Before leaving for St. Petersburg, I received an answer from the department of the military commissariat Leningrad region in the city of Kirovsk and the Kirov region. I quote it in full:
“In the department of the military commissariat of the Leningrad region for the city of Kirovsk and the Kirov district in the filing cabinet irretrievable losses there are registration cards for those who died during the Great Patriotic War and those buried at the fraternal military burial of the village. Sinyavino-1: Ardeev Aristarkh Illarionovich, Anufriev Iosif Emelyanovich, Bezumov Ivan Ivanovich, Bugaev Fedor Klimentievich, Vyucheisky Grigory Prokopyevich, Dymov Georgy Mikhailovich, Kanyukov Fedor Ivanovich, Kopytov Nikolai Nikolaevich, Ostrovsky Georgy Andreevich, Semyashkin Nikolai Pavlovich, Stroganov Mikhail Petrovich, Chuprov Mikhail Egorovich.
Surnames of the soldiers Ardeeva A.I., Kanyukova F.I., Stroganova M.P. immortalized on the memorial plates of a military burial.
Surnames of the soldiers: Egor Nikolaevich Apitsyn, Ivan Vasilyevich Artemyev, Mitrofan Prokopyevich Batmanov, Petr Mikhailovich Bezumov, Ivan Semyonovich Valei, Ilya Alekseevich Valei, Grigory Nikolaevich Karpov, Ivan Vasilyevich Konstantinov, Alexander Petrovich Korepanov, Gavril Andreevich Laptander, Artemy Makarovich Latyshev, Ledkov Nikolai Nikolaevich , Fishing Andrey Ivanovich, Sazonov Mikhail Georgievich, Servachevsky Lev Nikolaevich, Fedorkov Vasily Afanasyevich, Khatanzeysky Ivan Filippovich, Chuprov Ivan Semyonovich, Chuprov Yakov Andronovich, Churkina Andrey Pavlovich, Yupatov Malan Foteevich (Ipatov) in the lists of known dead and buried on the territory Kirovsky district They do not appear in the Leningrad Region, but on the basis of the documents you provided, their names are included in the card index of irretrievable losses in the department of the military commissariat of the Leningrad Region for the city of Kirovsk and the Kirov District.
There are also registration cards for the soldiers buried at the Sinyavinsky Heights memorial: Aleksey Petrovich Anufriev, Nikolai Veniaminovich Vecherin, Akim Vasilievich Deinega, Stepan Andreevich Korepanov, Boris Semyonovich Taleev, Akim Gavrilovich Lyapunov, Ivan Akimovich Lyapunov. Surnames Lyapunov A.G. and Lyapunova I.A. immortalized on the memorial plates of a military burial.
The names of the soldiers: Petukhov Alexei Alexandrovich, Shevelev Dmitry Ivanovich, Chuprov Ivan Semyonovich do not appear in the lists of known dead and buried in the territory of the Kirovsky district of the Leningrad region, but on the basis of the documents you provided, the soldiers are included in the card index of accounting for irretrievable losses in the department of the military commissariat of the Leningrad region for Kirovsk and Kirovsky district.
In the card file of accounting for irretrievable losses, there are registration cards for soldiers buried at a fraternal military grave at st. Naziia: Anyanov Alexander Alekseevich, Belozerov Pavel Ivanovich, Valei Anisim Ignatievich, Korepanov Semyon Vasilyevich, Koskov Stepan Fedorovich, Ledkov Ivan Mikhailovich, Pankov Fyodor Filippovich, Panyukov Yegor Alexandrovich, Skryabin Georgy Ivanovich, Podsekin Procopy Egorovich. Surname Podsekina P.E. immortalized on a memorial tombstone.
There are also registration cards for soldiers buried at a fraternal military burial in the village. Putilovo: Ivan Grigorievich Anufriev, Mikhail Ivanovich Anufriev, Ivan Semyonovich Gubinsky, Egor Ignatievich Valei, Ivan Afanasyevich Kondakov, Ivan Dmitrievich Poryadin, Nikolai Petrovich Rochev, Nikolai Illarionovich Smetanin, Konstantin Ivanovich Shevelev.
