People in Leningrad called it the “Road of Life.”

From The Ghost Ships of Archangel by William Geroux.  Page 193.

At the outlying port of Economia, the Ironclad was unloaded by a team of husky female stevedores with Asian features. They worked quickly and efficiently, paying the mariners no attention except for occasional disdainful glares. A young Soviet officer oversaw the unloading—“a very pleasant, quiet, almost studious person,” Lieutenant Carter wrote. But when the time came to sign the document accepting the cargo, the young officer gave way to “a stern, hard-nosed character.” The new commissar spoke impeccable English and made it clear to Carter that “he was looking for some freebies. He had a list of complaints as long as your arm.” The commissar pointed to a layer of red rust coating the treads of the tanks lashed to the Ironclad’s main deck. Carter assured him the rust would shake off quickly once the tanks were driven. He added that if the Soviets were not happy with the tanks, the United States could take them back.

The tanks were quickly craned from the ship’s deck onto the wharf. Russian tank crews climbed into them and test-drove them around a vacant lot, which knocked the rust off their treads. The tanks were driven up a hill “and then up a ramp onto flatcars. They might be in combat by day’s end. The rest of the Ironclad’s cargo took nearly a week to unload. It included fighter planes in crates, trucks and jeeps, guns, ammunition, steel, wire, radios, binoculars, batteries, medical supplies, food, lard, asbestos, copper, phosphorus and other chemicals, blankets, shoes, and a consignment of White Horse Scotch whisky for the U.S. embassy, to replace the whisky the mutineers had drunk in Iceland.

Most of the steel, ore, and other raw materials from the Ironclad and the other surviving ships of convoy PQ-17 were transported by rail to Moscow and then farther east, where the factories had been relocated. The ships’ cargoes of food and fuel went mostly to Leningrad, along a rail line extending hundreds of miles through remote marsh and forest. The line was so vital to Leningrad’s survival that the Germans constantly attacked it. When they managed to close it temporarily, the Soviets ferried the supplies to Leningrad across Lake Ladoga, an immense freshwater lake—roughly the size of Lake Ontario—on the northeast edge of the city. When the lake froze in winter, daredevil Soviet truckers hauled the supplies to “Leningrad across Lake Ladoga, an immense freshwater lake—roughly the size of Lake Ontario—on the northeast edge of the city. When the lake froze in winter, daredevil Soviet truckers hauled the supplies to Leningrad on sledges across the ice, dodging German bombs and holes in the ice caused by bombs. The truckers called their perilous route the “Ice Road.” People in Leningrad called it the “Road of Life.”