Memorial Nevsky Piglet. Nevsky "patch": a corner of courage on the map of the Leningrad region. The last weeks of the bridgehead

A bridgehead on the left bank of the Neva, near the village of Moskovskaya Dubrovka, controlled by Soviet troops from September 1941 to April 1942, and also from September 1942 to February 1943. Advancing from here, units of the 8th and 67th armies planned to connect with units of the Volkhov Front, thereby breaking through the Siege of Leningrad.

On September 8, 1941, German troops, having taken Shlisselburg, closed the blockade ring around Leningrad. Immediately after this, the Soviet command assigned the troops of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts the task of breaking the blockade. During the 1st Sinyavino operation, units of the 54th Army were supposed to break through enemy defenses in the Mga and Sinyavino area and reach the Neva. At the same time, the troops of the Leningrad Front were supposed to cross the Neva and move towards the 54th Army.

On the night of September 20, soldiers of the 115th Infantry Division crossed the Neva in fishing boats and homemade rafts and captured a small bridgehead about two kilometers wide and one and a half kilometers deep. Fierce fighting began on the left bank of the Neva; the Soviet troops failed to build on their success; however, the German units, exhausted in the battle, were unable to liquidate the bridgehead. The offensive of the Volkhov Front units was also unsuccessful. Units of the 54th Army advanced only 5-10 kilometers, after which they got stuck in the German defense. For several months, a kind of status quo was established in this area of hostilities.

In October 1941, Soviet troops made many attempts to develop an offensive from a bridgehead, but by this time the Germans had managed to prepare powerful defensive positions. After some time, maintaining the bridgehead itself became difficult; due to constant shelling, they could only cross the river at night, supply and evacuation of the wounded was difficult, and the bodies of the dead were often buried on the “patch.”

“By the time our company landed, all the trenches and communication passages were filled with frozen corpses. They lay across the entire area of the “patch”, where they were overtaken by a bullet or shrapnel. It’s hard to remember this, but it was like this: the shelter in which I and my two comrades happened to be accommodated was instead covered with frozen corpses, the walls were partially lined with corpses, firing loops were equipped between the corpses laid along the trenches instead of parapets. The entire area of the patch was a cemetery of unburied soldiers and officers” (from the memoirs of Yuri Poresh, a participant in the battles at the Nevsky Patch).

The ice drift that began in April 1942 almost completely interrupted the communication of the units on the patch with the “mainland”. At the end of the month, fewer than a thousand Soviet soldiers remained on the bridgehead. On the evening of April 24, the Germans began an attack on the bridgehead. Despite fierce resistance from Soviet soldiers, the bridgehead was liquidated by the end of April.

In August 1942, the 3rd Sinyavinsk offensive operation began. Units of the Volkhov Front struck from the east, intending to break through to the Neva, thereby releasing Leningrad. From the west they were to be supported by troops of the Neva Operational Group. The attempt to cross the Neva on September 9 completely failed. On September 26, a new offensive was launched, as a result of which Soviet troops managed to capture three bridgeheads on the left bank of the Neva, in the area of Moscow Dubrovka, Arbuzovo and Annensky. A few days later, the bridgeheads at Arbuzovo and Annensky were liquidated, but the Soviet troops were able to hold the “patch.”

By this time, the troops of the Volkhov Front were already surrounded by the enemy and could not further develop the offensive. In this regard, on October 5, a decision was made to withdraw the troops occupying the bridgehead to the right bank of the Neva. However, soon after the withdrawal it was discovered that the Germans were not occupying the compiled Soviet positions. As a result, on October 8, a company of 114 volunteers landed on the patch and again occupied the abandoned bridgehead. By this time, the Germans “came to their senses” and tried to eliminate the “patch”, but the volunteers were able to repel all attacks. On October 20, reinforcements arrived at the “patch”, after which relative calm established itself here for several months.

In January 1943, the Soviet command made another attempt to break the blockade. During Operation Iskra, troops of the Volkhov Front were supposed to advance from the east, towards units of the Leningrad Front attacking the Germans from the west. However, this time it was planned to cross the Neva on a wide section of the front, from Shlisselburg to Moscow Dubrovka. The German command, believing that the main blow would be delivered precisely in the Nevsky Piglet area, concentrated a reinforced group here, so the Soviet offensive here did not unfold very successfully. However, Soviet troops advancing in the Maryino area managed to break through the enemy’s defenses and on January 18 united with the advancing units of the Volkhov Front. The fighting in the Nevsky Piglet area continued, however, until February 1943, when the enemy was pushed back to Arbuzovo and Annensky.

Results

Despite the fact that the Soviet offensives carried out from the Nevsky Piglet, as well as all attempts by Soviet troops to relieve Leningrad before January 1943, ended in failure, they played an important role in the strategic plan. The German command was forced to transfer additional forces here both from Leningrad and from other sectors of the front. As a result of this, the German group leading the attack on Stalingrad was significantly weakened, and in addition, the German command was forced to abandon the attack on Leningrad in the summer of 1942. The offensive of the Soviet troops in January 1943 also ended in success, largely because the enemy strengthened the defense in the Nevsky Piglet area at the expense of other sectors of the front, in which, as a result, the German defense was broken through.

Losses

The exact losses of Soviet troops are still unknown; according to various estimates, they range from 50 to 200 thousand people. German losses are estimated in the range from 10 to 40 thousand people killed.

Currently, there is a memorial on the territory of “Pyatachka”, several monuments have been erected here, and a church of the icon has been opened in the village of Dubrovka on the other side of the river Mother of God“Recovery of the Dead”, as well as the Nevsky Pyatachok Museum.

The debate about whether the tiny bridgehead, which went down in history under the name “Nevsky Piglet,” was needed or not, continues to this day. They are conducted by historians, eyewitnesses of those events and representatives of the post-war generation, who debate its feasibility from the point of view of the price of human life. It seems that the answer must be sought by assessing those events through the eyes of people of that generation.

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, whose father fought in Piglet, answered reporters: “I think that in war there are always many mistakes. But if you fight and think that everyone around you is making mistakes, you will never win. They thought about victory then ". Putin's father, a soldier of the 330th Infantry Regiment of the 86th Infantry Division, was seriously wounded on the Nevsky bridgehead in November 1941 and was forever crippled by that war.

It is characteristic that in Germany little is known about the difficult battles for the Nevsky Patch. It would seem strange. Indeed, in our literature, German losses in the area are described as enormous. However, in the “War Diary” of the chief General Staff German ground forces F. Halder (Moscow, OLMA-PRESS, 2004) The Neva bridgehead, as a specific military target, is ignored. In a veiled form, however, it appears as “attacks of local significance on the Ladoga sector of the front” (Halder’s entry dated November 2, 1941)

Apparently, at the level of the Wehrmacht high command, this tiny piece of land, conquered with such difficulty and with such losses by our troops, was a thorn, quite painful, but not fatal? But does this mean that the German command underestimated the danger of Soviet troops expanding the bridgehead on the left bank of the Neva?

The answer to this question was found in the German book “Diary notes and assessments of the situation during two world wars” by Field Marshal Ritter von Leeb (Stuttgart, 1976). In it, the commander of Army Group North pays attention to this section of the front thirty-three times, which indicates his serious concern about the situation in this area.

The histories of the German divisions that blocked the bridgehead from September 1941 to February 1943 also cover this issue quite fully. Unfortunately, they became available only in last years, and have not yet been fully studied.

For us, residents of besieged Leningrad, and today's St. Petersburg residents, the Nevsky bridgehead remains both a heroic and tragic memory of the 900-day siege. Analyzing the course of the fighting on the Nevsky Piglet, you think about what preceded its formation. At the same time, it is interesting to compare our and German data.

The first question that arose quite often and continues to be discussed: did the Germans intend to cross the Neva at the beginning of September 1941, and if so, where and how?

Second question:
- did they make specific attempts to cross to the other side, and if so, in what units?

Authoritative German military historians W. Haupt and H. Pohlmann make no mention of attempts to cross the Neva in September 1941, which suggests the absence of detailed plans and developments at the level of the Wehrmacht high command. Over the next 60 years, no maps, diagrams or even approximate descriptions of the transfer plan have been found in the military archives of Germany and the United States. German troops to the other bank of the Neva. But does this mean that there were no such thoughts at all? Published in Germany in 1997, “Chronicle and history of the 20th motorized German division (which reached the Neva at the end of August 1941 - Yu.L.)”, clarifies this issue with the following entry:

- “On August 31, 1941, the commander of the German 39th Army Corps gave a written order, which, in particular, said: “The 20th Motorized Division is seizing a bridgehead across the Neva in the Ostrovka or Dubrovka area.”
True, no deadlines were discussed and no specific tasks were set. Apparently, the calculation was made on the favorableness of the situation. If there were no Soviet troops on the other bank, and our sappers had not already blown up the railway bridge across the Neva in the Ostrovka-Kuzminki area, the likelihood of the Germans crossing to the right bank would have been quite high.

Confirmation of the reality of such intentions of the Germans are the memoirs of I.S. Sazonov from the book “Nevsky Piglet” (Lenizdat, 1977): “On August 31, small enemy units tried to cross to our shore at the Ivanovo rapids. In the evening, September 2, near a platoon of Nazis in boats "We crossed the Neva to capture a small island near the village of Kuzminki. In response to our fire, the Germans turned their boats and began to hastily leave."

