Message about Pavlov's house in Stalingrad. Peasant son, soldier of the Red Army

February 28th, 2018 , 12:00 pm

If you find yourself in Volgograd, then you definitely need to visit three places: Mamaev kurgan, Paulus' bunker at the Central Department Store and Panorama Museum of the Battle of Stalingrad. I read a lot about the Battle of Stalingrad and watched films. Various books and films. "Stalingrad" by Yuri Ozerov is impossible to watch, the movie is about nothing, solid Soviet propaganda. The book of the German war correspondent Heinz Schroeter about the battle of Stalingrad, written by him in 1943, seemed very interesting. By the way, the book, conceived as a propaganda tool capable of raising the spirit of the German army, was banned in Germany "for a defeatist mood" and was published only in 1948. It was completely unusual to look towards Stalingrad through the eyes of German soldiers. And oddly enough, it was precisely the meticulous analytical German assessment of the hostilities that showed the incredible feat that the Russian people accomplished - the military and the inhabitants of the city.

STALINGRAD- the very stone on which the invincible most powerful German military machine literally broke off its teeth.
STALINGRAD- that sacred point that turned the tide of the war.
STALINGRAD- the city of Heroes in the truest sense.

From the book "Stalingrad" by Heinz Schroter
“In Stalingrad, there were battles for every house, for metallurgical plants, factories, hangars, shipping channels, streets, squares, gardens, walls.”
“Resistance arose almost from scratch. At the surviving factories, the last tanks were assembled, the armories were empty, everyone who was able to hold a weapon in their hands was armed: the Volga steamships, the fleet, workers of military factories, teenagers."Dive bombers delivered their iron strikes on the ruins of the staunchly defended bridgeheads."

“The basements of houses and the vaults of workshops were equipped by opponents for dugouts and strongholds. Danger lurked at every turn, snipers hid behind every ruin, but sewage facilities for sewage were of particular danger - they approached the Volga and were used by the Soviet command to bring reserves to them. Often, Russians suddenly appeared behind the advanced German detachments, and no one could understand how they got there. Later, everything became clear, so the channels in those places where the covers for the drain were located were barricaded with steel beams.
*It is interesting that the houses for which mortal battles were fought are described by the Germans not by numbers, but by color, because the German love for numbers has become meaningless.

“The engineer battalion lay down in front of the pharmacy and the red house. These strongholds were equipped for defense in such a way that it was impossible to take them.

“The offensive of the engineer battalions moved forward, but stopped in front of the so-called white house. The houses in question were heaps of rubbish, but they were also fought over.”
* Just imagine how many such "red and white houses" were in Stalingrad ...

I ended up in Volgograd at the very beginning of February, when they celebrated another anniversary of the victory in the Battle of Stalingrad. On this day I went to Panorama Museum, which is located on the high bank of the Volga embankment (Chuikov St., 47). I chose the day very well, because on the site in front of the museum I found a concert, performances of our guys, and a solemn event dedicated to the memorable date.

I didn’t take pictures inside the museum, it’s dark, it’s unlikely that good photos would have turned out without a flash. But the museum is interesting. First of all - a circular panorama "The defeat of the Nazi troops near Stalingrad." As the Wiki describes it: “The panorama “Battle of Stalingrad” is a canvas measuring 16 × 120 m, with an area of ​​​​about 2000 m² and 1000 m² of the subject plan. The plot is the final stage of the Battle of Stalingrad - Operation "Ring". The canvas shows the connection on January 26, 1943 of the 21st and 62nd armies of the Don Front on the western slope of Mamaev Kurgan, which led to the dissection of the encircled German group into two parts. In addition to the panorama (located on the highest floor of the museum, in the Rotunda) there are 4 dioramas (small panoramas on the first floor).
Weapons, Soviet and German, awards, personal items and clothing, models, photographs, portraits. It is necessary to take a tour guide. In my case, this could not be done, due to the fact that a solemn ceremony was held in the Triumphal Hall, which was attended by veterans, military men, young army guys and the museum was flooded with a large number of guests.

(with photo yarowind

(with photo kerrangjke

(with) muph

Behind the Panorama Museum is a dilapidated red brick building - Mill of Gergard (Mill of Grudinin). The building became one of the important nodes of the city's defense. Again, referring to the Wiki, we learn that “The mill was in a semi-circle for 58 days, and during these days it withstood numerous hits from air bombs and shells. These damages are visible even now - literally every square meter of the outer walls was cut by shells, bullets and shrapnel, reinforced concrete beams on the roof were broken by direct hits of air bombs. The sides of the building testify to the varying intensity of mortar and artillery fire.”

A copy of the sculpture is now installed nearby "Dancing Children". For Soviet Russia, it was a fairly typical sculpture - pioneers with red ties (3 girls and three boys) lead a friendly round dance around the fountain. But the figurines of children damaged by bullets and shell fragments look especially piercing and defenseless.

Opposite the Panorama Museum across the road is Pavlov's House.
Again, I turn to Wikipedia, so as not to repeat it: “Pavlov's House is a 4-storey residential building in which a group of Soviet soldiers heroically held the defense for 58 days during the Battle of Stalingrad. Some historians believe that the defense was led by Senior Sergeant Ya. F. Pavlov, who took command of the squad from Senior Lieutenant I. F. Afanasyev, who was wounded at the beginning of the fighting. The Germans organized attacks several times a day. Every time soldiers or tanks tried to get close to the house, I.F. Afanasiev and his comrades met them with heavy fire from the basement, windows and roof. Throughout the defense of the Pavlov House (from September 23 to November 25, 1942) there were civilians in the basement until the Soviet troops went on the counterattack.

