Zelenograd.ru continues to remember history day after day. The battles took place in the places where modern Zelenograd grew decades later.
How did ordinary people, residents of Kryukovo and its environs - families in which men went to the front, children who are now 80-90 years old - survive this time? What was December 2, 1941 like for them?
Soldiers in camouflage suits go on the attack to a village near Moscow occupied by Nazi troops.
Vladimir Rumyantsev: “The Germans ruled the village of Kamenka for eight days”
Vladimir Aleksandrovich Rumyantsev, as a teenager, survived the period of the German occupation of the village of Kamenka near Kryukovo, which German troops occupied on December 1. In his memoirs “Fighting in Kamenka. The view of a teenager" (from the book by A.N. Vasilyeva "Countrymen", a collection of memories of residents of Kryukovo and surrounding villages) he says:
“The front was getting closer every day. […] Our family moved to a bomb shelter dug into the mountain on our property. Nine people sat on the bunks and warmed themselves with an iron stove, which was heated around the clock. They melted snow on it to get water for a newborn sister who was born amid the roar of cannonade in “Rukavishka” - that’s what everyone called our hospital [after K.V. Rukavishnikov, who built it near Kryukovo at the end of the 19th century, now it is the Moscow Regional Hospital for war veterans].
Sappers were stationed in our house. They mined the railway. They came in the evening tired and hungry. Mom cooked potatoes for them and gave them tea. There were six of them. One day only four came. From their conversations, we understood that two of them were blown up by their mines when German planes began to bomb them.
The population was given flour and kerosene using ration cards. Flour helped us out a lot later. For eight days, while the Germans ruled the village of Kamenka, we baked unleavened cakes on the stove, washing them down with boiling water from melted snow.
On the evening of November 30, green figures of Germans appeared at the edge of the forest. He fired up a machine gun from the Kamensk hill, and they quickly disappeared into the forest. Obviously this was reconnaissance. My grandmother's big house was occupied by militias. They were in civilian clothes, workers from Moscow factories, all of a respectable age. Grandmother set up the samovar, my brother and I helped her as best we could. I remember how one of the militia said: “Here, mother, defend Moscow, they gave us a dagger and a rifle for both of us.”
Soviet officers at dinner in a village near Moscow, winter 1941-1942.
We went into the dugout, and at night there was shooting. On the morning of December 1, the Germans were in charge of Kamenka. Engines hummed in the yard. The German field headquarters was located in my grandmother's house. Our small house was destroyed by a direct hit from a mine. For seven days and nights we sat endlessly in the dugout - nine people, my brother and I - boys and my nine-day old cousin, the dog Alma - under the bunks. At night, our door to the dugout was fired at from a machine gun by a German sentry guarding a field telephone cable in a ravine. The iron stove and saucepan that stood at the corner near the door were pierced by bullets.
On the morning of December 8, there was heavy shooting. When the shooting died down a little, we got out of the dugout. The first thing we saw were our soldiers in white sheepskin coats, with machine guns in their hands, running towards Andreevka. One of our people asked a passing Red Army soldier: “Can the Germans return?” He replied: “They can.” “What should we do?” He said: “Go away,” and ran further, catching up with his people.
Villagers emerged from the cellars and dugouts, from whom we learned that the Germans had shot Lesha Razbitsky for running from house to house, that they had shot the collective farm chairman Yaroslavtsev on a denunciation, and had executed my uncle’s friend Grisha Gorchakov under the bridge. He had a medal "For courage" in the Finnish war. He was a tanker, and we boys looked at him as a real hero.
German clearing of a village, 1941
They said that in Kamenka there was a White Finnish battalion that fought on the side of Germany. Everyone was betrayed by a “German” - a German language teacher who lived in an apartment in our village with a huge German shepherd. No one really knows when and where it came from.
Grandmother's house was blown up, ours was destroyed by a mine - the adults decided to leave the village. The gathering was led by my grandmother. They made a sled out of my skis, loaded it with a bag of flour and some linen suitable for diapering my newborn sister. Under fire, we left the village and walked across a snow-covered field towards the village of Kutuzovo.
On the field we saw the corpses of our soldiers already covered with snow - the result of a morning head-on attack on the village of Kamenka. While climbing the Kutuzovsky hill, we came under artillery fire, fell into the snow, and the tops of pine trees fell on top of us. Then we walked for a long time along the road towards Firsanovka. I don’t remember the name of the village where we ended up at the military unit. We were placed in a hut, warmed, and fed buckwheat porridge. We boys were given a lump of sugar. Then the commissar gathered the adults and, using their words, wrote an act on the atrocities of the Nazis in the village of Kamenka, which was signed by members of our family - the Toloknovs, Pavlovs, Rumyantsevs. The act was published in central newspapers and broadcast on the radio.[…]
A Soviet soldier next to a destroyed German Pz.Kpfw.III tank in the village of Kamenka, January 1942
FROM THE ARCHIVE OF THE ZELENOGRAD MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND LOCAL LORD / WARALBUM.RU
Then we were loaded onto a car and taken to Khimki, from where we took a train to Moscow. An evacuation point was organized at the Leningradsky station, where we were given directions to the Tomilino station and settled in an empty house, in which we lived until the end of February 1942.