The Wehrmacht High Command undoubtedly had a great desire to cross the Neva. This, in particular, is evidenced by the following entry from the “War Diary” of F. Halder on October 5, 1941: “Only insignificant Finnish forces are operating on the Karelian front, which, however, will be able to launch an offensive if we cross the Neva.” The Germans abandoned further attempts to cross the Neva, making sure that they would receive a worthy rebuff, since Soviet troops were gradually being pulled up to the right bank of the river. In addition, by that time Hitler had already decided on the fate of Leningrad, deciding to starve it out of the blockade ring, and began to transfer strike forces to Moscow.

It is noteworthy that both our and German generals were unanimous in identifying possible bridgeheads in the same areas, only on different banks of the Neva. Here is the description given by Major General Konkov, commander of the 115th Infantry Division, in the book “Nevsky Piglet”: “There was a threat that the enemy would definitely take action to cross the Neva, most likely at the Ivanovo rapids or in the Nevskaya Dubrovka area. The choice of these places in "This is largely due to the geographical factor: up and down the Neva the banks are steep, there are a lot of swamps, but in the places I mentioned the banks are flat, and good roads lead from them to the north, to the Finns. The Germans know this."

It is in these places that in 20 days our units will begin crossing the Neva, taking into account that on the other side there are prepared roads leading to a connection with the troops of the Volkhov Front, from which they were separated by only 12-15 kilometers. But they will be overcome only after a year and a half of brutal, bloody battles.

Although our troops had little time to prepare the first operation to cross the Neva, nevertheless, they still managed to carry out initial reconnaissance. On the night of September 12, 1941, five reconnaissance officers of the 115th Rifle Division crossed the Neva by boat, collected data on the movement of enemy vehicles and military equipment in the area of the 8th State District Power Plant and returned to the right bank without losses.

On the same day, to the north, in the Maryino area, the rifle battalion of the 1st NKVD division tried to land, but failed. However, over the next few days, two battalions and a reconnaissance company of the 115th Infantry Division, an NKVD battalion (a total of 1,166 people) and three battalions of 1st Marine Brigade. By the end of September, losses in the infantry amounted to 865 people, among the sailors - up to 80 percent, and the size of the bridgehead was reduced to two kilometers along the front and about 500 meters in depth.

The German command began to realize the seriousness of this section of the front and the danger of the situation. The chronicle of the 20th Motorized Division records: “The enemy’s intention, due to intensified attempts to cross the Neva, to break the blockade of Leningrad in close cooperation with the forces attacking from the east,” is becoming clear.” General Paulus, a representative of the Wehrmacht High Command headquarters who arrived in Shlisselburg on September 24, was told that the troops were exhausted by continuous fierce battles, and the 20th Motorized Division was no longer capable of offensive actions. Leaving the Nevsky sector of the front in early October, the division had 2,411 soldiers killed and wounded out of 7,000 combat personnel.

This is how it is described in the book of the German historian G. Wodage “Past Hell” (Oldenburg, 1994): “Machine guns, rifles, hand grenades, rifle butts, sapper blades and bayonets were the weapons with which soldiers from both sides threw themselves at each other "The terrible outcome of these battles remains in the memory of former German paratroopers decades later."

Nevertheless, the German command of the Nevsky sector of the front managed to achieve the main thing: the patch was localized, targeted along with the crossing points on the other bank, and the situation was brought under control. German infantry battalions were given the opportunity to equip positions, install wire barriers and systematically mine the eastern bank of the Neva.

On October 20, 1941, the Sinyavinsk operation began to break the blockade by troops of the Neva operational group. This time the factor of surprise could not be used. The enemy foresaw the possibility of an offensive by Soviet troops. As soon as the crossing of the Neva began, the entire area where boats and boats were concentrated came under fire from cannons and machine guns. Dozens of boats that had just been launched into the water turned into splinters at once. However, the crossing continued, and as a result of many days of fighting, units of the 86th Infantry Division managed to expand the bridgehead along the front by one kilometer. But in the end, only 177 active bayonets remained in the division. In other formations the situation was the same: 265th Rifle Division (RD) - 180 people, 168th Rifle Division - 175 people. And only in the 115th Rifle Division there were 1,324 people thanks to the replenishment transferred the day before.

Heavy losses occurred in the 20th NKVD division, 123rd separate tank brigade and other units. Based on these figures, it becomes clear how up to nine divisions and brigades could simultaneously be located on a tiny piece of land, violating all the standards provided for by the combat regulations. They could only be called compounds conditionally. In fact, they were knocked out into mouths.

But the Germans also suffered great damage. The 96th Infantry Division, transferred at the end of September to the Nevsky sector of the front, had company losses of up to 40 people killed and up to 70 people wounded by the beginning of November. Assessing those battles, H. Pohlmann noted in “History of the 96th Infantry Division” (Bad Nauheim, 1959) that “the Russians demonstrated amazing skill in creating bridgeheads and extraordinary tenacity in holding them.”

On November 8, Stalin personally demanded a new operation from the Nevsky bridgehead, proposing the creation of “shock regiments of brave people who can break through the road to the east.” Starting on November 11, it became one of the bloodiest for our troops located in the area. According to incomplete data, over five days of fighting, the 8th Army, formed on the basis of the Neva Operational Group, lost over 5,000 people. The losses in the three shock communist regiments were especially large - more than 2,500 people.

Meanwhile, the enemy brought the fresh 1st Infantry Division to the Neva, which also immediately suffered heavy losses. By mid-December, 1,500 people were out of action. She lost about 90 soldiers every day. As a result, by November 24, the combat strength of the 1st battalion of the 1st infantry regiment was only 90 people, the 2nd and 1st battalions of the 22nd infantry regiment - 88 people each.
These battles required almost superhuman effort on both sides. Due to the lack of warm dugouts, equipped trenches, and strong, cold winds, both Soviet and German soldiers were forced to endure unimaginably harsh tests. Frosts reached minus 25 degrees. What was built during the night was mostly destroyed by artillery during the day.

Due to the lack of personnel, the opponents were constantly either in battle or on duty. They could sleep no more than four hours. To characterize those battles, it is noteworthy that the average daily consumption of hand grenades on the German side was 8,000 pieces. German military historians pedantically calculated that the Russians from 11/15 to 12/27/41. attacked by small combat reconnaissance groups 79 times, consisting of up to two companies - 66 times, consisting of a battalion and above 50 times. That is, on average, about 15 times during the day. When repelling sixteen tank attacks, 51 tanks were destroyed, mainly of the KV and T-34 types.

At the end of December 1941, the activity of the confrontation began to decline. Both sides were exhausted and were no longer able to withstand the stress of such fierce fighting. It was in those days that a saying was born among the defenders of the bridgehead: “Whoever has not been to the Nevsky patch has never seen grief.” The following phrase also became popular: “Whoever passed death at Dubrovka is born a second time.”

The year 1942 arrived. Piglet held on, although it was reduced to two kilometers along the front and 600 meters in depth. Exhausted by battles and weakened by losses, the remnants of the Soviet divisions were withdrawn to the right bank of the Neva. They were replaced by the 10th Infantry Division and separate units of the 177th Division.

In March, only one 330th regiment of the 86th Infantry Division remained on the left bank of the Neva, which had no more than 480 soldiers. Together with the 2nd company of the 120th engineer battalion and the 4th company of the 169th mortar battalion and other small units attached to it, its strength was increased to 600 people. Shortly before the spring ice drift, about 500 additional soldiers from the 284th Infantry Regiment were transported to Pyatachok. The total number of defenders was about 1000 Soviet soldiers.

On the German side, in front of the front of the Soviet units, was the 1st Infantry Regiment of the 1st Infantry Division. Gradually, the enemy concentrated its units, preparing to take advantage of the ice drift on the Neva and deliver a decisive blow.

On April 24, the ice on the river began to crack. On the same day, the command of the German 1st Infantry Division began to liquidate the bridgehead. The operation of the 1st Infantry Regiment, reinforced by units of the 43rd Infantry Regiment and the 1st Engineer Battalion, included two stages: the capture of the so-called corridor (the northern part of the patch) and the subsequent destruction of it entirely. For this purpose, powerful artillery support was additionally provided by the 1st Artillery Regiment, the 2nd Division of the 196th Artillery Regiment and the 2nd Battery of Rocket Launchers of the 9th Separate Artillery Battalion.

At 20:20 on April 24, with a surprise attack, the Germans managed to break through to the bank of the Neva and gain a foothold there. Firing points and front line trenches were destroyed by powerful artillery fire. The last reinforcements for the defenders of the patch arrived on April 26. These were two companies of the 284th regiment. Together with them, judging by reports from the archives of the Ministry of Defense, 382 Soviet soldiers fought on the bridgehead at the final stage.

On the morning of April 27, units of the 330th and 284th regiments retreated 300-400 meters to the center of the bridgehead. The entire coastal part of the Neva fell into the hands of the Germans. A critical situation has arisen. The last thing seen from the right bank of the Neva was a piece of a camouflage robe, on which was written in large letters: “Help.”

Non-commissioned officer V. Buff from the 227th Infantry Division, who was adjusting the fire on the patch in those days, wrote in his diary: “The operation on the bridgehead on April 27, in which we participated, cost the enemy, according to the command of the ground forces, 1,400 killed, 9 guns and 6 tanks. When the bridgehead was already in our hands, the Russians made a hopeless attempt to cross the Neva in boats in order to launch a counterattack. What was not destroyed during the crossing was completed during the landing. You don’t know what to be more surprised at: the madness of those "Who gave the order for this hopeless operation, or the courage of the suicide bombers who carried it out. The dead Russians were mostly young guys aged 16-19 years, but we also had heavy losses."