I would like to return to the demonstration performances of our guys. And I will give the text of Vitaly Rogozin dervishv about hand-to-hand combat, which I liked incredibly.
...
Hand-to-hand combat - window dressing or deadly weapon?
Experts continue to argue about whether hand-to-hand combat is necessary for soldiers in the conditions of modern warfare. And if needed, then to what extent and with what technical arsenal? And what martial arts are best suited for this? No matter how analysts argue, hand-to-hand combat still takes its place in training programs. The other day I looked at the hand-to-hand combat skills of the cadets of the Moscow Higher Combined Arms Command School.

There is such a joke among the troops: "To engage in hand-to-hand combat, a soldier needs to stay in his shorts, find a flat area and another such idiot." And this joke contains considerable wisdom, proven by hundreds of wars. After all, even in the era before the advent of firearms, hand-to-hand combat was not a "major discipline." The main attention in the combat training of a soldier was given to his ability to wield weapons and not bring the battle to hand-to-hand combat.
For example, in China, where the traditions of martial arts go back thousands of years, the training of soldiers for hand-to-hand combat was systematized only during the Ming Dynasty, when General Qi Jiguang selected and published his "32 fist methods" for training troops.
Only 32 techniques from the huge variety of Chinese wushu! But the most effective and easy to digest.
According to the Western press, the entire hand-to-hand combat course of the American "Delta" consists of 30 tricks.

1 . The task of a soldier, since he cannot use weapons for some reason, is to destroy the enemy as soon as possible or to disarm and immobilize him. And for this you do not need to know a lot of tricks. It is important to own them, they must firmly sit down in the subconscious and muscle memory.
2. The most important thing for a fighter is the ability to use personal weapons and equipment in hand-to-hand combat.
3. Let's start with the machine. Blows are delivered with a bayonet, barrel, butt, magazine.
Thus, even without ammunition, the machine gun remains a formidable weapon in close combat.
In the Kadochnikov system, which is still taught in some places in the domestic law enforcement agencies, the machine gun is even used to immobilize and escort a prisoner.
4. Knife fighting techniques in hand-to-hand combat are characterized by fast, economical and mostly short and low-amplitude movements.
5. The targets for striking are mainly the limbs and neck of the opponent, since, firstly, they contain large blood vessels located close to the surface of the body. Secondly, the defeat of the opponent's hands sharply reduces his ability to continue the battle (the defeat of the neck, for obvious reasons, practically eliminates it). Thirdly, the torso can be protected by body armor.
6. A soldier must still be able to throw a knife without a miss from any position. But he only does this when he has no other choice, because the knife was created to cut and stab and must lie firmly in the hand, and not move in space, leaving the owner without the last weapon.
7. A terrible weapon in the hands of a soldier is a small sapper shovel. The radius of destruction and the length of the cutting edge are much greater than those of any knife. But in these demonstration battles it was not used, but in vain.
8. Confronting, unarmed, an armed opponent is also a necessary skill.
9. But taking away weapons from the enemy is not so simple.
10. Real knives and pistols bring the training situation closer to the combat situation, strengthening the psychological resistance to weapons in the hands of the opponent.
11. For a fighter, the skills of silently destroying sentries and capturing enemy military personnel are still required.
12. It is important for any scout to be able to search, bind and escort captured or detained persons.
13. A soldier of army units in hand-to-hand combat must kill the enemy in the shortest possible period of time and continue to complete the task.
14. The targets for his blows are the temples, eyes, throat, base of the skull, heart (a competent, accurate, delivered blow to the heart area leads to its stop). As "relaxing" blows to the groin and knee joints are good.
15 . The stick, in turn, is the most ancient weapon of man.
16 . The methods of its application have been polished for thousands of years and can be adopted without any refinement and adaptation.
17 . Even if you never have to use hand-to-hand combat skills, it is better to know and be able to use them.
18. Crunch and in half.

Posts tagged "Volgograd":

Eyewitness testimony is usually biased, official reports should also be treated rationally and critically, and politically biased versions are generally like Putin's deliberately unrighteous "Basman court". Only a non-party-non-confessional professional, guided by the highest goal and meaning of man-made God-sacrifice and, accordingly, by the priority of the vector of exaltation of subjectivity-freedom in a person, society and humanity, is able to take into his horizons all the available facts, systematize them and give them an assessment. The Soviet period, the Great Patriotic War is especially distorted by apologetics on the one hand and blasphemy on the other, but it is necessary to reveal what really happened (according to the testament of the wise Leopold von Ranke - wie es eigentlich gewesen). This is necessary for the resurrection of the dead at the Last Judgment, and the collected information must take its place in the Panlog system (access - panlog.com). In my opinion, the creators of the wonderful portal dedicated to Russian history "State History" are trying to work in this vein. Very impressive is the series of video programs posted on this portal "Searchers", the hosts of the program are Doctor of Historical Sciences Valery Alexandrovich Ivanov-Tagansky and researcher Andrei I. Now on the Russian historical TV channel "365 Days TV" I watched their story "Legendary Redoubt":

"Autumn 1942. Stalingrad. On no man's land in the city center, a handful of our fighters capture the ruins of an apartment building. And for two months he repulsed the fierce attacks of the Germans. The house was like a bone in their throat, but they could not break the defenders. The defense of this building went down in the history of the Great Patriotic War as a symbol of the courage and steadfastness of Soviet soldiers. Their list is opened by the Hero of the Soviet Union, Sergeant Yakov Pavlov, who for a long time was considered the head of defense. And after his name, this house in Volgograd is still called Pavlov's House. The "searchers" managed to establish that in fact a completely different person / Lieutenant Ivan Filippovich Afanasiev / commanded the defense of the legendary house-fortress. But participation in the defense of Yakov Pavlov did not become less heroic from this. It's just that the real story turned out to be more complicated and interesting than the Soviet ideologists came up with. "Searchers" also managed to establish the names of two more fighters who fought from beginning to end along with their comrades, but by a whim of fate remained unknown.