Surname Poryadina I.D. immortalized on a memorial tombstone.
As the memorial plates are made, the names of the soldiers will be immortalized on the memorial plates of the corresponding mass graves.
Head of the Department of the Military Commissariat of the Leningrad Region for the City of Kirovsk and the Kirovsky District O. Gorpishin "
Arriving in St. Petersburg, I again visited the Kirov military registration and enlistment office and handed over a list of the names of our fellow countrymen who died in Otradnoye, Leningrad Region: Detkova Semyon Ivanovich, Kanev Stepan Ilyich, Kuznetsov Ivan Ilyich, Svinin Alexander Alexandrovich, Sokolov Danil Konstantinovich and Khabarov Viktor Stepanovich for entering them into the card index of irretrievable losses and perpetuating at the place of death.
The other day I received an answer that in the card index of irretrievable losses at the fraternal military burial in the city of Otradnoye there are registration cards for Detkov Semyon Ivanovich and Kuznetsov Ivan Ilyich.
Surnames of soldiers S.I. Kaneva, A.A. Pork, D.K. Sokolova, V.S. Khabarov, on the basis of the documents I provided, were included in the card index of irretrievable losses in the department of the military commissariat of the Leningrad Region for the city of Kirovsk and the Kirov District.
As the memorial plates are made, the names of the soldiers will be immortalized.
Continue searching
In a previous article, I wrote that the relatives of Fyodor Iosifovich Listov, who went missing in September 1941, turned to me. The last place of his service is field mail 22229 "M". A postscript was made that this field mail belonged to the 2375th military postal station, which, in turn, was part of the 79th fortified area (Leningrad region). You can find information about this in I. Smirnov's book "The 79th fortified area in the defense of Leningrad."
I looked for this book through bookstores and our district library, but did not find it. On this trip to St. Petersburg, I decided to continue my search for her.
I visited the State memorial museum defense and blockade of Leningrad, spoke with an employee of the museum Muravyova Irina Alexandrovna. They do not have this book, but she gave me another one - “The Citadel near Leningrad. Gatchina during the Great Patriotic War. Compiled by I.G. Lyubetsky - St. Petersburg: Lenizdat. 1992
The materials of the book tell about the Gatchina (Krasnogvardeisky) fortified area from August–September 1941 to January 1944.
But there was no article by I. Smirnov about the 79th fortified area.
Then I decided to go to the Public Library at the corner of Nevsky and Sadovaya. After a long search, with the help of the chief librarian Tatyana Eduardovna Shumilova, we found the job we needed.
It turned out that this article by I. Smirnov was published in the Military History Journal No. 11 for 1973. But it is not in this library. I had to go to public library on Moskovsky Prospekt, issue a library card and view a roll of microfilms in the Microarchive hall. I looked through the microfilms for more than an hour until I found the right article. I asked them to make me a photocopy of the article. The service was paid.
What did you manage to find out? In his memoirs, retired lieutenant colonel I. Smirnov mentions that “in May 1942 he was appointed head of the intelligence department of the 79th fortified region (UR). Many units and divisions of the fortified area were formed in May 1942 in Vologda on the basis of a reserve rifle brigade. In two or three weeks, a directorate, special units and separate machine-gun and artillery battalions (opab) were created. And on May 30-31, the personnel of the fortified area were loaded into railway cars, and on June 3 they arrived in Kobona, from where we were taken on small ships to west coast Lake Ladoga, and then by train to the village of Vsevolozhsky. The next day after our arrival in the village of Vsevolozhsky, General A.L. Govorov summoned the commandant of the UR and ordered him to take under unified leadership all the separate machine-gun and artillery battalions left over from the Krasno-Gvardeysky and Slutsk-Kolpinsky fortified regions disbanded in the fall of 1941, to occupy areas on the southern approaches to Leningrad in the lane of the 42nd and 55th Army (from the Coal Port to Kolpino) and in cooperation with the forward units of the rifle divisions, firmly defend them.