In October 2004, I had the opportunity to work in the German city of Freiburg in the Wehrmacht archive, where, along with others, there were documents of the 1st Infantry Division with maps about the conduct of this operation. In them I found, in particular, confirmation of how our command tried to help the defenders of Piglet. The order for the 1st Infantry Division dated April 29, 1942 says this:

“All enemy attempts to cross the river were successfully repelled. Nine overcrowded boats (20 or more people in each - Yu.L.) were sunk.”
But it turned out that the battles were bloody for the Germans too. The report on losses during the operation to liquidate the Soviet bridgehead scrupulously confirms this: 81 soldiers were killed, 389 were wounded and 19 were missing. A total of 489 soldiers were out of action. According to German data, our losses totaled 1,400 people. 117 Soviet soldiers were captured, including four officers.

Thus ended the first six-month stage of the most bloody struggle of the defenders of the Nevsky bridgehead.

In the following months in the spring and summer of 1942, the section of the Nevsky Front, and with it the territory of the former Nevsky Patch, was successively occupied by units of the 12th Panzer and then the 28th Light Jaeger Divisions of the Wehrmacht. In the fall, they were replaced by the “Crimean” 170th Infantry Division.

“Only old commanders who knew the carnage of the First World War could remember seeing something like the Nevsky bridgehead. Only occasionally did a crushed tree stump stick out on the ground, plowed up by heavy artillery, rocket mortars and aerial bombs. Destroyed tanks stood near deep craters and trenches leading to "Russian trenches. The arms and legs of killed Russian soldiers stuck out from the walls of the trenches. Everything else was covered with earth after shell explosions. There were minefields all around." This description is given by H. Kardel in “History of the 170th Infantry Division” (Bad Nauheim, 1953)

Soviet soldiers, participants in the battles for the patch, give a similar assessment. In the memoirs of A. Sokolov from the collection “Nevsky Piglet” it is described this way after the bridgehead was recaptured in the fall of 1942: “A terrible picture opened before us. A piece of scorched earth, completely covered with fragments of exploding metal, was a labyrinth of trenches and trenches, in in which it was easy to get lost. On top of all the trenches, communication passages, dugouts, a great many “hedgehogs” lay in disarray - coils and slingshots of barbed wire. Many sections of the trenches and communication passages had not been used for a long time: they had crumbled from the explosions of mines and shells, and had become small ".

On September 9, 1942, an attempt was made by a rifle battalion to cross to the left bank of the Neva in the area of Moscow Dubrovka. However, it failed. On the night of September 25-26, the crossing of the Neva began in several places at once. The attempt to seize a small bridgehead near the village of Arbuzovo, near the place where the Nevsky Piglet had previously been, was successful. Thus began his second birth. During the night we managed to transfer the advanced groups of the 70th, 86th, 46th rifle divisions and the 11th separate rifle brigade. For some time, confusion arose on the left bank: German infantrymen were hiding in shell craters, almost next to the Soviet soldiers. For fear of hitting their own, neither side temporarily used artillery. Over the next day, the patch restored its previous boundaries.

On the night of October 6, by order of the Soviet command, the Nevsky bridgehead was temporarily abandoned. For two days none of our soldiers were on the other side. And an amazing thing: for two days, without reducing the density of fire, the Germans intensively hammered the “division’s abscess,” as they called the patch, with shells and mines, never daring to attack it. The command of the German 170th Infantry Division did not detect the reoccupation of the patch by a combined company of volunteers from the 70th Infantry Division on the night of October 8th. On October 11, units of the 46th Infantry Division relieved this company, and remained on the bridgehead until its end in February 1943. During this time they repelled up to 300 enemy attacks.

On January 12, 1943, Operation Iskra began, which ended on January 18 with the long-awaited breakthrough of the blockade of Leningrad. However, the offensive from the Nevsky bridgehead was again unsuccessful. Units of the 46th Infantry Division were able to advance only 600 meters. Bearing in mind the previous heavy battles, the German command concentrated two regiments of the 170th Infantry Division on this section of the front, exposing the Maryino region. It was there that the first successful breakthrough of the 136th Infantry Division was made.

So Piglet fulfilled his important role in breaking the blockade, attracting significant forces of German troops and forcing them to make a mistake in choosing the direction of the main attack of the Soviet troops.

On February 17, 1943, the Germans, under threat of encirclement, abandoned their positions in front of the Nevsky Piglet. Having completed its task, the Nevsky bridgehead ceased to exist, which in total lasted about 400 days of the siege of Leningrad.

Since 1975, our reference and military historical literature has established the figure of 200,000 Soviet soldiers who died on the Nevsky Patch. The figure was clearly custom-made, from the Pravda newspaper for the next anniversary of the Victory. Apparently, someone wanted to show in this way the advantage of our grief over the German one.

Unfortunately, it will probably never be possible to accurately determine the number of deaths. But it is necessary to realistically assess the situation, separating losses in the battles for capturing the bridgehead and on Piglet itself.

The largest losses were suffered by our troops on the right bank of the Neva at crossing points and when crossing the river. All the forces of the attacking side were concentrated here. At this moment, the soldier was not yet ready for battle and remained completely defenseless, unable to hide from enemy artillery fire. Namely, it was from him that the greatest damage was caused.

By the end of September 1941, the Germans brought the 20th artillery and instrumental reconnaissance division of the 20th motorized division to the Neva, which calculated data on all crossing areas of the Soviet troops with an accuracy of one meter. After which three artillery groups were created: “north”, “center” and “south”, located on the Neva Front from Shlisselburg to Otradny. Large-caliber artillery, including specially delivered French 150-mm howitzers and 210-mm mortars, were hidden on the Kelkolov Heights. From the Sinyavino area, fire support was provided by guns of the 227th Infantry Division.

Enemy aircraft from the German 1st Air Fleet caused large losses among our troops, since the Soviet side, especially in the initial period, did not have sufficient air defense systems.

Estimatedly, one can still focus on the figure of 50,000 Soviet soldiers who died on the Nevsky bridgehead itself, taking into account that there were not only periods of the highest intensity of fighting, but also separate pauses when the sniper war was mainly waged. We should not forget that for six months: from the end of April to mid-September 1942, the territory of the patch was in the hands of the Germans. It must also be remembered that due to its tiny size (about two kilometers along the front and up to 800 meters in depth) there was practically no possibility of placing it there large quantity troops.

However, even this number, reduced by four times in comparison with the officially recognized data, makes us think about the greatness of the self-sacrifice of people who went to certain death. Until now, search teams have found hundreds of remains of the dead lying there in several rows.

All the tanks at the Museum-Diorama “Breaking the Siege of Leningrad” are real, raised from the Neva (with the exception of the T34-85 near the road on a pedestal), cleaned of silt, they reached the museum under their own power. Only genuine photographs and modern photographs of actual war equipment are shown here.

Tomorrow, Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit the Nevsky Piglet near the village of Nevskaya Dubrovka in the Leningrad Region and lay flowers at the Rubezhny Stone monument. Here in 1941, his father, Vladimir Spiridonovich Putin, fought and was wounded.

In the history of the defense of Leningrad there is an episode that for a long time remained little known. This is the defense of the Nevsky Piglet. The bridgehead, tiny by military standards, is so abundantly watered with the blood of soldiers and commanders of the Red Army, so stuffed with iron that to this day little grows there. And this is not surprising: almost all the time thousands of shells and bombs rained down on its defenders.

On January 12, 1943, the last offensive began from the Nevsky Piglet with the goal of breaking the blockade of Leningrad. And although all the attacks of the Soviet troops from this bridgehead did not lead to success, they played their role. “From there, Soviet troops repeatedly tried to launch an attack on Moscow State University and Sinyavino to meet the troops striking from the east, and thereby break the blockade of the city,” she told a MIR 24 correspondent. Researcher at the Museum-Reserve “Breaking the Siege of Leningrad” Svetlana Ivanova. – These attempts failed. But the Nevsky patch attracted significant enemy forces, ensuring a successful breakthrough in other sectors of the front.”

“Maybe they won’t kill everyone”

The Nevsky Piglet owes its appearance to the first attempt to break the blockade undertaken by Soviet troops at the end of September 1941. The situation of the besieged city was desperate. To change it, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command on September 12 appointed Marshal Georgy Zhukov as commander of the Leningrad Front. Six days later, he gave the order to cross the Neva and strike in the direction of the city of Mga, where the defenders of Leningrad and “ Mainland“We were separated by only 12-13 kilometers.

The 115th Infantry Division and the 4th Marine Brigade were given only two days to prepare for the offensive. The haste was justified: the Germans had not yet managed to gain a foothold on the newly occupied lines, and the Soviet troops had a chance to knock them out of there. The very first day of the offensive gave us hope that this would be the case. On the night of September 20, Soviet troops in silence, without any artillery preparation, crossed the Neva opposite the village of Nevskaya Dubrovka, in a place where the river is quite narrow, and managed to knock out German troops with a surprise attack. A bridgehead emerged measuring two kilometers wide and one and a half kilometers deep. It was called the “Nevsky Piglet”.

In the memoirs of many military leaders of that time, one can find the following explanation for this name: they say, on large-scale headquarters maps this bridgehead fit under a five-kopeck coin. But most likely, this is a literary exaggeration: small areas of fierce defense in the Red Army were called “piglets” both before and after that. The very word “piglet” has long meant small piece land - “the size of a nickel.”