Wikipedia quite objectively says - “A detailed analysis of the events around the defense of Pavlov's House was presented in the investigation of the Seekers program. So, it was possible to establish that, in fact, Guards Sergeant Yakov Fedotovich Pavlov, under the influence of the Soviet propaganda machine, was appointed to the role of the only heroic defender of this house. He really fought heroically in Stalingrad, but he led the defense of the house, which went down in history as Pavlov's House, a completely different person - Lieutenant Ivan Filippovich Afanasyev. In addition, about 20 more fighters fought heroically in the house. But apart from Pavlov, no one was awarded the Star of the Hero. All the rest, along with another 700,000 people, were awarded a medal for the defense of Stalingrad. On the 25th, Gor Khokholov, a soldier from Kalmykia, was deleted from the list of fighters after the war. Only 62 years later, justice prevailed, and the memory of him was restored. But, as it turned out, not all. Even with Khokholov, the list of "garrison" was incomplete. It is very significant that Pavlov's House was defended by fighters of nine nationalities of the USSR, I was especially impressed in the film "Legendary Redoubt" by the story of the Uzbek Turganov, who has survived to this day, who vowed to give birth to as many sons as his comrades died in the battle for Stalingrad, and performed it, and already the old fighter recalls the past days, surrounded by 78 grandchildren and granddaughters. "Lenin's national policy" adequately withstood the test of combat, and fighting brotherhood was forged in the trenches.

“The streets and squares of the city turned into an arena of bloody battles that did not subside until the end of the battle. The 42nd Regiment of the 13th Guards Rifle Division operated in the area of ​​the Ninth January Square. Intense fighting here continued for more than two months. Stone buildings - House of Sergeant J. f. Pavlova, the House of Lieutenant N. E. Zabolotny and Mill No. 4, turned by the guards into strongholds, were steadfastly held by them, despite the fierce attacks of the enemy.

"Pavlov's House" or, as it is popularly called, "The House of Soldier's Glory" is a brick building that dominated the surrounding area. From here it was possible to observe and fire at the part of the city occupied by the enemy to the west up to 1 km, and to the north and south even further. Having correctly assessed its tactical significance, the commander of the 42nd Guards Rifle Regiment, Colonel I.P. Yelin, ordered the commander of the 3rd Rifle Battalion, Captain A.E. Zhukov, to seize the house and turn it into a stronghold.

This task was carried out by the soldiers of the 7th rifle company, commanded by Senior Lieutenant I.P. Naumov. On September 20, 1942, Sergeant Ya. F. Pavlov entered the house with his squad, and then reinforcements arrived: a machine-gun platoon of Lieutenant I. F. Afanasyev (seven people with one heavy machine gun), a group of armor-piercers of senior sergeant A. A. Sabgaida (6 people with three anti-tank rifles), four mortars with two 50-mm mortars under the command of Lieutenant A. N. Chernushenko and three submachine gunners. I. F. Afanasyev was appointed commander of this group.

It is characteristic that this house was defended by representatives of many peoples of our country - the Russians Pavlov, Aleksandrov and Afanasiev, the Ukrainians Sabgaida and Glushchenko, the Georgians Mosiashvili and Stepanoshvili, the Uzbek Turganov, the Kazakh Murzaev, the Abkhaz Sukhba, the Tajik Turdyev, the Tatar Romazanov.

The building was destroyed by enemy aircraft and mortar fire. In order to avoid losses from rubble, on the instructions of the regiment commander, part of the firepower was moved outside the building. In the walls and windows, laid with bricks, loopholes were pierced, the presence of which made it possible to fire from different places. The house was adapted for all-round defense.

There was an observation post on the third floor of the building. When the Nazis tried to approach him, they were met by destructive machine-gun fire from all points. The garrison of the house interacted with the firepower of the strongholds in the Zabolotny house and in the mill building.

The Nazis subjected the house to crushing artillery and mortar fire, bombed it from the air, continuously attacked, but its defenders steadfastly repelled countless enemy attacks, inflicted losses on it and did not allow the Nazis to break through to the Volga in this area. “This small group,” notes V.I. Chuikov, “defending one house, destroyed more enemy soldiers than the Nazis lost when taking Paris.”

Vitaly Korovin from Volgograd writes on May 8, 2007:

“The next anniversary of the Victory of our country in the Great Patriotic War is approaching. Every year there are fewer and fewer veterans - living witnesses of that formidable and tragic era for all mankind. Some 10-15 years will pass and there will be no living bearers of the memory of the war - the Second World War will finally go down in history. And here we - the descendants - need to have time to find out the whole truth about those events, so that in the future there will be no various rumors and misunderstandings.

State archives are gradually being declassified, more and more we are gaining access to various documents, and therefore to dry facts that tell the truth and dispel the “fog” that hides some moments of the history of the Second World War.

In the Battle of Stalingrad, there were also episodes that caused various ambiguous assessments of historians, and even the veterans themselves. One of these episodes is the defense by Soviet soldiers of a dilapidated house in the center of Stalingrad, which became known to the whole world as "Pavlov's House".

