The then Vitebsk was small compared to the present center of the region which has 360,000 inhabitants: the 1897 census counted 66,143 inhabitants in the city. There were enough narrow and winding streets in the main city of the province, along which no tram could pass. Marc Chagall, eleven years old, in 1898 began to study here in a four-year school. The heroes of the great artist were very fond of flying over the rooftops of Vitebsk, closer to the ground it was much more prosaic. With one major exception in the form of a tram.
A technical innovation appeared on the streets of Vitebsk quickly and by today’s standards. Geopolitical changes contributed to this: in the 1890s, a Russian-French alliance took shape, for which Emperor Alexander III listened to the Marseillaise, the anthem of republican France, bareheaded. The union also had economic consequences: in the Russian Empire, French capital and the finances of neighboring Belgium began to actively find a use for themselves. In the case of the Vitebsk tramway, both the French and the Belgians were heavily involved.
Trams ran through Vitebsk every 12-15 minutes at a speed of about 13.5 kilometers per hour
In November 1895, the city council of Vitebsk approved the business proposal of the French citizen Fernand Guillon for the appearance of a tram in the city. In February 1896, Fernan Ferdinandovich made a large pledge of 10,000 rubles and signed a 40-year contract for the construction and operation of an “electric railway”. Local authorities spent nothing on the project except for the provision of urban space, while Guillon, as part of the contract, undertook to pay the Vitebsk treasury for each tram brought online. The first 10 years – 30 rubles per year per car, the second – already 40 rubles, then – 50 at all.
The authorities of the city of Vitebsk, in their zeal for the tram, turned out to be ahead of the two capitals of the Russian Empire, because in St. Petersburg the electric tram ran on rails only the following year, 1899, and in Moscow only in 1907. Guillon’s project is not a chimera, on the contrary, it is carefully marketed. According to the agreement of 1896, the Frenchman had the right to create a foreign commercial structure for the management of the Vitebsk tram, and in the spring of 1899 the Belgian joint stock company “Vitebsk Tram” was created for this purpose. He managed to make a profit until the revolution of 1917. All the trams that ran in Chagall’s Vitebsk were also Belgian.
Preparations for the launch of the Vitebsk tram proceeded at a truly accelerated pace. Less than two and a half years passed between the signing of the contract and the movement of the first cars. The very construction of tram lines with a length of just over five kilometers, designed for four routes, began in September 1897, immediately after the approval of the project by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of St. Petersburg and the governor of Vitebsk, Vladimir Levashov. Along with the laying of rails with a gutter on the streets of the city, which proudly bore the name “Phoenix”, other objects necessary for the movement of trams were built. The tram depot was built on Zadunovskaya Street, now it is Frunze Avenue, the depot is located here to this day, there is also a very interesting Vitebsk Tram Museum. Nearby, a power plant was specially erected with the latest Western equipment that ran on oil or firewood. 33 Belgian cars were delivered to the depot, 18 of them were automobiles with 25 horsepower engines.
With the launch of the tram, real power felt deprived, and taxi drivers in Vitebsk have long complained to the authorities about the appearance of a dangerous competitor. As a result, modern technology defeated the archaic, and when the tram appeared, horse-drawn carriages were ordered to stay at a distance of at least 15 sazhens, and on the slopes – even 30 sazhens. The trams ran every 12 to 15 minutes at a speed of around 13.5 kilometers per hour. Income from the Belgian joint-stock company “Vitebsk Tram” regularly brought: a year, according to official documentation, which was conducted in French, came out about 20,000 francs.
Residents of Vitebsk took a lot of money for travel: five kopecks with a daily salary of a worker not exceeding 60 kopeks. Three kopecks were paid only by students in uniform, the forgetful later scribbled such complaints: “October 12, 1907. I ask you to demand from driver No. 51, by what right does he charge me 5 kopecks for a ticket when I am in uniform, but without an apron.Student of the gymnasium of the Mariinsky Gymnasium Yakhnina. The driver would have been happy to drive the young lady at a reduced fare, but he was ruthlessly fined for every service violation and paid no more than 20 rubles, if you didn’t get a fine.
A motorist could count on a maximum of 25 rubles, and this was with a 14-hour working day (albeit with a three-hour lunch break): trams ran through the streets of Vitebsk until nine in the evening from seven o’clock in summer, and from eight o’clock in winter. Belgian cars had 20 seats for passengers, and the driver’s place in the car was strictly standing: already under Soviet rule in 1928, a seat was installed for drivers. Until 1917, the rules were strict: “The driver of a car must have a modest and decent salary, not allow himself casual poses, he must be clean and well dressed and completely sober. Smoking of tobacco and to sit in the car.”
Tram work was also dangerous, in just two years, 1910 and 1911, 32 cases of wagon derailments were recorded in Vitebsk. The year 1917 draws a line under the short but fruitful history of the Belgian limited company Vitebsk Tram. But the case of Fernand Ferdinandovitch Guillon has not disappeared. After surviving serious difficulties in the revolutionary era (in 1922 only four motor cars capable of moving were preserved) and even more serious problems during the Great Patriotic War (the movement was only restarted in October 1947), the Vitebsk tramway was successfully preserved.
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