Russian Moscow Metro Historical Story of Women Waders

Maria Yakovleva
Maria Yakovleva

When the Russia Moscow Metro was established, it was envisaged that only male attendants could work. For the main occupation of the metro, only male attendants were working. According to the new law, women can now work! According to the article published after the events spread as part of the 8 March International Women's Day, women trainers are also working in the Moscow Metro now!

After a break of almost forty years, the Moscow Metro was once again opened to women's work. On January 3, 2021, Line 4 was controlled by a female driver. But have women ever worked as subway trainers? Why are Kadi banned from being subway trainers? We wanted to enlighten you with the statements of Pavel Kovalyov, Deputy Head of the Moscow Metro Personnel Management and the Collectors Association. Let's start with ZinaidaTroitskaya first.

Metro Moscow First Woman Wader

ZinaidaTroitskaya
ZinaidaTroitskaya

Growing up in the family of a railway worker, an ordinary girl spent days with her father, a locksmith repairing steam locomotives in the Moscow-Sortirovochnaya warehouse. He graduated from the railway school with honors in 1930 and started working as a locksmith in the warehouse to repair steam locomotives. With hard work and determination, ZinaidaTroitskaya managed to be included in the locomotive assistant vatman training group. He graduated from these courses with honors! The driver in the crew, whose passenger trains he drove from Moscow to Ryazan, appealed to the management of the road with a request to send him to work as a driver. In 1935, ZinaidaTroitskaya became the first female locomotive driver in the USSR and possibly in the world.

Women to locomotives
Women to locomotives

A year has passed, and in 1936, ZinaidaTroitskaya, then medalist and 1st class machinist, published a call on Gudoknewspaper: "Women to locomotives!" And the call was heard. Young women workers of the Moscow Metro, which was then part of the People's Commissariat of Railways (Ministry), did not want to be left behind. Already in the same year, three train managers (as driver assistants were called later) received permission to pass exams for the right to drive a subway train.

Oksana Pinchuk became the first to take an exam for a subway driver. At first, he worked on the construction of the subway, and in March 1935 he was sent among the top Metro Builders for further work on the subway. Until then, Oksana Pinchuk was awarded the "Stalin's school enrolled striker" badge. The first final exam for women in the history of the Metro, scheduled for December 25, 1936, took several hours and was evaluated very strictly. When Oksana answered all questions about the operating rules and regulation of vehicles, and there was nothing to ask, a strict men's commission made a decision - female drivers will be on the subway!

Oksana Pinchuk
Oksana Pinchuk

The successful test of women on the right to use metro trains was published in the Sovetsky Metro newspaper shortly after. The first female drivers on the Moscow Metro at the end of 1936 were already three: Pinchuk, Blinova and Makarieva.

Ekaterina Mishina
Ekaterina Mishina

Before the war, several dozen female train drivers were working on the subway. Leaders began to appear among them. For example, Ekaterina Mişina, who got the right to use subway trains in the spring of 1937. Until March 1942, under the leadership of second-class veteran Yekaterina Mişina, the first women's train in the subway, which entered the line on March 2, was established. 8. The first train to be named on the Moscow Metro, 1942 March Train, became. Mass recruitment of women on the subway was extremely necessary during the Great Patriotic War - despite exemptions, many subway workers, including train drivers, went to the front. And in those years, women mastered many specialties that were considered primarily "men" before the war. For example, during the war years, after the driver's hours of shift were over, it was customary to go down to the repair pit and do locksmith work to repair and maintain cars.

March train
March train

In 1945, ZinaidaTroitskaya was transferred from the railway system to the Metro. By that time he had a great career and III. He became the General Manager of the rank. After connecting his fate to the Metro, he worked there for more than 30 years as Metro Vice President for staff and social issues. It was he who inspired ideologically in the late 1960s and was one of the creators of the Moscow Metro Folk Museum.

Driver's license
Driver's license

After the war, many women worked as machinists 'assistants and machinists, many of which laid the foundations of numerous workers' dynasties. This continued into the early 80s of the last century, and for a number of reasons, the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions issued a decree banning women from working as drivers and assistant drivers on subway trains.

Driver Tatiana Kostomarova
Driver Tatiana Kostomarova

Given that there were many women working in the subway as train drivers and co-drivers until then, they were allowed to continue working. However, they stopped accepting new students for training. The only exception to this rule was Yekaterina Mozgalova, who, after years of working as an assistant driver, was still allowed to pass the driver's exam. After that, he worked in the subway until the mid-1990s and retired as a first-class train driver.

The latest female subway driver was Natalia Kornienko, who worked on the Severnoyedepot until 2014 and used the train on Line 1.

Natalia Kornienko
Natalia Kornienko

Years have passed. The railway vehicles of the Moscow Metro have changed, the train cabin has become wider, quieter and more comfortable. The ergonomics of the control panel have been improved, and previously manual functions have been automated as much as possible. These changes gave the Ministry of Labor every reason to allow women to turn to an interesting and prestigious profession - the subway driver.

By the end of 2020, 12 female drivers were trained and started to work. The first of these, pilot Maria Yakovleva, made for her first independent ride on Line 3 on January 2021, 4.

Maria Yakovleva
Maria Yakovleva