The German defense turned out to be stronger than the Soviet headquarters believed. It was not possible to develop the offensive launched on September 20. Moreover, by counterattacking, the Germans forced our troops to retreat, and the size of the Nevsky patch was reduced: two kilometers along the front and no more than 800 meters in depth. So everything froze: the German troops did not have enough strength to throw the enemy into the Neva, and ours did not have enough strength to accumulate forces and attack.

Exactly a month later, on October 20, the second offensive began with the goal of breaking the blockade of Leningrad - and again the Nevsky Patch was assigned the role of the main bridgehead. But even here, success was not achieved: over the past days, the Germans managed to strengthen their defenses. Now the patch was surrounded by rows of barbed wire, minefields and big amount artillery, which shot not only every meter of Soviet positions, but also all eight crossings organized across the Neva opposite the bridgehead.

This is how General Semyon Borshchev recalled this in his memoirs “From the Neva to the Elbe”: “Food was delivered to the “patch” from the right bank in thermoses, while many service platoon soldiers and petty officers died. It also happened that they came to us wounded, with thermoses shot through. Often people in the “patch” were left without food for days. And it happened that a fighter had just received the long-awaited blockade ration in his bowler and barely had time to bring the spoon to his mouth before the enemy opened fire. And now the pot is lying to the side - its owner no longer needs it... Following the order of the army commander, we transported 18 camp kitchens to the “patch”. Within two days they were all destroyed by enemy shells and mines. Service platoon soldiers crossed to the left bank and back many times a day under heavy fire. Perhaps, not everyone will be killed and not all thermoses will be punctured by shrapnel... And it’s strange, over the years I am more and more amazed at how it was possible to deliver ammunition, food, newspapers, letters to the Nevsky Piglet and find time to read the newspaper ourselves, write a response to news from home. No one was surprised at this then. And on the Nevsky Patch, the most scorched of all the small coastal bridgeheads of the last war, everyday life took shape.”

According to modern researchers and employees of the “Breakthrough the Siege of Leningrad” museum-reserve, it happened that people even fell in love there!

"Driven Hunt"

After waiting a week, the Soviet command concentrated its forces and managed to transport even heavy KV tanks to the Nevsky Patch. A new offensive began, but it also ended in failure. Nevertheless, the Headquarters demanded a breakthrough. The attacks on the Nevsky patch continued until December 27, but they failed to expand it, much less break through the defenses of the German troops.

After this, there was a calm on the patch. It was even possible to evacuate tanks that needed to be restored from there across the ice. A significant part of the troops were also pulled away from the patch. The next offensive began near Volkhov, and all the most combat-ready units were gathered there. Very quickly, German intelligence found out that only one 330th regiment, which was also badly battered in battle, was left to defend the Nevsky Patch. The German command began preparing an operation to destroy the bridgehead. The operation was called “Drueckjagd” (“Driven Hunt”). Having created a five-fold superiority in strength, German troops went on the offensive on April 24, 1942.

The success of the offensive was determined not only by the difference in the number of troops, but also by the fact that the ice drift that began on the Neva made it almost impossible to transfer reserves to the defenders of the Nevsky patch. And only a few managed to cross the ice drift back. In total, only 123 soldiers reached the right bank. Among them was the three-time wounded chief of staff of the 330th regiment, Alexander Sokolov, who swam across the icy river. He was a master of sports in swimming and champion of the Volga Military District. (By the way, it was he who, in the spring of 1990, showed the search engines where the last command post regiment, thanks to which the remains of its defenders were found).

By April 29, 1942, the bridgehead as such ceased to exist, although some of its defenders continued to resist for several more days. Even the enemies appreciated this desperate but courageous resistance. The fate of the commander of the 330th regiment, Major Sergei Blokhin, is surprising. On April 29, 1942, seriously wounded in the neck and both legs, he was shell-shocked. For four days he lay on the battlefield. In an unconscious state, he was captured and sent to a camp in Gatchina. Perhaps as a sign of respect for his courage, he was not “disused.” After eight days in the camp, Russian prisoners of war doctors amputated both of his legs. A month later, Blokhin ended up in Lithuania, then Poland, East Prussia. On January 22, 1945, liberation came. Until March 1945, Blokhin was in the hospital and at the same time undergoing a SMERSH inspection. Then he spent five months in rear hospitals. Later he lived in Leningrad until the end of the 1970s.

Breaking the blockade

Headquarters did not give up hope of breaking through the ring of the blockade of Leningrad in the Nevsky Patch area, and were preparing for a new offensive. It began on September 9, and all available forces in this sector of the front were involved in the attacks, including even cadets of the naval school. This is how one of the cadets, Ivan Shirokogorov, recalled this offensive: “On September 7, 1942, our cadet company was alerted. They were sent first to Melnichny Ruchey, and from there to Nevskaya Dubrovka. On September 9, at the 8th crossing, we began to cross the Neva, to recapture that very Neva patch that is now so famous. The Nevsky patch was not occupied at that time. Of the 180 cadets, only 70 returned. The rest were killed or wounded, but most died. The next time we crossed on September 25th and occupied this patch. We, the cadets, did everything together with the troops. Then came the command “Return the cadets to school.” Only 11 of us returned."

The second attempt to recapture the patch was made on September 26. It turned out to be more successful: Soviet troops managed to gain a foothold on the Nevsky patch, but only on it, since ours were knocked out from the other captured bridgeheads. The defense held out until October 5, after which an order was received to leave the patch. And here’s what’s surprising: for some reason the German troops did not occupy the vacated bridgehead! On the night of October 8-9, a combined company of 114 volunteers under the command of Captain Nikolai Britikov crossed over to it.

When the Germans came to their senses and began to attack, it was this company that managed to repel all the attacks, for which all its soldiers and commanders were awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Battle (18 people) and the Red Star (30 people), as well as medals “For Courage” (the remaining 66 Human).

After this, Soviet troops no longer retreated from the Nevsky Piglet, although in November 1942 they almost lost it under the pressure of German troops. The situation was saved by artillery, which by that time had learned to place “screens of fire” in the path of enemy troops. And two months later the famous Operation Iskra began, which ended with the breaking of the siege of Leningrad. At this moment, Nevsky Piglet played to the end the very role that fell to him from the very first days. He pinned down large German forces, paralyzing their actions in other areas. As a result, the launched offensive of the Soviet troops ended in success.

Why were such sacrifices necessary?

In the post-Soviet period, the history of the defense of the Nevsky patch was overgrown with a catastrophic amount of rumors, speculation and “research”, main goal whose desire was to prove that it was a senseless meat grinder, that all the strategic and tactical decisions of the Soviet command led only to unjustified casualties. The number of alleged victims has also increased by an order of magnitude. The most reliable result appears to be the result of the investigation conducted by the commission of retired Colonel General Grigory Krivosheev: about 50 thousand dead. But you can find other numbers. According to General Mikhail Dukhanov, at least 100 thousand people died on the patch, according to the calculations of researcher Grigory Shigin - 64-68 thousand. The data “walking” on the Internet about two hundred and even three hundred thousand dead is not confirmed by any documents.

The assumptions that all operations related to the Nevsky Piglet were unjustified either tactically or strategically also appear unfounded. The Germans themselves called the Nevsky patch a “hornet’s nest.” Because he attracted considerable enemy forces to himself, easing the position of the defenders of Leningrad in other areas.

There are also statements that all Soviet losses were useless, since the Germans themselves had no point in winning back this “piece of land.” It is not clear why, then, elite German units attacked the exhausted Soviet soldiers - like the paratroopers from the 7th “Cretan” air brigade, who said that it was better to jump to Crete three times than to fight once on the Nevsky patch...

Here's what he told a MIR 24 correspondent about it senior researcher at the museum-reserve “Breaking the Siege of Leningrad” Oleg Sukhodymtsev: “With their active actions, the Leningraders forced the German command to transfer the most combat-ready, elite units of the Wehrmacht to the Nevsky Front: the 7th Airborne and 1st Infantry Divisions, intended for the Tikhvin-Volkhov direction. Thus, our troops on the Neva contributed to the defeat of the German formations that were trying to completely blockade Leningrad.”

Later, during Operation Iskra, “...with their active actions, the defenders of this bridgehead pulled back part of the enemy forces from the main direction of attack and took up to 70% of the artillery and mortar fire,” says the scientist. – Thus, they ensured the success of the attack group of the Leningrad Front advancing to the north. On January 18, it united with the troops of the Volkhov Front. The blockade of Leningrad has been broken!”

Today, the Nevsky Patch has become a huge memorial, reminiscent of the colossal sacrifices that paid for the victory in the Great Patriotic War. Search operations are still underway on the former bridgehead, and search engines are still raising the remains of Soviet soldiers from under the ground, thickly mixed with rusty iron. If the statement is true that the war is not over until its last soldier is buried, then on the Nevsky Piglet fighting won't end for a very long time. However, like information war, implicated in the memory of heroes.

Relevance of the topic: Many people in Russia and abroad know the battles of Soviet troops with the Nazi invaders on the Volga, Dnieper, Vistula, Oder, but few know about the long and bloody epic on the Neva, which unfolded on the bridgehead called “Nevsky Piglet” in 1941-1943 . Meanwhile, this is one of the most heroic and tragic pages of Russian military history.

The theme of the heroic struggle of the Soviet people against the Nazi occupiers and the defense of Leningrad in our days is especially relevant. Our young generation must know all the details of that horror, remember and keep in their hearts the memory of those who will never return, who laid down their lives on the altar of victory in the war against fascism.