It would seem that everything is clear, this episode of the Battle of Stalingrad is known to everyone. However, according to one of the oldest journalists in Volgograd, the famous poet and publicist Yuri Beledin, this house should not be called "Pavlov's House", but "The House of Soldiers' Glory". Here is what he writes about this in his recently published book "Shard in the Heart":

“... And he answered on behalf of I.P. Elina (commander of the 42nd regiment of the 13th division, - author's note) for the whole epic with the house ... battalion commander A.E. Zhukov. He ordered the commander, senior lieutenant I.I. Naumov, to send four scouts there, one of which was Ya.F. Pavlov. And for a day they scared away the Germans who realized themselves. The remaining 57 days for the defense of the house he was invariably responsible to A.E. Zhukov, who came there with a machine-gun platoon and a group of armor-piercers, Lieutenant I.F. Afanasiev. The killed and wounded during the battles, which Alexey Efimovich Zhukov personally told me about, were replaced regularly. In total, the garrison consisted of 29 people.

And in the picture taken in 1943 and included in several guidebooks, a fragment of the wall is captured, on which someone inscribed: “Here the guardsmen Ilya Voronov, Pavel Demchenko, Alexei Anikin, Pavel Dovzhenko fought heroically against the enemy.” And below - much larger: “This house was defended by Guards. Sergeant Yakov Fedorovich Pavlov. And - a huge exclamation mark ... Only five in total. Who in hot pursuit began to correct the story? Why was the purely technical designation "Pavlov's House" (as it was called for brevity on staff maps - author's note) immediately transferred to the category of personal categories? And why did Yakov Fedotovich himself, meeting with a brigade of Cherkasovkas who were restoring the house, not stop the doxology? The incense was already turning his head.”

In a word, in the end, of all the defenders of the Pavlov's House, who, as we see, were in equal conditions, only guard sergeant Yakov Pavlov received the star of the Hero of the USSR. In addition, in the overwhelming majority of literature describing this episode of the Battle of Stalingrad, we only come across such words: “Having captured one of the houses and improved its defense, a garrison of 24 people under the command of Sergeant Yakov Pavlov held it for 58 days and did not give it to the enemy ".

Yuri Mikhailovich Beledin fundamentally disagrees with this. In his book, he cites many facts - letters, interviews, memoirs, as well as a reprint version of the book of the garrison commander himself, who defended this house at 61 Penzenskaya Street, standing on the time) Ivan Filippovich Afanasiev. And all these facts indicate that the name "Pavlov's House" is not fair. And rightly, according to Beledin and, according to many veterans, the name "House of Soldiers' Glory."

But why were the other defenders of the house silent? No, they were not silent. And this is evidenced by the correspondence of fellow soldiers with Ivan Afanasyev presented in the book “A Shard in the Heart”. However, Yuri Beledin believes, most likely, some kind of "political conjuncture" did not allow changing the established ideas about the protection and the defenders of this Stalingrad house themselves. In addition, Ivan Afanasiev himself was a man of exceptional modesty and decency. He served in the Soviet army until 1951 and was dismissed for health reasons - due to injuries received during the war, he was almost completely blind. He had several front-line awards, including the medal "For the Defense of Stalingrad". Since 1958 he lived in Stalingrad. In his book "House of Soldier's Glory" (published 3 times, the last - in 1970), he described in detail all the days of his garrison's stay in the house. However, for censorship reasons, the book was still "corrected". In particular, under pressure from censorship, Afanasiev was forced to retell the words of Sergeant Pavlov that there were Germans in the house they occupied. Later, evidence was collected, including from civilians who were hiding in the basements of the house from the bombing, that before the arrival of four Soviet intelligence officers, one of whom was Yakov Pavlov, there were no enemies in the house. Also, fragments were cut out of Afanasiev's text, telling about two, as Afanasiev writes, "cowards plotting to desert." But on the whole, his book is a true story about those two difficult autumn months of 1942, when our soldiers heroically held the house. Among them, Yakov Pavlov fought and was wounded. No one has ever belittled his merits in protecting the house. But very selectively, the authorities favored the defenders of this legendary Stalingrad house - it was not only the house of the Guards Sergeant Pavlov, it was the house of many Soviet soldiers. It truly became the "House of Soldiers' Glory".

At the presentation of the book "A Shard in the Heart", Yuri Mikhailovich Beledin gave me one copy of it. Signing the book, he turned to me with the words: "colleague and, I hope, like-minded person." Like-minded? Frankly, at first I could not understand, why do you need to stir up the past and look for some kind of, as it seemed to me then, amorphous justice? After all, in our country, and even more so in Volgograd, the memory of the Great Patriotic War has always been treated with respect. We have erected many monuments, museums, memorials... But after reading "A Shard in the Heart", I realized that we need this truth, reasoned and documented. In the end, you can look at this question from this point of view: What if tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, some Varangian teachers come to us, as it was in the 90s of the last century, and start using this semi-secret historical fog , teach us that there was, in general, no Great Patriotic War, that we Russians were the same occupiers as the Germans, and that, in fact, Nazi Germany was defeated by the Americans and the British. There are already many examples of such an attitude to history in the world - take, for example, the legalized Estonian marches of former SS men, the scandalous transfer of the Bronze Soldier in Tallinn. And what about the world, and what about Europe, which also suffered from the Nazis? And for some reason everyone is silent.

So, in order to resist this to the end, we need solid facts and documents. It's time to put not dots, but solid points in the history of the Great Patriotic War.

Maxim (guest)
Yes, the truth about that war is needed like air. Otherwise, soon our children will think that the Americans won World War II.

Lobotomy
By the way, Western countries in the history of “Pavlov's house” are mentioned, and among numerous people around the world who are interested in the Battle of Stalingrad, this important episode is widely known. Even in the Call of Duty computer game there is a mission to defend Pavlov's House, it is already millions of players around the world have passed - both our children and American ones.