More excerpts from the memoirs of I. Smirnov.
“The key positions of the defensive line occupied by our fortified area were the Pulkovo Heights. On September 13, 1941, the Nazi hordes approached the heights with the aim of breaking into Leningrad from them.
“Earlier participating in repelling enemy attacks, separate machine-gun and artillery battalions had combat experience. In the 291st, 292nd, 267th, 289th opabs, which entered the fortified area, there were many Leningrad volunteer militias.
From all of the above, the following conclusions can be drawn:
1. Listov F.I. did not fight in the 79th fortified area, because went missing in December 1941, i.e. before the formation of this SD.
2. Most likely, he fought as part of the Krasnogvardeisky or Slutsk-Kolpinsky URs, where in the fall of 1941 there were fierce battles for the Pulkovo Heights.
3. It can be assumed that Listov F.I. went missing in September 1941, not December. I was told that if a fighter was not found immediately after the battle, then the relatives were told the date of his death, adding three months.
4. The search area for the death of F.I. Listov was reduced. But perhaps the most difficult and difficult questions: where to look for 2375 military post station, which owned field mail 22229 - last place service of Listov F.I.? In which separate machine-gun and artillery battalion (opab) did he serve? The search continues.
Unveiling of a memorial plaque at the Piskarevsky cemetery
The idea of installing a memorial plaque to the fallen fellow countrymen on Leningrad land came to me when I visited memorial complexes federal significance "Sinyavinsky Heights" and "Nevsky Piglet".
It was a shame for the district: from all republics, districts and many cities Soviet Union commemorative plaques were installed, but not from our NAO. But on the Leningrad land, more than one hundred of our fellow countrymen died. We cannot even name the exact number of the dead.
Yes, I compiled a list of the dead using the Book of Memory of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug - 357 names, but I also found the names of those who are not in this Book of Memory, but are found in the KP LO. And how many more are missing.
For the first time, I voiced a wish to install a memorial plaque in the fall of 2010 at the plenum of the district council of war and labor veterans.
I raised this issue for the second time on November 3, 2011 at a meeting of the Governor of the NAO I.G. Fedorov with representatives of the District Council of War and Labor Veterans, which took place at the Arktika CDC. He promised that he would resolve this issue with Lukoil.
In the fall of 2012, Andrey Ananyevich Apitsyn, the head of the Department of Health and Social Protection of the Population of the NAO, stopped me on Lenin Street and said that he was dealing with the issue of installing a memorial plaque at the Piskarevsky cemetery.
I asked: “Why on Piskarevka, and not on the Sinyavinsky Heights, because most of the people from the district died there? Some time later, I went to Andrei Ananievich's office, where he showed sketches of the memorial plaque and the text to it.
Official invitation to participate in the opening of a memorial plate on Piskarevsky memorial cemetery I didn't receive. But on the eve of the delegation's arrival in St. Petersburg, I received a call from the Sever TV company and was told when and where this event would take place. The event was held very solemnly. True, I was surprised why among the delegates there were no relatives of those who were buried at the Piskarevsky cemetery.
Before leaving St. Petersburg, I once again went to the Piskarevskoye cemetery and found permanent place, on which a memorial plaque from our district has already been installed.
Trip to Sinyavino-1
At the opening of a memorial plaque at the Piskarevsky cemetery, we met with Ivan Yegorovich Ledkov. Once he told me that he wanted to go to Sinyavino-1, where his distant relative Fyodor Ivanovich Kanyukov was buried. I suggested that Ivan Yegorovich go to Sinyavino, and we scheduled the trip for March 29th.
We met at the Rybatskaya station and went by bus to Kirovsk, and there we took a bus to Sinyavino-1. We reached the military burial place, went around it, found memorial plaques with the names of our countrymen: Aristarkh Illarionovich Ardeev, Fyodor Ivanovich Kanyukov and Mikhail Petrovich Stroganov.