The fast-paced 21st century dictates its own laws, and people sometimes forget about those moral values that throughout Russian history have helped our people survive and win in difficult times. It is impossible not to admit the fact that patriotism as such is fading away with each new generation. But it is so necessary for a resurgent Russia...

Goals and objectives of the study: Study available materials about the feat of the defenders of the Nevsky Piglet and its significance during the siege of Leningrad.

To achieve this goal, it was necessary to solve the following tasks:

1. Study the material of the tragic events on the Nevsky Piglet

2. Study the assessment German command of the significance of the “Nevsky Piglet”

3. Consider the significance of the “Nevsky Piglet” in breaking the blockade

The work consists of three parts: introduction, main part, conclusion. The main part contains nine chapters – The heroism of Soviet soldiers - The German command's assessment of the significance of the Nevsky Piglet - Continuous battles on the Nevsky Piglet - - The death of the Nevsky Piglet in the spring of 1942 - Revival of the Nevsky Piglet in the fall of 1942 - Echoes of the battles on the Nevsky Piglet - The merit of "piglet" in breaking the blockade . The conclusion contains conclusions.

Introduction

« The land of fearlessness - Nevsky patch!

The bravest of the brave died here.

Descendant! Know the price of your freedom

And learn courage from the brave!”

Mikhail Dudin, 1941

In the book 100 great mysteries of Russian history, in the article “Requiem for the 2nd Shock”, data on those killed on the “Nevsky Piglet” are given; they are shocking. It’s scary to even imagine all this: “There are 200 thousand people on the Nevsky Piglet - 17 people per meter!”

The siege of Leningrad lasted about 900 days - from September 8, 1941 to January 27, 1944. 107 thousand air bombs were dropped on the city, about 150 thousand shells were fired, and, according to various sources, from 400 thousand to 1 million people died. Only 3% of them died from bombing and shelling, the remaining 97% died from hunger.

Wikipedia characterizes the “Nevsky Piglet” as “a bridgehead on the left bank of the Neva River, which was held by Soviet troops during the Great Patriotic War. Located between the city of Kirovsk and the village of Pavlovo. Before the war, the village of Arbuzovo was located on this territory." (Fig. 1)

Theoretically, this is a very correct and logical description, but in order to understand the entire feat of the defenders of the “Nevsky Piglet”, you need to at least approximately imagine what this place looked like during the Great Patriotic War.

Imagine a rectangle of land 2 km long and 800 meters wide. Soviet troops held this small patch for about 400 days. From all sides except the Neva there were Germans who constantly attacked the bridgehead. The average life expectancy of a soldier there was about 52 hours. In just 3 years, about 250 thousand people died on the patch.

In September 1941, the German Army Group North, under the command of Field Marshal Leeb, cut off Leningrad from the rest of the country. Only Ladoga remained - the only waterway from the city to the mainland and back. It was decided to break the encirclement ring and release the city on the Neva in the narrowest area - the Shlisselburg-Sinyavinsky ledge, where the Nazis drove a ten-kilometer-wide wedge between the troops of two fronts - Leningrad and Volkhov.

On the night of September 19-20, our troops, under heavy enemy fire, crossed a 600-meter water barrier and captured a narrow strip of land along the left bank of the river near Moskovskaya Dubrovka.

They failed to advance further. Thus, clinging to a steep and steep bank more than 20 m high, the Red Navy and Red Army men, suffering heavy losses, held a tiny bridgehead, aptly called the “Nevsky Piglet.”

In the spring of 1942, the trenches and dugouts were filled with water, and the combat positions on both sides fell into complete disrepair. At the end of April 1942, the Germans took advantage of the ice drift, which disrupted the connection of the defenders of the Nevsky Piglet with the mainland, and delivered a decisive blow. On the morning of April 27, the remnants of the bridgehead defenders were surrounded, the entire coastal part of the Neva was already in the hands of the Germans.

In the fall of 1942, the military council of the Leningrad Front decided to recapture the bridgehead on the Neva.

The echoes of these battles are still heard. When you arrive at the Nevsky Piglet, the first thing that catches your eye is the absence of wild trees on the territory of the bridgehead. As they say, they do not grow there due to the high iron content in the soil.

“Piglet” fulfilled its important role in breaking the blockade, attracting significant forces of German troops and forcing them to make a mistake in choosing the direction of the main attack of the Soviet troops.

Formation of "Nevsky Piglet"

Imagine a rectangle of land 2 km long and 800 meters wide. For comparison, 800 meters is the length of Zvenigorodskaya Street in the center of St. Petersburg, and 2 kilometers is the length of Nevsky Prospekt from the Admiralty to the street. Rubinstein. Now imagine that on one side (which is 2 km) of this piece of land there is the Neva, on the opposite side and along the edges there is a forest. So, Soviet troops held this small patch for about 400 days. From all sides except the Neva there were Germans who constantly attacked the bridgehead. Average duration The soldier's life was there for about 52 hours. In just 3 years, about 250 thousand people died on the patch.

In September 1941, the German Army Group North, under the command of Field Marshal Leeb, cut off Leningrad from the rest of the country. Only Ladoga remained - the only waterway from the city to the mainland and back. A 900-day hunger blockade of a metropolis of three million, unprecedented in its cruelty in the history of mankind, began...

It was decided to break the encirclement ring and release the city on the Neva in the narrowest area - the Shlisselburg-Sinyavinsky ledge, where the Nazis drove a ten-kilometer-wide wedge between the troops of two fronts - Leningrad and Volkhov. The Germans called this protrusion “flashenhals” - “bottle neck”. Taking advantage of favorable terrain conditions for defense, the enemy quickly erected three powerful defensive lines.

On the night of September 19-20, a battalion of the 4th separate marine brigade, a regiment of the 115th rifle division and a regiment of the 1st NKVD rifle division from the Nevskaya Dubrovka area on the right bank of the Neva crossed a 600-meter water barrier under heavy enemy fire and captured along the left bank of the river near Moskovskaya Dubrovka there is a narrow strip of land. They failed to advance further. (Fig. 2)
The heroism of Soviet soldiers

Thus, clinging to a steep and steep bank more than 20 m high, the Red Navy and Red Army men, suffering heavy losses, held a tiny bridgehead, aptly called the “Nevsky Piglet.” Exhaustive fighting began. They were fought day and night with unprecedented bitterness and tenacity. The Nazis threw more and more units into the attack. More than once it came to hand-to-hand combat. The Germans literally plowed up the “patch” with shells and bombs, on which there was not a tree or bush left. A terrible picture of devastation and death reigned here.

We felt an extreme lack of powerful means of suppressing the enemy; we lacked artillery, tanks, and aviation. But every night human reinforcements were regularly sent to the bridgehead to make up for the damage. The wounded were not transported to the right bank; they bled to death in agony. And in general, none of those who arrived at the “patch” returned back. (Fig. 6) However, the half-starved, physically weakened, wounded defenders of the bridgehead fought to the end with the fury of the doomed, they fought to the death. However, they had no other choice...

In order to somehow survive, Soviet soldiers dug into the ground like moles, built underground communication passages, dismantling all the wooden houses and outbuildings of the village of Moskovskaya Dubrovka for this purpose. (Fig. 5) However, even after this, few managed to stay in alive for more than three days.

Back in the fall of 1941, tall beautiful pines grew here, along the shore stood the houses of the Moskovskaya Dubrovka village, but after several months of brutal, bloody battles, the picturesque corner was turned into a lunar landscape. There were no houses or trees left, even the fertile layer of earth was destroyed by shells and bombs, there were half-filled trenches everywhere. (Fig. 3) About five hundred remaining soldiers of the 330th regiment, under the leadership of regiment commander Blokhin, successfully repulsed German attacks. But on April 27, ice drift began, and the defenders of the bridgehead found themselves cut off from their rear. (Fig. 4) German soldiers, taking advantage of this, attacked our positions. Soon the Germans broke through to the Neva in many places, and the bridgehead was cut by the enemy into separate pockets of resistance.

The German command's assessment of the significance of the Nevsky Piglet

Apparently, at the level of the Wehrmacht high command, this tiny piece of land, conquered with such difficulty and with such losses by our troops, was a thorn, quite painful, but not fatal?

But does this mean that the German command underestimated the danger of Soviet troops expanding the bridgehead on the left bank of the Neva?

The answer to this question was recently found in the German book “Diary notes and assessments of the situation during two world wars” by Field Marshal Ritter von Leeb (Stuttgart, 1976). In it, the commander of Army Group North pays attention to this section of the front thirty-three times, which indicates his serious concern about the situation in this area. In the form of excerpts and with commentary, excerpts from these recordings are placed in chronological order in the appendix to this article.

The histories of the German divisions that blocked the bridgehead from September 1941 to February 1943 also cover this issue quite fully. Unfortunately, they have become available only in recent years, and have not yet been fully studied.

The Wehrmacht High Command undoubtedly had a great desire to cross the Neva. This, in particular, is evidenced by the following entry from the “War Diary” of F. Halder on October 5, 1941: “Only insignificant Finnish forces are operating on the Karelian Front, which, however, will be able to launch an offensive if we cross the Neva.” The Germans abandoned further attempts to cross the Neva, making sure that they would receive a worthy rebuff, since Soviet troops were gradually being pulled up to the right bank of the river. In addition, by that time Hitler had already decided on the fate of Leningrad, deciding to starve it out of the blockade ring, and began to transfer strike forces to Moscow.

Continuous battles on the Nevsky Piglet

On the night of September 12, 1941, five reconnaissance officers of the 115th Rifle Division crossed the Neva by boat, collected data on the movement of enemy vehicles and military equipment in the area of the 8th State District Power Plant and returned to the right bank without losses.

