L-3562 Steam Locomotive Monument

Today, the memorial steam locomotive is located at the locomotive depot at the Vitebsk station. Judging by the serial number - L-3562 - the machine was produced in the postwar period. To be exact, in 1954 and a year later production of steam locomotives from this series was stopped. Over ten years, since 1945, 4,199 steam locomotives were produced. All of them had the name "Pobeda" and were produced with the serial letter "P". But in 1947 the letter "P" was replaced with "L" to immortalize the surname of the chief designer L.Lebedyansky, whose project was used to build the locomotive.

But the most interesting thing that Vitebsk history keeps silent about is the mysterious disappearance of Lenin and Stalin from the locomotive. Or rather their bas-reliefs on the five-pointed star, which originally decorated the front of the locomotive. After the XXth Congress of the CPSU (February 1956) bas-reliefs from nearly all trains of this series were dismantled and their fate is unknown. The steam locomotive monument in Vitebsk was no exception. At present, only two locomotives in their original form have survived and are now in Russia.