Kanyukov Fedor Ivanovich, was born in 1911 in the Malozemelskaya tundra in the family of a reindeer breeder. The family of Ivan Matveyevich and Paraskovya Grigorievna had three sons: Fedor, Philip and Peter. Before the war, they lived and worked on the collective farm "Naryana you" in Ledkovo. Fedor was the foreman of the 2nd herd. Fedor Ivanovich was called to the front in 1942 from Velikovisochny village council.
Before leaving for the front, the brothers agreed that if one of them died, then the family would be supported by the one of the brothers who returned alive.
Fedor ended up on the Leningrad front. His daughter Anastasia Fedorovna, who was born after her father left for the front, has a postcard sent by him from there, the only relic that her daughter carefully keeps. By the way, Fyodor Ivanovich learned to read and write on his own.
Then came the death notice. It reported that Fedor Ivanovich Kanyukov, born in 1911, Nizhne-Pechora region, private of the 123rd SD, died on 07/27/1943, r / p No. 5, Sinyavino, Leningrad Region.
Fyodor's two brothers also fought at the front: Filipp Ivanovich, born in 1905, private, went missing in November 1943, presumably near Stalingrad. Peter ended up on the Karelian front, but returned alive. It was he who had to fulfill his brother's order: to educate and educate his niece and take care of Evdokia Yegorovna, his brother's wife.
After school, Anastasia Fedorovna entered the Arkhangelsk Medical Institute, graduated as a general practitioner and worked in her specialty for thirty years, first in the village of Kharuta, then in the village of Iskateley.
In 1982 or 1983, she was on a business trip in Leningrad, went to the regional military registration and enlistment office, looking for the place where her father died and found that he was buried in Sinyavino-1, his name was immortalized on this military burial. In 1984, she took her mother Evdokia Egorovna there.
The military burial is growing, every year new memorial plaques are installed with the names of the soldiers found by the search engines. There are many of our surnames there: the Filippovs, the Terentievs. Sintsov N.S., Butorin G.V., Sakharov N.I., Baryshnikov Z.M.
In order to save space for the installation of memorial plates, they began to be made large sizes to fit more names.
Ivan Yegorovich and I walked around the burial place, laid flowers, went into the chapel and lit candles.
Perhaps in the near future we will be able to see new memorial plates with the names of our fellow countrymen at the burial site in Sinyavino.
NAZIA station
How simple it is to take and write a short story about the war, the last Patriotic War, which ended a long time ago, but every year is getting closer and closer to us today.
Time is running, and the children and grandchildren of the war, unfortunately, are growing up faster and faster. Many of the first post-war generation have already left without having time to find traces of the dead and missing fathers, participants in that terrible war 1941-1945. What does it mean, missing according to the laws of our Soviet country? Most likely, he was simply dead, but there were dead and surrounded, and simply captured, and all of them were destined for the undeserved memory of an enemy of the people, or more simply, the fate of a traitor, although not proven by anyone.
How is it, because in that war a huge part of the country's territory was under the occupiers. What about all those people who did not have time or did not want to leave their home, their land and run after the unfortunate and sometimes simply abandoned units of the Red Army.
And then, all these people turned out to be flawed both in rights and morally. long years. But that's not all, their wives, parents and children also fell into disgrace.
To search for missing relatives in the first decades after the end of the war was out of the question, but it was quite real in those years, but who would have allowed us. However, why blame the authorities, we ourselves were and are these people, the same people of our unfortunate country.
But, now, after sixty - seventy years, some opportunities have appeared, but there are very few traces left. More fortunate were those whose relatives were captured, although they died, but their traces remained in the documents of those who were in perfect order to this day in Germany.
In our archives, there are only crumbs of documents, and extremely scarce ones at that. There are not even photographs in the files of officers, and there is nothing to say about privates, at best, "funerals."