In 1948, the Stalingrad publishing house published a book by Pavlov himself, then already a junior lieutenant. It also did not mention all the defenders of the house. Only seven people are named by surname. However, Sukba is here too! In 1944, the war brought him to Western Belarus. What happened to him in those parts is not clear, but after a while his name was on the lists of Vlasov from the so-called ROA (Russian Liberation Army). According to the papers, it turns out that he did not participate directly in the battles against his own people, but carried out guard duty. But this was enough for the soldier's name to disappear from the history of the Battle of Stalingrad. Certainly impregnable, like "Pavlov's house", the archives keep a secret about how the hero of Stalingrad ended up "on the other side" of the front. Most likely, Alexei was captured. Perhaps, by enrolling in the ROA, he wanted to save a life. But at that time they did not stand on ceremony with such people. Here is the sniper Gorya Badmaevich Khokholov - an ethnic Kalmyk, so after the war, when the Kalmyks were deported for resisting the Stalinist regime, he was also deleted from the list of defenders of the Pavlov House. The official version also says nothing about a nurse and two local nurses who were among the defenders of the Pavlov House until the last day.

Here is another article about the Pavlov House and its underestimated heroes - it was written by Evgeny Platunov - "One of the 24" (November 25, 2008):

“66 years ago, on November 25, 1942, a native of the Altai Territory, an officer from the legendary house-symbol of the Stalingrad defense, Alexei Chernyshenko, died. The last time they wrote about him in detail was back in 1970. We invite readers of IA "Amitel" to familiarize themselves with the material prepared by the researcher of military history Evgeny Platunov.

In the Book of Memory of the Altai Territory (vol. 8, p. 892 Shipunovsky district, in the lists according to the Russian s / s) it is printed: “CHERNYSHENKO ALEXEY NIKIFOROVICH, b. 1923, Russian. Appeal 1941, ml. l-t. Killed in action on 11/25/1942 while defending Pavlov's House in Stalingrad. Funeral. brother. could. city ​​of Stalingrad. The last time about our fellow countryman, who died on this day 66 years ago, was written in detail in the journal Siberian Lights back in May 1970.

eyewitness account

Yuri Panchenko (author of the recently published book “163 Days on the Streets of Stalingrad”) spent the entire Battle of Stalingrad in the Central District of the city as a teenager, and therefore the story is told in the first person. As follows from the preface: “The book does not reproduce heroism, which was necessary then, but now rightly rethought, but a universal human tragedy, where there is no division of people into strangers and friends: into Germans, Austrians, Romanians, Croats and multinational Russians. Need, suffering, hunger, typhoid lice and mass death at the front equalized them before death, making everyone equal.

It is read with interest, although it will be perceived by readers ambiguously. For a brief introduction, I will give a short episode in which the author sets out his point of view on the history of the defense of the House of Sergeant Pavlov.

“November 25 / 1942 /. Second day of encirclement. It was midnight in impenetrable darkness. There is no sound on the dead street. Anxious uncertainty hammered us in the corners. There is no thought, no hope in my head. Tension twists the nerves. Shortness of breath grabs the heart. Nauseous from bitter saliva. God, send thunder on my head, a German shell, and a Russian soldier a stray mine! Anything you want, but not this graveyard silence.

I could not stand it and ran out of the house into the yard. A firework of colorful rockets provoked me to cross the intersection on Golubinskaya Street. Forty steps to the railway bridge. From here, straight as an arrow, Kommunisticheskaya Street rested with its end against 9th January Square. A weak, barely perceptible human cry, spilled out into the street by a draft from the boxes of burned-out buildings, brought someone else's animal pain to my ear. In this absurd sound of despair, it was impossible to single out individual words. "Hurrah" was not. Only the last vowel was heard: a! .. a! .. a! .. What is this? The victorious cry of the enemy or the last dying cry of hundreds of doomed throats of Naumov's company, who rose to storm the "dairy house"? (Now the garrison House of Officers).

For the first time in two months of the siege of the city, the company left the habitable basements of Pavlov's house, Zabolotny's house and Gerhardt's mill. On the 9th of January Square, breaking the darkness of the night, an illuminating rocket soared into the sky. Behind it, the second, third ... The multi-colored fireflies of the tracer bullets of German machine guns, hastily swallowing the tape, flogged Naumov's 7th company in the face with an angry patter.

Driven out to the square with the stereotypical phrase: "By all means", without a fire shield, the company was on the verge of death. Behind the walls of the ruins of the former people's court and post office, in shallow craters and right on the tram tracks, hiding their heads and forgetting about the place where their legs grow from, sticking their noses into the dirty pitted snow, the soldiers of Naumov's company lay down. Some forever, others, having briefly extended their lives, took refuge in a burnt-out box of the "dairy house" they had captured. So, the "dairy house" is taken. But this is only half the battle. The second half of the case - how to keep it?

The bitter sweat of war, with the pungent smell of a serous liquid on the soldiers' never-drying wounds, has not yet taught us sobriety. Once again, we continued to fight with manpower! Where it was necessary to lay a hundred shells and save a dozen soldiers, we lost a hundred soldiers, but saved a dozen shells. We did not know how to fight otherwise and could not. And drumming troubadours, hiding behind the worn-out stamp “at any cost”, lost the price of the main thing in combat orders - the price of human life. An example of this is the needlessly shed blood during the assault on the "dairy house".

Can I be objected that a hundred lives of soldiers are worth against the backdrop of a grandiose battle? It's like that. I do not presume to judge the past. War is war. The point is different. The idea of ​​a night sortie without preliminary suppression of the enemy's firepower, without artillery support, calculated only on chance, but on the soldier's stomach, is doomed to failure in advance.

