The article is devoted to an insufficiently researched problem – the work of the transport infrastructure of rear cities during the Great Patriotic War. The Middle Volga cities played a significant role in ensuring victory, being the rear base of the Red Army. This explains the relevance of this study. Urban transport was an essential part of the urban economic structure, but its importance is often underestimated. The purpose of the article is to determine the degree of impact of severe wartime conditions on the activities of urban transport enterprises, to assess the measures by which the city leadership achieved effective work. The article was written using unpublished materials from Samara, Penza and Ulyanovsk archival funds, which allowed us to fully recreate the picture of both everyday life and heroic labor of workers of transport enterprises of the Middle Volga region. Comparative-historical and problem-chronological methods were used in the work, which made it possible to identify the general and special in the historical events described and to consider in chronological sequence the hard work, failures and successes of the workers of transport enterprises. The material used shows that the activities of urban transport enterprises have become an important factor that made it possible to fully utilize the transport potential in the conditions of a severe war to achieve victory over nazi Germany.

The article is devoted to an insufficiently researched problem – the work of the transport infrastructure of rear cities during the Great Patriotic War. The Middle Volga cities played a significant role in ensuring victory, being the rear base of the Red Army. This explains the relevance of this study. Urban transport was an essential part of the urban economic structure, but its importance is often underestimated. The purpose of the article is to determine the degree of impact of severe wartime conditions on the activities of urban transport enterprises, to assess the measures by which the city leadership achieved effective work. The article was written using unpublished materials from Samara, Penza and Ulyanovsk archival funds, which allowed us to fully recreate the picture of both everyday life and heroic labor of workers of transport enterprises of the Middle Volga region. Comparative-historical and problem-chronological methods were used in the work, which made it possible to identify the general and special in the historical events described and to consider in chronological sequence the hard work, failures and successes of the workers of transport enterprises. The material used shows that the activities of urban transport enterprises have become an important factor that made it possible to fully utilize the transport potential in the conditions of a severe war to achieve victory over nazi Germany.