My family was lucky, a funeral was sent to my grandfather Vasily Mikhailovich Gryzilkina, but my illiterate grandmother, Evdokia Spiridonovna Gryzilkina, my grandfather's wife, could not understand where and under what circumstances her husband was buried. There were, during the life of his grandfather, and his letters from the front, but they disappeared during the occupation of Kalinin, when most of of the population, leaving all their property, fled the city during its bombing by fascist troops.
But years, whole decades, after the end of the war, the country celebrated Victory Day on duty, the surviving veterans and ordinary participants in the war received regular awards and commemorative badges, and every time, on the eve of the holiday, poor obelisks were painted with silver on the burial sites throughout our country. bitter earth.
We were really lucky, firstly, the “funeral” was preserved, and secondly, there were people who decided to devote part of their lives to searching for the missing, as well as the graves of the buried fallen soldiers on the battlefields and in hospitals from mortal wounds.
I just came across such a person, he turned out to be Alexander Mikhailovich Terentyev, head of the “To Live and Remember” fund for searching and perpetuating the victims of the Second World War, he helped to contact the archive in Podolsk, etc.
Some time later, a letter from the Podolsk Central Archives came to my name with the following content: According to the records of the irretrievable losses of sergeants and soldiers of the Soviet Army, it was established that Gryzilkin Vasily Mikhailovich, born in 1897, place of birth is not specified, was drafted by Kalininsky RVC mountains. Kalinin, died of wounds on September 11, 1942 in the 324th medical battalion; buried: grave N21, st. Naziia, Leningrad Region, indicating the full location of my grandfather's burial at Naziia station. Only after receiving such a document, with the support of Alexander Mikhailovich Terentyev, I was able to find via the Internet the address of the military commissariat for the city of Kirovsk and the Kirov region in order to write a letter there asking for help in finding the burial place of my grandfather.
And on September 27, 2010, I received a letter from the Kirov Commissariat, I will quote it in full:
Ivanova I.V.
Use In. N949 dated 09/23/20 Yugoda I inform you that the name of Private Gryzilkina Vasily Mikhailovich, born in 1897, is included in the lists of known dead and buried on the territory of the Kirovsky district of the Leningrad region on the basis of an archival certificate from the TsAMO of the Russian Federation.
IN postwar period the remains of dead soldiers from the area of Art. Naziia were reburied in a fraternal military burial at st. Naziia.
Travel: from St. Petersburg from the Moscow railway station by electric train, following to the city of Volkhovstroy, Voybokalo, get off at Naziia station.
At the same time, I inform you that the perpetuation of the memory of the fallen soldiers is planned to be held by May 9, 2011.
HEAD OF THE DEPARTMENT OF THE MILITARY COMMISSARY OF THE LENINGRAD REGION FOR THE CITY OF KIROVSK AND THE KIROV DISTRICT
I repeatedly contacted Nadezhda Konstantinovna Bagrysheva by phone and she explained to me in detail how to get to the burial place: the city of St. Petersburg, Ladoga or Moscow railway stations and an electric train towards Volkhovstroy, to Naziia station, then ask local residents. All this happened in the early spring of this year. And immediately after this joyful, but at the same time somewhat doubtful (we simply could not believe it), as it seemed to us, the news, we began to prepare for a trip to the Naziia station.
We had only to wait for the onset of my vacation in the month of July. Time flew by quickly, and then the day came when it was already possible to order tickets to St. Petersburg and negotiate with St. Petersburg friends about housing in the city. We arrived in St. Petersburg at twelve o'clock in the morning, and after fifteen minutes we were sitting in a cozy apartment of friends, drinking tea and making plans for the next two and a half days.
We planned to leave for the Naziia station the next morning, found obelisks on the Internet, there were two of them, one in the Naziia village, the other at the Naziia station, this was somewhat embarrassing, but did not stop us.
The next morning we got up at seven o'clock, had breakfast, took drinks and provisions for the road and moved towards the metro, and then to the Ladoga station. We arrived at the station long before the arrival of the train, and we had to take a little walk around the neighborhood of the still cool morning St. Petersburg.