On a bare square, like a rooster's knee, Naumov's company was met with machine guns, mortars and the fire of a gun installed in the window of the end of the first floor of house No. 50 on Kommunisticheskaya Street. This building was two hundred paces away from the attackers. In the rear of the "dairy house" (along the railway) there was a concrete wall with cut through rifle cells, and on the rise of Parkhomenko Street, a German tank dug into the ground kept under fire the entire 9th of January Square, Pavlov's house, Zabolotny's house and Gerhardt's mill.

The detailed defensive capabilities of the enemy were not invented by me. I know the man who saw all this with his own eyes. This is me.

And finally, the main thing that from the very beginning called into question the idea played out around the "dairy house". This house, built in haste during the years of Stalin's shock five-year plans, did not have a basement under it. In street battles, strong walls and deep basements were the main criteria for the defensive capability of the frontier. Thus, I repeat, the attacking Naumovites were obviously doomed.

In a cage made of crumbling limestone, shot through and through, the 7th company of Ivan Naumov did not die for a pinch of snuff. This page of the tragic fate of a handful of people, completely invisible against the backdrop of a grandiose battle, will close tomorrow.

By the middle of the day, nine people remained in the "dairy house", in the evening - four. At night, three completely exhausted people crawled into the basement of Pavlov's house: Sergeant Gridin, Corporal Romazanov and Private Murzaev. This is all that remains of the twenty-four people of the garrison of Pavlov's house. The rest of the entire company is slightly larger. The rest were killed and crippled, and the "dairy house" remained with the Germans.

So bitterly ended the last significant combat contact of the opponents on the area of ​​​​January 9th.

By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of June 27, 1945, Yakov Fedotovich Pavlov was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. When asked by journalists who represented Pavlov for heroism, the regiment commander, Colonel Yelin, replied: "I did not sign such a report."

It was a personal initiative of the former commander of the 62nd Army, V.I. Chuikov. And after 15 years, they remembered the surviving cripples of the garrison of Pavlov's house. Also awarded.

The combat merits of Sergeant Pavlov are no more than the merits of other fighters of the platoon of art. Lieutenant Afanasiev, who was responsible for the defense of the house. And the awarded award, like other participants in the battle on November 25, is a severe injury. In fact, according to existing front-line standards, the assault on the "dairy house" was an ordinary event in which Naumov's company failed to cope with the task. If so, then there can be no talk of awards. Only at the end of 1943, Pavlov was awarded a medal and a cash prize for a wrecked tank during the liberation of Krivoy Rog, and during the liberation of Poland in 1944, two orders of the Red Star. But these awards were awarded to him in another military unit, because after the wound received during the storming of the "dairy house", Sergeant Pavlov did not return to his unit.

The oblivion of this feat also lay in the hostility of the personal relations of the army commander Chuikov with the division commander Rodimtsev. In view of the fact that all printed and photographic information permitted by censorship came from the location of the 13th Guards. rifle division, then the commander of the division, Hero of the Soviet Union, General Rodimtsev aroused unhealthy jealousy of Chuikov’s army headquarters: “They gave all the glory of Stalingrad to Rodimtsev!”, “Rodimtsev is a general for newspapers, he did nothing!”

As a result, all the dogs were hanged on Rodimtsev. After the Stalingrad victory, the military council of the 62nd Army presented Rodimtsev to the Order of Suvorov, and then sent a telegram to the headquarters of the Don Front with the cancellation of the presentation. Thus, Rodimtsev, who withstood the brunt of street fighting for the city, became the only unit commander who did not receive a single award for Stalingrad. The humiliated and insulted general did not bend. The second time, as on the edge of the Volga at the Salt Quay, he survived and won. And after the war, the infallible Chuikov began to sing praises twice to Hero of the Soviet Union Rodimtsev. But these praises were for simpletons. Direct and firm Rodimtsev, offended in vain, never forgave his former commander.

They began to collect those killed on the 9th of January Square in February, and in March they buried them in a mass grave near Pavlov's house ... A little later, the grave hill was edged with an anchor chain with two fake fluffs at the entrance. The wealthy Union of Soviets did not find funds for more. A plate with the inscription: “To the heroes of Russia, the Stalingrad soldiers who gave their lives for the Fatherland, saved the world from fascist enslavement” was assigned to the zlotys of the impoverished Union of Polish Patriots in February 1946.

And now the worst. The grave was and continues to be faceless. It never had a single name, not a single surname of the deceased. It was as if in the pit near the remains of the decommissioned people there were no relatives, no relatives, no family, no children, no themselves. A soldier had a name only when he held a rifle in his hands, and let go of it - he became nothing. Time mixed the bones, and the ritual blasphemy with which the dead were buried deprived them of human memory. There were 187 mass graves in the city - and not a single name! This is not an oversight. This is a treacherous installation from above, where they decided that one grave of the Spaniard Ruben Ibarruri is enough for all the fallen defenders of Stalingrad. Apparently, the grief of Dolores Passionaria is not at all the tears of our own mothers.

It is necessary to pull out from the tenacious embrace of the mass grave the names of those for whom this square has become the last refuge:

Lieutenant V. Dovzhenko, commander of the 7th company;
- Art. Lieutenant Ivan Naumov, commander of the 7th company;
- Lieutenant Kubati Tukov, scout;
- ml. Lieutenant Nikolai Zabolotny, platoon commander;
- ml. Lieutenant Alexei Chernyshenko, platoon commander;
- Private I.Ya. Chaita;
- private Faizullin;
- Private A.A. Subguide;
- Private I.L. Shkuratov;
- Private P.D. Demchenko;
- Private Davydov;
- Private Karnaukhov;
- Art. Lieutenant N.P. Evgeniev;
- ml. lieutenant of Rostov;
- Lieutenant A.I. Ostapko;
- Sergeant Pronin;
- Private Savin.