Perhaps this is what helped the paratroopers of Captain Vasily Dubik from the 115th Rifle Division successfully cross the Neva on the dark, rainy night of September 19-20. Silently landing on the left bank near Moskovskaya Dubrovka, they rushed into the first trench. Taken by surprise, German soldiers from the 20th Motorized Division were unable to offer serious resistance at first. Expanding the bridgehead, the paratroopers made their way to the Leningrad-Shlisselburg highway and started a battle on the outskirts of Arbuzov. For two days they fought desperate battles with the enemy, hoping for the promised help. Almost everyone led by Dubik died. It is unknown today where the first hero of the patch is buried, although eyewitnesses claim that he was moved to the right bank and interred with military honors. On the same day, to the north, in the Maryino area, the rifle battalion of the 1st NKVD division tried to land, but failed. However, over the next few days, two battalions and a reconnaissance company of the 115th Infantry Division, an NKVD battalion (a total of 1,166 people) and three battalions of 1st Marine Brigade. By the end of September, losses in the infantry amounted to 865 people, among the sailors - up to 80 percent, and the size of the bridgehead was reduced to two kilometers along the front and about 500 meters in depth.

But the German 20th Motorized Division, with the 424th Regiment of the 126th Infantry Division and the 287th Regiment of the 96th Infantry Division attached to it, suddenly found itself in a difficult situation. The units stretched along the front from Shlisselburg to Otradny (up to 10 km per battalion) were not able to prevent our soldiers from consolidating on the left bank. Within a few days, the division lost 530 people killed and wounded. The battalion of the 8th Tank Division, which was attached for this purpose, did not help it, losing four tanks. The German command began to realize the seriousness of this section of the front and the danger of the situation. The chronicle of the 20th Motorized Division records: “The enemy’s intention, due to intensified attempts to cross the Neva, to break the blockade of Leningrad in close cooperation with the forces attacking from the east,” is becoming clear.”

General Paulus, a representative of the Wehrmacht High Command headquarters who arrived in Shlisselburg on September 24, was told that the troops were exhausted by continuous fierce battles, and the 20th Motorized Division was no longer capable of offensive actions. Leaving the Nevsky sector of the front in early October, the division had 2,411 soldiers killed and wounded out of 7,000 combat personnel.

The situation did not improve much when two regiments of the 7th Cretan Airborne Division were urgently airlifted at the end of September. “It is better to parachute three times to the island of Crete than to fight one battle on the ground in Russia,” said the German paratroopers, who did not expect such fierce resistance. When they took up positions at Moskovskaya Dubrovka, they discovered that the trenches were filled with the bodies of those killed in previous battles. The Russians lay next to the corpses of German soldiers. As a result of stubborn fighting, the two front lines became so close that in moments of calm one could hear a conversation, and even the coughing of enemy soldiers with a cold. This is how it is described in the book of the German historian G. Wodage “Past Hell” (Oldenburg, 1994): “Machine guns, rifles, hand grenades, rifle butts, sapper blades and bayonets were the weapons with which soldiers from both sides threw themselves at each other "The terrible outcome of these battles remains in the memory of former German paratroopers decades later."

Sinyavinskaya operation. Attempt to break the blockade

These battles required almost superhuman effort on both sides. Due to the lack of warm dugouts, equipped trenches, and strong, cold winds, both Soviet and German soldiers were forced to endure unimaginably harsh tests. Frosts reached minus 25 degrees. What was built during the night was mostly destroyed by artillery during the day. Due to the lack of personnel, the opponents were constantly either in battle or on duty. They could sleep no more than four hours. To characterize those battles, it is noteworthy that the average daily consumption of hand grenades on the German side was 8,000 pieces. German military historians pedantically calculated that the Russians from 11/15 to 12/27/41. attacked by small combat reconnaissance groups 79 times, consisting of up to two companies - 66 times, consisting of a battalion and above 50 times. That is, on average, about 15 times during the day. When repelling sixteen tank attacks, 51 tanks were destroyed, mainly of the KV and T-34 types.

It was in those days that a saying was born among the defenders of the bridgehead: “Whoever has not been to the Nevsky Patch has never seen grief.” The following phrase also became popular: “Whoever passed death at Dubrovka is born a second time.” By the way, Vladimir Putin’s father fought on the Nevsky Piglet, and in the fall of 1941 he was seriously wounded here.

The death of the Nevsky Piglet in the spring of 1942.

By the spring of 1942, regular landings were deployed to the bridgehead less and less often. “Piglet” melted literally before our eyes. In April, only the 330th regiment of the 86th Infantry Division was left on the Nevsky Piglet. There were fewer and fewer warriors left who could hold weapons. And when the bridgehead was cut off from the right bank of the Neva by an ice drift, the Nazis took complete possession of it. On April 29 at 21.00 the last connection with the “patch” was interrupted. The distance between the enemy lines there was very small, only a few tens of meters, and when there were brief moments of calm, the talking and coughing of cold opponents could be heard from the enemy trenches.

The last line of defense was the command post of the 330th Infantry Regiment, the famous “Shchurovsky” dugout: the last defenders of the bridgehead gathered here. They were led by the head of the regiment department of the 86th Infantry Division, battalion commissar A.V. Shchurov. Communication with the Nevsky Piglet was interrupted, and in order to inform the right bank about the difficult situation of the bridgehead, he ordered the wounded Major Sokolov to cross to the other bank with a report and documents. At night, Sokolov, being under enemy machine-gun fire in icy water, was able to swim to the other side of the Neva, making his way between the ice floes floating along the river.

But the position of the surviving defenders of the bridgehead had already become hopeless. Attempts to break through to the Neva were unsuccessful. Separate groups of fighters put up fierce resistance as early as April 28. Then everything calmed down: “Nevsky Piglet” died, but did not surrender to the enemy.

On April 29, German soldiers threw grenades at the last center of defense - the Shchurov dugout. "Nevsky Piglet" was completely captured by the enemy.

Non-commissioned officer Wolfgang Buff, who was adjusting the fire on the Neva Piglet in those days, wrote in his diary: “When the bridgehead was already in our hands, the Russians made a hopeless attempt to cross the Neva in boats in order to launch a counterattack. What was not destroyed during the crossing, it was completed during the landing. You don’t know what to be more surprised at: the madness of those who gave the order for this hopeless operation, or the courage of the suicide bombers who carried it out."

The spectacle of a captured bridgehead horrified even experienced German front-line soldiers. The ground was literally plowed, and only occasionally did a crushed tree stump stick out on the ground. The arms and legs of dead soldiers stuck out from the walls of former Russian trenches. Everything else was covered with earth after the explosions...

Revival of the Nevsky Piglet in the fall of 1942

In the fall of 1942, the military council of the Leningrad Front decided to recapture the bridgehead on the Neva. At the end of September, units of the 70th and 86th rifle divisions and the 11th separate rifle brigade arrived at Nevskaya Dubrovka. On September 9, 1942, an attempt was made by a rifle battalion to cross to the left bank of the Neva in the area of Moscow Dubrovka. After powerful artillery and air preparation, they crossed the river with huge losses. "Nevsky Piglet" has been revived. On the night of September 25-26, the crossing of the Neva began in several places at once. The attempt to seize a small bridgehead near the village of Arbuzovo, near the place where the Nevsky Piglet had previously been, was successful. Thus began his second birth. During the night it was possible to transfer the forward groups of the 70th, 86th, 46th rifle divisions and the 11th separate rifle brigade. For some time, confusion arose on the left bank: German infantrymen were hiding in shell craters, almost next to the Soviet soldiers. For fear of hitting their own, neither side temporarily used artillery. Over the next day, the patch restored its former borders, and fierce fighting broke out again.

This is how H. Kardel (German, lieutenant colonel of the German army) recalled the capture of the patch in “The History of the 170th Infantry Division” (Bad Nauheim, 1953): “Only old commanders who knew the carnage of the First World War could remember what they saw something like the Neva bridgehead. Only occasionally did a crushed tree stump stick out on the ground, plowed up by heavy artillery, rocket mortars and aerial bombs. Destroyed tanks stood near deep craters and trenches leading to Russian trenches. The arms and legs of dead Russian soldiers stuck out from the walls of the trenches. Everything else "It was covered with earth after shell explosions. There were minefields all around."

If we walk along the path past the tank deep into the bridgehead, we will come straight to the mass graves. I don’t know when they began to be created, but their number is growing every year. In fact, the entire “Nevsky Piglet” is one big mass grave and digging there seems to be unethical, but people are driven by the desire to identify the dead, inform relatives about the place of death of their ancestors and give them the opportunity to say goodbye to each other. Therefore, you have to choose, either leave everything as it is, fence it off and mark it as a mass grave, or continue digging for noble purposes.

On May 8, 1999, a small chapel of St. George the Victorious was erected next to the graves. It was built in just 11 days. Many may doubt the advisability of placing religious symbols here, because Soviet Union denied belief in God. But many of the soldiers who died there were born and raised before the era of total atheism.

Every year search groups work here, and the work does not decrease. The remains of soldiers, shells, and everyday details are found.

It is very rare for anyone to be identified. Mortal Tokens are found in 1 in 30 fighters at best. The inscription on the slab reads “456 soldiers and commanders were buried. It was possible to identify:” and a list of 10 names.

If you get off the road and go for a walk on the grass, you can discover a lot of interesting things. What is considered an exhibit in many museums lies simply underfoot here. Of course, this is primarily the merit of black archaeologists, but it creates an amazing atmosphere.