The train left the Ladoga station on time and took the direction to Volkhovstroy. We, having taken places at the window on the north side, due to the intense heat, which is advancing more and more towards noon, began our first journey into the past, to the 42nd war year.
The electric train went to the Naziia station for about two hours and, as we approached the destination, our excitement increased, whether we would find our obelisk, whether my grandfather Vasily Mikhailovich would be there.
Friendly women were sitting in the compartment next to us, who somewhat encouraged and reassured us, although they did not know the location of the military burial.
And so the driver announced the next station Naziya and, therefore, we need to get out. From the windows of the car we didn't see anything special, just an ordinary country suburban station and the hot sun in the still cloudless sky.
The train stopped and we got out with other passengers on the platform. When we asked how to get to the obelisk, we were told that we had to get off at the previous station, in the village of Naziia, where the military grave is located. I again contacted the local military commissariat by phone and Nadezhda Konstantinovna reassured me, confirming that we were doing everything right, that the obelisk we needed was located exactly at Naziia station.
We got off the platform and went to small group people who arrived on the same train and were talking about something at the station store.
After listening to our question about the burial, we were told that it was right here, but we had to walk two or three kilometers to it. Immediately there was a guide, an elderly resident of this village, he took us with him, saying that we were just on the way. As soon as we reached the highway leading to our goal, a jeep stopped near us, the hospitable owner of which grabbed our fellow traveler, who turned out to be his neighbor, and at the same time us.
We were taken almost to the very cemetery and released with good parting words. Leaving the highway, we moved along a country road towards the cemetery. It turned out to be very close, on the very border of Naziia station.
It was already past noon and the heat was getting stronger, despite the appearance of large gray clouds in the sultry sky. We walked, as it seemed to us, along the edge of the forest, herbs bloomed all around, birds sang, and without passing three hundred meters, we saw a fence to our right, and behind it were graves. Having walked a little forward along the fence, we found a gate and not far from it a large chapel, which for rural cemetery it was somewhat unexpected.
The cemetery was neatly kept and not as small as it seemed at first. Our excitement intensified, we have not yet found an obelisk, the fact is that there were many large trees and bushes in the cemetery and this limited the view.
And then we saw a woman cleaning the grave. When we asked how to get to the obelisk, she left her work and accompanied us to the very burial place. She stood with us for a while, wept, and returned back.
We were left alone and did not immediately decide to enter through a tiny alley into the gate of the fence. There was more than one obelisk in the fence, there were many memorial plaques with the names of the buried, there were at least four hundred of them. There were also photographs on porcelain, on paper, wrapped in polyethylene, and several monuments made of stone and marble. Faces were looking at us from all sides. military uniform, as if in anticipation of long-awaited relatives who came to visit and console them.
We did not immediately find the name we needed, and to be honest, we did not really believe in success. And suddenly on one of the boards they saw a familiar surname and initials of the patronymic name - GRYZILKIN V.M. I couldn't believe my eyes, my God, here lies mine native grandfather, whom I never saw, because even my mother was not ten years old when he died. How long he has been waiting for us, almost seventy years. Did he hope to meet us, did he recognize me, because he had never seen me either. I knelt next to me for a long time and silently talked with my grandfather, told him everything about our past and present life without him. I collected some earth under the obelisk, so that upon arrival in Tver, I would take it to the grave of my grandmother and his now deceased wife. I did so later, and told her everything, too.
We stayed in the fence for a long time, examined all the boards, all the obelisks, all the photographs and read all the inscriptions and the names of the soldiers and officers who fell asleep here forever and ever for the Motherland.
Then they remembered all those lying here in the fence. It was not so hot in the cemetery under tall shady trees, somewhere in the distance it was already rumbling, it was clear that the long-awaited thunderstorm was approaching. We did not leave, as if those lying here did not want to part with us, they were not visited here very often.
There was still time before our return train and we were in no hurry. How could you just take it and leave, because the heroes of the war lay here, they were all heroes as one, although they were not going to be such at all.