On December 22, 1942, in Moscow, a medal was established: "For the Defense of Stalingrad." Thus, the military and political leadership of the Soviet army, not wanting to pay the last debt to their fallen soldiers in a purely human way, decided to pompously and cheaply pay off by hanging a bronze badge for Stalingrad on the chest of those who remained to live. The corpses of the Germans were burned at the dump of the Dog Slaughter, the remains of the townspeople were thrown into the orphaned trenches, and the dead Red Army soldiers were buried en masse in the mass pits. All! It is done".

After the end of the Great Patriotic War, the building was not restored.
And now it is located on the territory of the Stalingrad battle panorama museum.

The mill was built at the beginning of the 20th century, to be precise - in 1903 by the German Gerhardt. After the revolution of 1917, the building took the name of the Secretary of the Communist Party and became known as the Grudinin Mill. Until the beginning of the war, a steam mill functioned in the building. On September 14, 1942, the mill suffered significant losses: two high-explosive bombs completely broke through the roof of the mill, several people died. Some of the workers were evacuated from Stalingrad, while others remained to protect the exit to the river from the enemy.

02

It is worth noting that the old mill in Volgograd is as close as possible to the river - this fact forced the Soviet soldiers to defend the building to the last. Subsequently, when the German troops came close to the river, the mill was converted into a defense point of the 42nd Guards Rifle Regiment of the 13th Guards Rifle Division.

03

Having become an impregnable fortress for the enemy, the mill allowed the soldiers to recapture Pavlov's house.
The house is located across the street from the mill. Pavlov's house was restored after the war.
And at the end of the war, he looked like this.

05

I witness an ordinary four-story house in the central part of Volgograd.

06

Before the war, when Lenin Square was called the 9th of January Square, and Volgograd was Stalingrad, Pavlov's house was considered one of the most prestigious residential buildings in the city. Surrounded by the houses of Signalers and NKVD workers, Pavlov's house was located almost next to the Volga - an asphalt road was even laid from the building to the river. The inhabitants of Pavlov's house were representatives of professions that were prestigious at that time - specialists from industrial enterprises and party leaders.

During the Battle of Stalingrad, Pavlov's house became the subject of fierce fighting. In mid-September 1942, it was decided to turn Pavlov's house into a stronghold: the favorable location of the building made it possible to observe and fire at the territory of the city occupied by enemies 1 km to the west and more than 2 km to the north and south. Sergeant Pavlov, along with a group of soldiers, entrenched himself in the house - since then, Pavlov's house in Volgograd has taken his name. On the third day, reinforcements arrived at Pavlov's house, delivering weapons, ammunition and machine guns to the soldiers. The defense of the house was improved by mining the approaches to the building: that is why the German assault groups could not capture the building for a long time. A trench was dug between Pavlov's house in Stalingrad and the Mill building: from the basement of the house, the garrison kept in touch with the command located in the Mill.

For 58 days, 25 people repelled the fierce attacks of the Nazis, holding the enemy's resistance to the last. What were the losses of the Germans is still unknown. But Chuikov once noted that During the capture of Pavlov's house in Stalingrad, the German army suffered several times more losses than during the capture of Paris.

07

After the restoration of the house, a colonnade and a memorial plaque appeared on the end of the building, on which a soldier is depicted, who has become a collective image of the participants in the defense. The words are also inscribed on the board - "58 days in fire."

On the square in front of the museum stands military equipment. German and ours.

There is also an unrestored broken T-34 that took part in the battle.

After being hit by a German shell, he detonated the ammunition inside the tank. The explosion was monstrous. The thick armor was torn apart like an eggshell.

Monument to railway workers, which is a fragment of a military echelon.

Rocket launcher BM-13 on the platform.

16

Why did the Fritz call this battle the "rat war"? Why did the Nazis need this city? Blitzkrieg plans. Why was Pavlov's House so important? If they hadn't won, what would have happened...

The Battle of Stalingrad is the bloodiest battle in human history. During the defense of the city, about 2 million soldiers died.

The Fuhrer needed Stalingrad for 2 reasons:

Use Stalingrad to capture the oil of the Caucasus.

Humiliate Stalin by destroying the city that bears his name.

Any strategist, looking at the alignment of forces before the Battle of Stalingrad, predicted the death of the Red Army. But no victory!

This battle lasted 200 days and nights.

Stalin did not allow the evacuation of citizens - after all, this way the fighters would better protect the city.

The scariest there was a day on August 23 ... The Germans had 6 times more aircraft than the Soviet troops. The Wehrmacht hoped to destroy the city by bombarding it with high-explosive and incendiary bombs. And then - they thought - it remains only to occupy the burnt Stalingrad ...

Blitzkrieg! One powerful blow and the battle is over!

By the way, Turkey was going to attack the USSR from the south. In the event of a successful capture of Stalingrad.

On August 23, Soviet aircraft were destroyed. A massive blow from the Fritz swept through the city like an avalanche. The center of the city turned into ruins and ashes ... A colossal fire began. 40,000 civilians died that day...

The Nazis went on the offensive - to occupy the city. BUT! Russian arrows appeared from somewhere and hand-to-hand fighting ensued. Here the forces were approximately equal: the Germans could not use either aircraft or artillery! Street after street, house after house, the Soviet soldiers slowly retreated...

