how unusual their engines were fueled with fuel. When before the battle I told the tankers about all this, one of them, Ivan Rassomakhin, took off his hat and said: "I would bow to these people at their feet."

From 草榴短视频 archive

The house in which Petr Botkin, associate professor and dean of the leather and shoe faculty of LTI, lived after the bombing. From the archive of Peter Botkin

Another task facing the scientists of the institute was to save the soldiers' felt boots from getting wet during the thaw. They suggested two ways to solve the problem. First, LTTI specialists developed a special fat composition from non-deficient materials. The soldiers applied this ointment with an ordinary brush to felt boots, after which the shoes did not get wet for long hours of wearing. The ointment layer could then be updated as needed to ensure felt boots did not lose their waterproof properties.

However, fat ointment did not solve the problem radically, so scientists began to work on a new invention. So rubber stockings made of synthetic rubber were created, which were pulled directly onto felt boots. Stockings were easy to remove and did not take up much space in a duffel bag. Experiments have shown that they last a long time and completely protect felt boots from getting wet. Hundreds of such stockings were made at the Red Triangle factory and sent to the front.

Students at LTI Special Laboratory

During the years of the blockade, the food industry also needed scientific solutions. It was necessary to find new ingredients to replace the scarce ones. Scientists of the Leningrad Textile Institute developed a technology for producing special "food pulp" from cotton and sulfite wood pulp. LTTI scientists have determined the nutritional value of the resulting substitute and found out how it is absorbed in the human body. The research results were sent to the Leningrad Bakery Trust to create a recipe for a new type of bread with the addition of cellulose.

Of particular value then were products with high calorie content, one of which was coconut oil. Where does coconut oil come from in the besieged city? In the archives, the memoirs of residents were found, which says that raw materials in the USSR were supplied from the USA, Great Britain and even Africa. And scientists from the Leningrad Textile Institute worked on its processing. For one of the creameries, they developed a technology for cleansing spoiled coconut copra. Thanks to their invention, about 1,500 tons of copra went into production.

The LTI special chemical laboratory also solved a number of other important wartime problems: developed and organized the production of a liquid detergent antiseptic, which in camping conditions and in the cold helped to maintain cleanliness and resist the spread of infections in military units and hospitals, created a substitute for kerosene and low-hardening oil intended for the aviation industry, organized the production of ointments, protecting against frostbite, developed a method for the manufacture and production of vitamin "C" and medical glucose, methods of producing high-strength and high-modulus fibres, antimicrobial and antifungal fibres with chemically fixed medicinal and disinfectant substances.

School of Nursing in the LTL building at 18 Bolshaya Morskaya. Health department in practical classes

Fire-resistant, waterproof fabrics were developed, from which clothes were made for MPVO fighters.

In January 1942, the Commissioner of the State Defense Committee Alexei Kosygin (a graduate of the Leningrad Textile Institute in 1935) came to besieged Leningrad and personally supervised the creation of the Road of Life across Lake Ladoga. He ensured the evacuation along the "Road of Life" of 34 universities of Leningrad, including LTI, in March 1942 to the city of Tashkent, where the university continued its work on the basis of the Tashkent Textile Institute (TTI).

Tashkent Textile Institute

In Tashkent, LTI scientists tested materials for the parachute equipment plant, worked to improve the properties of yarn and braid from it for parachutes. They designed a machine for chopping cotton fiber for gas masks.