And yet, those who lay here were lucky in a sense - relatives can visit them here, at least so many years later. For a long time we sat on a bench near the fence, admired nature, the clouds in the sky, and thought at that moment each of his own.
Before leaving the cemetery, we again entered the fence mass grave to say goodbye to the dead, they took pictures and left the cozy village cemetery with a chapel at the entrance gate.
We made the way back to the station on foot and the road was not a burden, despite the hot July sun.
When we drove up to St. Petersburg, we were met by a strong thunderstorm and downpour, but in the city itself we saw the sun and a clear blue sky.
As soon as we got home, we realized what a grand undertaking we had done, we succeeded. Our trip was a one hundred percent success, and all this is thanks to the progress on the part of the staff of the archive and the Tver and Kirovsk military registration and enlistment offices, good people that met on our way, as well as part of our faith and hope for this enterprise.
Special thanks to Terentiev Alexander Mikhailovich and Bagrysheva Nadezhda Knstantinovna.
Ivanova Irina
The area behind the Nevsky Bridgehead between the banks of the Neva River and the so-called Mustolovsky Highway, bounded from the south by a road along the Moika River, approximately 2.5 × 2 km in size, was a fierce battlefield in the summer and autumn of 1943.
July 22, 1943 from the legendary "Nevsky bridgehead", from the area former villages Moscow Dubrovka and Arbuzovo, the offensive of the 30th Guards Rifle Corps began in the direction of the Moika River, the village of Annensky and the village of Mustolovo (Mednoye) and was part of the Mginskaya offensive operation. “Mustolovsky Highway” in wartime documents was the name of the road, which runs one and a half to three kilometers from the Neva parallel to the coast and connects the horticultural array on the banks of the Moika River with the horticultural bush at the railway square 11 km (Malodubrovsky swamp area).
The goal of the Mginsk offensive operation of 1943 was to completely clear the left bank of the Neva from the enemy in the Arbuzovo-Ivanovskoye section and establish a common front of the 67th Army with the 55th Army and the Volkhov front on the Kirovskaya line on the left bank of the Neva railway. The troops of the Leningrad Front in the Mginsk operation struck from the flanks at the Sinyavinsky Heights occupied by the enemy: from the east, from the forests on the Black River, and from the west, from the Neva to the so-called "Railway Triangle" (now the area of \u200b\u200bthe railway square 11 km of the Mga branch - Nevdubstroy).
The Mginsk operation began on July 22, 1943. On the right flank of the 30th Guards Corps in the strip from Arbuzovo on the banks of the Neva to the so-called "Mustolovsky highway" (inclusive), the offensive was carried out by the famous 63rd Guards Rifle Division, the former 136th Division of General Simonyak, who was awarded the title of Guards for breaking the blockade of Leningrad in January 1943. Together with the division, the 30th Guards Tank Brigade took part in the offensive. The left neighbor of the 63rd Guards Rifle Division. the 45th Guards Rifle Division was at the first stage of the offensive, the offensive line of which ran from the Mustolovsky Highway to the so-called Railway Triangle.
As a result of bloody battles, the 63rd Guards. the rifle division managed to break through the enemy defenses and advance 1.7-2.3 km to the Moika River and the road running along it through the village of Mustolovo (Mednoe). Maximum success was achieved on July 27, 1943, when only 300 meters remained from the positions of the 192nd regiment, which was advancing at that moment in the center of the division's battle formations, to the road along the Moika River. However, the weakened battalions of the division failed to advance beyond this position. Thus, complete the task completely and go to the river itself and the village of Mustolovo (Mednoye) 63rd Guards Rifle Division. failed.
The losses of the 63rd Guards Rifle Division, which bore the brunt of the fighting in the designated offensive zone, by August 3, 1943, amounted to 4,500 people killed and wounded. And of these, 3738 people were lost in the first three days of the offensive. Throughout the battle, the bloodless regiments and battalions of the 63rd Guards. SD successively transferred their areas to the 194th Guards. Joint venture of the 64th Guards Rifle Division. Then, on the night of August 4, the division was completely replaced by the 55th separate rifle brigade and left the battle to replenish.