The merit of "Nevsky Piglet" in breaking the blockade

On January 12, 1943, Operation Iskra began, which ended on January 18 with the long-awaited breakthrough of the blockade of Leningrad. However, the offensive from the Nevsky bridgehead was again unsuccessful. Units of the 46th Infantry Division were able to advance only 600 meters. Bearing in mind the previous heavy battles, the German command concentrated two regiments of the 170th Infantry Division on this section of the front, leaving the Maryino area exposed. It was there that the first successful breakthrough of the 136th Infantry Division was made.

Today, German sources that were previously inaccessible to domestic historians help answer the question of whether our enormous sacrifices on the Nevsky Patch were justified. As Yuri Lebedev notes, apparently, this tiny piece of land for the Germans was a thorn, although not fatal, but very painful. According to the German military historian Hartwig Pohlmann, the fighting on the bridgehead required superhuman efforts from the Wehrmacht soldiers. “The position consisted of narrow trenches for 3-4 people, with fox holes,” he writes. “What was built during the day was mostly destroyed during the day by Russian artillery and mortar fire. Due to the lack of personnel, the soldiers were constantly either in battle, or were on duty... The combat effectiveness of the units opposing the bridgehead, despite the delivery of recovered soldiers to the companies, was constantly declining due to losses, illnesses, frostbite, as well as a decline in spiritual and physical strength."

Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov said: “Without the Nevsky Piglet the Road of Life will not last, and without it Leningrad will not last. The fate of Leningrad is being decided here.” The Battle of Leningrad and the defense of the legendary “Nevsky Piglet” have no analogues in world history.

Conclusion

Many people in Russia and abroad know the battles of Soviet troops with the Nazi invaders on the Volga, Dnieper, Vistula, Oder, but few know about the long and bloody epic on the Neva, which unfolded on the bridgehead called “Nevsky Piglet” in 1941-1943 . Meanwhile, this is one of the most heroic and tragic pages of Russian military history.

On a tiny piece of land - 2.5 km along the front and 700 m in depth - from September 1941 to January 1943, grueling battles took place continuously. Every night, battalions of Soviet soldiers landed here, replenishing countless losses. A total of 200 thousand soldiers died here - the sons of almost all the peoples of the USSR, and for half of them the Neva became the grave.

The debate about whether it was needed or not continues to this day. They are conducted by historians, eyewitnesses of those events and representatives of the post-war generation, who debate its feasibility from the point of view of the price of human life. However, our current assessments do not fit the events of those years. The answer must be sought by assessing them through the eyes of people of that generation. Apparently, Vladimir Putin was right, who answered reporters this way: “I think that in war there are always many mistakes. But if you fight and think that everyone around you is making mistakes, you will never win. They then thought about victory. And for For us, residents of besieged Leningrad and today's St. Petersburg residents, the Nevsky bridgehead remains both a heroic and tragic memory of the 900 days of the siege." (Fig. 7)

No one will ever say for sure how many of our soldiers died on the Nevsky Piglet. According to various estimates, from 200 to 280 thousand soldiers. The bridgehead on the banks of the Neva is one of the bloodiest battlefields in the history of war. But to our shame, many fallen heroes who tried to save Leningrad at the cost of their lives remained unburied. (Fig. 8)

List of used literature:

1. "In the first person. Conversations with Vladimir Putin", Moscow, Vagrius, 2000.

2. Nevsky patch. Memoirs of participants in the battles near Nevskaya Dubrovka in 1941-1943, Lenizdat, 1977.

3. Unconquered Leningrad. A brief outline of the history of the city during the Great Patriotic War. Third ed., revised. and additional L., 1985.

4. O.A. Sukhodymtsev. Leningrad battles of 1941. Nevsky Piglet., monograph, 2001.

5. One hundred great mysteries of Russian history. Author-comp. N.N. Nepomnyashchiy. M., 2007.

6. en.wikipedia.org

7. Application :

To the heroes of Nevsky Piglet

We are under attack along the Neva, but the January ice is dangerous

The battalion slides down like a heavy human rockfall

“There, on the other side, we need to take a small town,

Gain a foothold and knock out the enemy!” - the battalion commander ordered us

Throws white powdery snow from steel clouds

The cold wind breaks bodies, pressing them to the ground

We haven’t felt our fingers under the tarpaulin of our boots for a long time,

But the political instructor already raised his award pistol

He will go ahead, not afraid of shells or bullets

Well, we will run in a tattered chain to the shouts of “Hurray!”

And from the fear of going into the wormwood the pulse will become frantic,

Forcing you to crawl along the glass of the icy carpet

Well, on the other side they will greet us with hurricane fire

Fighting friends will fall like balls into a pocket

After the battle, every third of us will fall asleep forever

To the great joy of the flocks of crows emanating from the hubbub

The hand indicated the breakthrough with an arrow in the map

He is a great strategist, only again hundreds of thousands of soldiers

They will give their lives for a tough and imperious order:

Take your cities inch by inch at any cost!

He is a hero-commander, and after the last war

His homeland will put up a bust of him on his native side

Well, those who died in the name of a high price,

They will forever lie under water on the muddy bottom

I survived, why - I don’t know now,

But I remember that hellish day in the smallest detail

And at night I wake up screaming in a cold sweat

From the fact that the whole body is covered in bandages rusty with blood

For many years I have been coming here at the end of January.

And I stand, remembering the soldiers who went under the ice

I perform a sacred rite by the glass river

Funeral prayer for those whose grave is water

About the Neva to attack us………

Kabalin Evgeniy

Fig.1 Location of Nevsky Piglet on the map

rice. 2 Autumn 1941 on the Nevsky Piglet

Fig.3

Spring 1942 on the Nevsky Piglet

How did the found VT-5 end up at the bottom of the Neva? The history of the attempt to break the siege of Leningrad

We suspect that after reading the report about the rise of the tank from the bottom of the Neva, many readers may have a logical question: “How did it end up there? It’s clear that he drowned, but where and why was he going?” That's very Short story events that took place during the siege of Leningrad, 30 km east of the city on a bridgehead, which, due to its small size, received the name Nevsky Piglet.

By August 1941, the motorized corps of Gepner's fourth tank group covered 750 km across the Baltic states and found themselves almost at the walls of Leningrad, anticipating its fairly quick capture. At that moment, the Germans could not even imagine that the battle for the city on the Neva would divert almost a fifth of the Wehrmacht’s forces, would last a year and a half, and would ultimately be lost.

Environment

The record pace of advance of the North armies compared to other German fascist attack groups also had a downside. The combat units were dangerously separated from the rear, and they needed a respite before delivering the final blow. Hitler's command understood perfectly well that it would not be possible to storm the huge city with the Red Army units retreating to it. Therefore, the main blow was delivered in a detour, between Lake Ilmen and Narva, with the expectation of connecting with Finnish army. In this case, the cessation of communication with the rest of the country made the capitulation of the city of 2.5 million inevitable. The date of the German offensive was postponed several times, but it was impossible to delay it any longer: the Soviet troops, having received a temporary respite, hastily fortified themselves at the Luga line.

The operation began on August 8. But at first, the German divisions advanced only 3-5 km, where they were stopped. Only after a day of battle did the 1st and 6th tank divisions break through into the depths of the defense in the direction of Krasnogvardeysk. And on August 10, the German infantry attacked Novgorod. The attack of the SS Polizei division on Luga was unsuccessful. Moreover, its commander, General Mühlferstedt, tried to inspire soldiers on the battlefield by personal example and was immediately killed. Being under constant pressure from the enemy, on August 22, Soviet units received an order to withdraw. The ring was finally closed on September 8, when the Germans captured Shlisselburg on the shores of Ladoga, two days ahead of the counterattack of the 54th Army.

The first attempt to break through the encirclement followed on the night of September 20. Units of the 115th Infantry Division and the 4th Marine Brigade crossed the Neva in the area of Moscow Dubrovka and captured a small bridgehead on the left bank (length - 4 km, depth - up to 800 m). At the same time, they cut the Leningrad-Shlisselburg highway. Ten days later, together with units of the 10th Infantry Brigade, six BT-7 tanks appeared on the bridgehead. By this time, under enemy attacks, the area had been reduced to two kilometers along the front, but was still held. And it was at this time that a piece of land appeared on the command’s working maps, later called the Nevsky Piglet.

On defense

The Soviet command decided to reinforce the rifle units that had occupied the bridgehead with military equipment. The tankers faced a completely non-trivial task. The Neva in this place had a width of about 400 m, and the German artillery, being on a higher bank, immediately opened fire with every attempt to establish a crossing... First of all, the Leningrad metro builders, together with engineering units, prepared the site; a pit was dug for the vehicles to approach the water covertly. The ferries were assembled from metal containers delivered from the Baltic Shipyard. The pontooners of the 42nd battalion secured the rope on the opposite bank, and the loading of the first tank, the 52-ton KEM, began. Its driver, Sergeant Vasily Chernov, volunteered to go on the first voyage... Against the background of the water surface, there was nothing to camouflage the tank with, and as soon as it entered the ferry, shells began to explode nearby. The damaged ferry began to settle on its side. To prevent it from capsizing, Chernov reversed and brought the tank back to shore through the shallow water. Until two o'clock in the morning, three vehicles were transported, but while loading the next one, a shell hit the “harbour” directly. I had to build a new one to the side. Thus, accumulating forces on the bridgehead, the command of the Nevsky Operational Group (NOG) hoped to strike a connection with the main forces of the Red Army, but each time the reserves literally burned up in flames.