For the Germans began the fiercest battles throughout the war. They called them "Rattenkrieg" ("Rat War").

The battles were on the ground and underground: fighters dug tunnels and entire systems of underground tunnels. Every home or business there were basements!

The Germans said that the purpose of thisunderground war - get to the bottom of hell andsummon demons from there ... It was then that the Germans had STEEL HELMETS.

More than once it happened that these tunnels were buried alive ... Houses with strong walls that could withstand artillery attacks turned into fortresses.

Stalingrad is a city located on the western bank of the Volga. Pavlov's house and Gerhardt's mill were HIGH, review which was about a kilometer! After the houses there was a steep descent to the Volga. If the houses had been occupied by the Fritz, the Soviet troops would then have been very, very sad: thousands of soldiers would have died storming the height ...

The defense of Pavlov's house went on 58 days. The Germans carried out heavy attacks - sometimes up to several attacks per day!!! Several times they occupied the 1st floor... But the Soviet soldiers fiercely held the line. A trench was dug from the house, through which the fighters received food and ammunition.

Where does the name of the house come from?

Yakov Pavlov led the reconnaissance group (3 fighters). They knocked out several Fritz from a 4-storey building and found that the house had been defended by our residents for two days! Civilians lived in the basement of the house. 3 days kept the defense of the Pavlov house, its fighters and residents !!! Then a machine-gun platoon of the Guard Lieutenant Ivan Afanasyev arrived in time (24 fighters).

Afanasyev built the defense very competently - only three fighters died in 58 days.

58 days... On German military maps, the house was listed as "fortress". Sergeant Pavlov received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, and Lieutenant Afanasiev - the highest military award of the USSR - the Order of the Red Banner.

The main citadels of the battle of Stalingrad were its large factories - tractor, "Red October", "Barricades" - battles were in full swing in their numerous workshops for a long time.

On November 19, the Soviet Union launched a counteroffensive and on November 23 the encirclement ring was closed. The USSR did the unthinkable: in a short period, about a million people joined the ranks of the Red Army! These were not just "newcomers" - they were already trained, and the weapons were - not like in the first months of the war. It was they who decided the outcome of the battle: about 230 thousand soldiers of the Nazi coalition were surrounded.

Paulus asked for a retreat. Hitler refused. There was no supply. The Soviet air defense thwarted all Goering's plans to supply the encircled troops. The Russian winter has begun... Frostbitten, hungry, doomed soldiers of the Wehrmacht fought furiously to the last...

Von Paulus did not follow the Fuhrer's order to "shoot himself", but surrendered.

Of the 110,000 soldiers taken prisoner in Soviet labor camps, about 5,500 survived and returned to Germany.

The Battle of Stalingrad is a victory over the troops of Germany, Italy, Romania, Hungary and Croatia.

The hardest victory ... It changed the course of history: Turkey refused to attack the USSR, Japan also canceled the "Siberian" campaign.

If not for the courage of the Soviet soldiers and the inhabitants of Stalingrad ... the USSR ... 2 more fronts ...

Eternal glory to you, defenders of Stalingrad!

Pavlov's house became one of the historical objects of the Battle of Stalingrad, which still causes controversy among modern historians.

During fierce fighting, the house withstood a considerable number of counterattacks from the Germans. For 58 days, a group of Soviet soldiers bravely held the line, destroying more than a thousand enemy soldiers during this period. In the post-war years, historians carefully tried to restore all the details, and the composition of the commanders who carried out the operation led to the first disagreements.

Who was on the defensive

According to the official version, Ya.F. Pavlov, in principle, is associated with this fact and the name of the house, which he received later. But there is another version, according to which Pavlov led the assault directly, and I.F. Afanasyev was then responsible for the defense. And this fact is confirmed by military reports, which became a source for restoring all the events of that period. According to his soldiers, Ivan Afanasyevich was a rather modest person, perhaps this pushed him a little into the background. After the war, Pavlov was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. In contrast, Afanasiev was not awarded such an award.

The strategic importance of the house

An interesting fact for historians was that the Germans marked this house on the map as a fortress. And indeed the strategic importance of the house was very important - from here a wide view of the territory was opened, from where the Germans could break through to the Volga. Despite the daily attacks from the enemy, our fighters defended their positions, reliably closing the approaches from the enemies. The Germans who took part in the assault could not understand how the people in Pavlov's house could withstand their attacks without food and ammunition reinforcements. Subsequently, it turned out that all provisions and weapons were delivered through a special trench dug underground.

Is Tolik Kuryshov a fictional character or a hero?

Also, a little-known fact that was discovered in the course of research was the heroism of an 11-year-old boy who fought along with the Pavlovians. Tolik Kuryshov helped the soldiers in every possible way, who, in turn, tried to protect him from danger. Despite the commander's ban, Tolik still managed to accomplish a real feat. Having penetrated into one of the neighboring houses, he was able to get documents important for the army - a plan of capture. After the war, Kuryshov did not advertise his feat in any way. We learned about this event from the surviving documents. After a series of investigations, Anatoly Kuryshov was awarded the Order of the Red Star.

Where were the civilians?

Was there an evacuation or not - this issue also caused a lot of controversy. According to one version, civilians were in the basement of the Pavlovsk house for 58 days. Although there is a thorium that people were evacuated through dug trenches. Yet modern historians adhere to the official version. Many documents testify that people really were in the basement all this time. Thanks to the heroism of our soldiers, none of the civilians suffered during these 58 days.

Today, Pavlov's house has been completely restored and immortalized with a memorial wall. On the basis of the events associated with the heroic defense of the legendary house, books have been written and even a film has been made that has won many world awards.