German divisions opposing the 63rd Guards. SD also carried heavy losses. Back in July, 212 PD was sent to help the Brandenburg 23rd Infantry Division, which took the brunt at the beginning of our offensive. In early August, units of the enemy's 23rd and 212th Infantry Divisions, which had lost their combat effectiveness, were replaced by the 58th Infantry Division. In mid-September, the exhausted 58th Infantry Division was replaced in positions from the Neva to the Mustolovsky Highway by the 215th Baden-Württemberg Infantry Division, which stayed there until mid-October.
The Mginskaya offensive operation continued until August 23, 1943, when, by directive of the Headquarters of the Supreme Command, the troops of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts were ordered to switch to a tough defense. However, in general, the Third Battle of Ladoga, as the Germans called the battles initiated by this offensive, continued with varying degrees of intensity until October 1943. As a result of the battles of August-October on the western flank of the offensive, near the Neva, near the Mustolovsky Highway and the Railway Triangle, our troops lost part of the captured strongholds and were forced to retreat. With fierce counterattacks, the enemy restored part of their positions. The territorial gains of this operation were thus very small.
Probably for this reason, in the domestic research and memoir literature, there is no detailed description of the actions of the troops of the Leningrad Front in the Mginsky offensive operation. These battles were also given few mentions in German literature.
German military historian Hartwig Polman: “In the first days of August, the 58th Infantry Division was thrown into a counterattack between Workers' Settlement No. 6 and the Neva. Despite the massive support of artillery and several Tiger tanks, the battle was very difficult, and the troops, suffering heavy losses, only barely moved forward. The 154th Regiment (Colonel Berend) suffered especially from strong flanking fire from the opposite bank of the Neva. The enemy managed to make full use of his material superiority. The names of the areas - "Embankment", "Caravan Route", "Burma Road", "Rangoon Station", "Railway Triangle", "Electroprosek" and some others - were forever imprinted in the memory of all participants in these battles and became common nouns. Attacks and counterattacks succeeded each other around water-filled funnels and split tree trunks in the area of \u200b\u200bSettlement No. 6, the “Railway Triangle”, on the gati, on the “Burman Road”, and also on the Moika River.
And here is how the commander of the "Tigers" company of the 502nd battalion writes about these battles heavy tanks Otto Carius: “We, too, were soon thrown into this hell. We fiddled with the Russians until the end of September. Neither side could boast of success, all only noted the losses. Battles took place here and there, day after day. Important positions often changed hands several times.”
Despite the fact that the formations of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts in the Mga operation did not fulfill the tasks assigned to them, overall score actions of the fronts, the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, following the results of the offensive, was positive: "The troops of the fronts attracted significant operational reserves of the enemy, inflicted heavy defeats on his troops."
The Russian historian G. Shigin assesses the importance of the Mginskaya operation as follows: “Operation Mginskaya-43 was launched by order of the Headquarters, without allocation of additional resources, in the midst of Battle of Kursk. As you know, starting the battle of Kursk, the German high command made a last attempt to retain the strategic initiative in the war, to inflict Soviet armies decisive defeat. The task of the formations of the Leningrad and Volkhov fronts at that moment was to prevent the transfer of formations of the 18th army to the southern fronts, inflicting maximum damage on the enemy. Thus, despite the lack of territorial achievements and high losses, the significance of the Mginskaya offensive operation of 1943 in the history of the Great patriotic war 1941-1945 can be assessed as high.
The area between the banks of the Neva and the road Mednoe-Malodubrovskoe swamp certainly has a cultural and historical value and is of interest as a battlefield with preserved trenches, strongholds, an authentic road network.
The results of the expeditions of the search parties confirm the data that the losses were high on both sides. On the battlefield, in strong points, many times passed from hand to hand, remained a large number of unburied soldiers of both the Red Army and Wehrmacht soldiers.