The first breakthrough attempt in September was unsuccessful. The next one was undertaken only at the end of November. But due to the aggravated situation near Tikhvin, it was also terminated. All this time the Nazis did not give up trying to throw Piglet’s defenders into the river. On other days, the number of attacks on positions reached 12-16. The shells broke the ice countless times, people and cars went into the frozen Neva water. Even now, so many years after the war, magnetometers respond to continuous stripes of pieces of metal crossing the river bottom. Our artillery from across the river also responded to the German guns. By the way, the armored train “Stalinets-28” (built in Leningrad in the fall of 1941) also took part in this duel. He plied along the line laid to Nevskaya Dubrovka almost until spring next year, supporting the defenders of Piglet with fire from 100 mm naval guns.

STATISTICS

The bridgehead lasted 12 months with a short break. During this time, 9 rifle divisions and 4 separate brigades, as well as more than 140 other units, fought on it. The total losses of Soviet troops, according to official data, amounted to 200 thousand people (more than a quarter of them were irrecoverable). German losses in this area are estimated at 35-40 thousand soldiers and officers.

First winter of the blockade

In winter, the Soviet command repeatedly tried to expand the bridgehead. But on terrain devoid of any kind of cover, the tanks were quickly knocked out by the enemy. And in early December an incident occurred that was unique by any standards. A T-34 from the 107th Tank Regiment, being at the forefront of the attack, was blown up by a mine at the front line of the Germans. The tankers, who had come to their senses, saw nearby another pair of frozen T-34s (the third was on fire). There was no need to wait for help. The German infantry was driven off several times by machine gun fire. By nightfall the battle had died down and the crew was able to inspect the damage to the tank from the outside. Left-hand side It turned out to be severely damaged: the sloth was torn off, the drive wheel and one of the rollers were broken. On the right, the caterpillar simply tore apart. There was no contact with headquarters. The gunner, Loginov, suggested that his comrades stay in the tank and support their own with fire during a second attack. Gunner-radio operator Yudenko and wounded driver-mechanic Kotov agreed. At night there was shooting nearby, but no one approached the tank. As it turned out later, the regiment commander sent a group of three people to find out the fate of the crew, but they stumbled upon the Germans who came with the same goals. Since the tankers did not react in any way to the shooting, the scouts considered them dead, and the Germans mistook the soldiers for a departing crew and also lost interest in the damaged vehicle.

As a result, the completely frozen tank stood in front of the enemy defense line for 77 hours! The three tankers had neither food nor water. On the third night, the crew managed to finish repairing one track, and the next morning they attempted to return to their own. At dawn the diesel engine was warmed up with torches. When it started up, Loginov opened fire point-blank at the dugouts and gun positions (he managed to study their location well). And since the German guns did not even have crews at such an early hour, the tanker shot them with impunity, like targets at a shooting range. Finally the engine warmed up and the driver moved the tank. The return journey, just one and a half kilometers long, took several hours. From our front line we noticed a strange zigzag movement of the tank and, realizing what was happening, called in barrage fire on the enemy trenches. After returning to their team, the tankers were awarded orders. Luck did not abandon them later either: all three continued to fight and met Victory.

More than once, tanks on Piglet turned out to be a last resort, deciding the outcome of the battle in our favor. At the end of February, the Nazis tried twice unsuccessfully to break through the defenses in the center of the positions. Having achieved nothing, they tried to walk along the shore, but came across cars that had just crossed. It was very inconvenient to maneuver on a narrow strip of coastal sand; two tanks fell into gullies or craters almost up to their turrets. Nevertheless, the tankers managed to drive away the enemy.

Taking advantage of the unexpected ice drift that took away all the crossings, the Nazis launched an assault. After two days of continuous battle, the front line disappeared and the enemy positions were mixed up. Both sides did not take losses into account; the earth was literally burning. The Germans, who had a numerical superiority, managed to eliminate the bridgehead on April 29. The surviving defenders of the Nevsky Patch tried to make their way to the right bank along the floating ice floes under machine-gun fire. Few managed to do this.

Return to the bridgehead

Hitler finally formalized the decision to capture Leningrad in an order dated July 23. Army Group North was ordered to complete the assault on the city by early September 1942. The plan, called “Northern Lights,” involved cutting off the city from troops in the area of the Neva and Lake Ladoga. (After the completion of the assault on Sevastopol, the 11th Army under the command of Erich von Manschtein was transferred to Leningrad.) The Soviet side also sought to take the initiative into their own hands and prepared a breakthrough to the city along the shortest distance through Sinya-Vino. In this area, the positions of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts were separated by a strip only 16 km wide. Soviet troops under the command of Meretskov made their first move almost a month before the start of the German offensive. The assault groups of the 2nd Shock Army slowly advanced through the dense enemy defenses. By the beginning of September, there were only a few kilometers left to the Neva. The troops of the Leningrad Front struck from the ring and again captured two bridgeheads on the left bank: one in almost the same place where it was last time, and the second downstream, near the village of Annenskoye.

In the Pyatochka area, the Neva was crossed by three rifle divisions and a separate brigade, which were reinforced with the 86th and 118th separate tank battalions (OTB) of mixed composition (T-26, BT-2 and -5, T-34, KV-1 ) and a battalion of light amphibious tanks T-37 and T-38 (OLTB). On the night of September 26, the first ten tanks from the OLTB approached the crossing. Due to breakdowns, three stopped near the water, and seven cars rushed to the opposite shore. The Germans illuminated the river with rockets and opened fire. Only three tanks reached the right bank, but they were quickly knocked out. Over the next four nights, they managed to transport 16 amphibious vehicles, seven light T-26s with cannon armament, as well as a pair of T-26s and one BT-2 with machine guns in the turrets. The shore was swampy and littered with the remains of broken boats and logs, making it difficult to exit the pontoon. It was possible to move in open areas only with great difficulty, since the entire ground was cut up by trenches and craters from shells and bombs. Under constant artillery fire and air raids, the number of combat-ready tanks decreased before our eyes. As a result, by October 5, only one car was left running. On this day, taking advantage of the insufficient support at the junction of the 70th and 86th rifle divisions, about 40 German soldiers “infiltrated” along the narrow-gauge railway almost to the very shore. Some of our infantrymen succumbed to panic and ran. Two tanks standing in firing positions (one of them simply got stuck in a swamp, and the other was damaged) opened fire with machine guns. A group of commanders and tank soldiers took two boxes of grenades and threw them at the Germans. The battle turned into hand-to-hand combat. The mechanic-driver of the OLTB Bay-da stabbed a German officer with a knife, and another driver, Rozhkov, killed several Germans with a revolver.

On the night of October 6-7, two repair teams crossed the Neva, and over the next day they restored the mobility of five vehicles and prepared them for evacuation. But the enemy again defeated them with artillery fire, and the BT-2 burned out from a direct hit when approaching the ferry. Only one T-26 was able to be withdrawn from the bridgehead.

Lost illusions

Instead of storming the city, Manche-tein had to organize an impromptu counter-offensive. Six infantry divisions and one tank, supported by a battalion of the latest Tiger tanks and a battalion of self-propelled guns, struck from different sides at the base of the wedge driven into the German defense. As a result, the 2nd strike was again surrounded. After the creation of the “cauldron”, part of the German forces turned towards the Neva. On September 29, the 28th Jaeger and 12th Tank Divisions liquidated the bridgehead at Annensky. The Nevsky patch survived again.

Meanwhile, Hitler demanded that the attack on Leningrad be launched as quickly as possible. Heavy artillery was transferred to the “cauldron”, intended for shelling the city. By mid-October, the resistance was suppressed, and the opponents, having suffered thousands of losses, found themselves again in the positions of a month ago. But the heavy rains that began washed away the few roads and thereby put an end to large-scale operations. Soon Manstein’s army was transferred to Velikiye Luki, and then to the Don. The threat of a direct assault on the city had finally passed.

Operation Spark

The front command began to develop a new plan for lifting the blockade immediately after the end of the autumn battles. Since December, the troops began to prepare for a breakthrough at training grounds specially built in the style of German defense in the rear. The fighters had to run across the ice of the Neva in seven and a half minutes. Rifle units were trained simultaneously with those tank units with which they were to go into battle together. By January, it was possible to gather reserves from the entire front at the site of the offensive. The formation had a numerical superiority over the enemy in infantry by 4.5 times, in artillery by 6-7 times, and in tanks by 10 times.

On the morning of January 12, the troops made a breakthrough after artillery preparation. The infantry was the first to descend onto the ice; the tanks crossed only on the third day of the battle along fortified crossings. The 45th Guards Division, advancing from Piglet, knocked the Germans out of the first trench, but was unable to advance further under heavy fire. The connection of the two fronts took place on the morning of January 18 in the area of 1st Gorodok.

Of course, the events on the Nevsky patch cannot be judged simplistically and one-sidedly. The fire that raged over this piece of our land for a whole year illuminated a picture too contradictory for clear assessments. Everything was here: the real heroism of the soldiers who fought to the death, and the unjustified orders of commanders who aimlessly killed people, and the notorious NKVD blocking detachments. Moreover, these battles became one of the bloodiest episodes not only in the battle for Leningrad, but in the entire Second World War.

In the 60s of the last century, search engines conducted the following experiment: they sifted soil taken from one randomly selected square meter of the Nevsky patch. It turned out that it contained about 10 kg of fragments and 38 bullets! As you might guess, such finds are not uncommon here to this day...

text: Andrey AKSENOV
photo: from the archive