On the twentieth of February we returned to our native village. Our neighbors, the Tarasovs, sheltered us in their surviving house, where we lived for several months as one big family. On the streets of the village of Kryukovo and the village of Kamenka there were cars and tanks abandoned by the Germans.
In Kamenka, in the clearing behind the fire shed, where we played football before the war, the corpses of our soldiers lay in stacks covered with a tarpaulin. There was no way to bury them due to severe frosts; only in the spring they were put in a large hole in a burnt collective farm vegetable storehouse and covered with earth.
This is how a mass grave was formed, over which now stands a monument to the defenders of Moscow. Then the corpses of our soldiers found in the forest and ravines were buried there.
Now, when I come to a mass grave and, having wiped off the dust from the memorial plaque, re-read the 35 names engraved on the marble slab, I involuntarily remember those distant days. I remember how these names were read, removing pieces of paper from the black boxes of soldiers’ medallions. Only 35 families received sad news. The rest (and there are ten times more of them) were buried as unknown...
On December 1, 2 and 3, troops of the 16th Army fought with the main group of German troops advancing along the Leningrad and Volokolamsk highways. The German strike groups were concentrated, including in the area of Lyalovo, Alabushevo, Kryukovo, Bakeevo - the 5th, 11th tank and 35th infantry divisions.
“During December 2 and 3, the enemy, through extreme exertion of forces and means, managed to capture Kryukov, where fighting took place in the streets. But in other sectors of the front, all the enemy’s attempts to break through the position of our units ended in failure, and he suffered heavy losses,” Marshal Shaposhnikov wrote in a 1943 study.
After the Germans captured Kamenka on December 1, the regiments of the Panfilov division and the 44th cavalry division occupied the defense line of the village of Krasny Oktyabr and the Vodokachka pond (now School Lake) - Kryukovo station, Skripitsyno - the Kryukovka river (between Kamenka and Kutuzov), as Zelenograd historian Igor writes Bystrov. Dovator's 2nd Guards Cavalry Corps was transferred to the reserve of the 16th Army and was located in the Elino-Nazaryevo-Dzhunkovka area.
On December 2, the enemy furiously attacked Panfilov’s positions, trying to capture Kryukovo and bringing into the battle fresh reserves of infantry and dozens of tanks from Aleksandrovka and Andreevka, with air support. At 13:15, a group of 18-20 aircraft bombed the positions of the 1075th regiment, and it began to retreat, losing up to 50% of the soldiers in the battalions. Two battalions were surrounded.
“In the village of Kryukovo, the regiment […] wages bloody battles continuously for 6 days, three times the companies are surrounded by the enemy in stone buildings, more than once a tank landing rushes against the enemy...”, later wrote the commander of the 1073rd regiment, Baurdzhan Momysh-uly, about events 2, 3 and 5 December.
The correspondence between the formation commanders was preserved in the Central Archives of the Ministry of Defense - it was written on pieces of paper from a school notebook:
- “Comrade. Katukov. I urgently ask you to support 1075 SP with your reserve. The enemy is pushing him hard in the direction of Andreevka. Major General Revyakin."
- “Major General Revyakin. I move three tanks from Kutuzovo into the grove to the east. Malino to repel tanks from Kryukovo. The enemy launched an attack on my left flank in the Ladushkino area, and directed his entire reserve there. Major General Katukov. 2.12.41 13.50.”
Commander of the 4th (1st Guards) Tank Brigade, Major General of Tank Forces Mikhail Efimovich Katukov (far left in the foreground) at the observation post
Alekseev’s 354th Rifle Division fought for Matushkino, Savelki and Bolshiye Rzhavki - it arrived at the Skhodnya station on the night of November 30 from reserve and immediately came under bombardment by enemy aircraft, which kept the railway under control. Rokossovsky, to whom Alekseev reported his arrival, was glad to see the new addition. However, it turned out that the division arrived in summer uniforms and was very weakly armed: for more than 9,200 people there were only about 400 rifles, 19 machine guns and 30 cannons. Felt boots and warm underwear arrived in the division only on December 7th. Between December 1 and 6, it lost more than 1,100 people, including from frostbite.
The Kryukovo district occupies the southern part of the Zelenograd administrative district of Moscow. The municipality occupies an area of 10.5 square meters. km, and the number of permanent residents here exceeds 90 thousand people.
History of Kryukovo
Modern Kryukovo is located on the lands where the villages of Kryukovo and Staroe Kryukovo were previously located. For the first time, information about settlement in these places appeared in archival chronicles of the 16th century. It is still not known for certain why the name of the village was Kryukovo. Historians put forward many versions, but the most popular of them is the one that says that these lands belonged to the boyar brothers Ivan and Boris Kryuk, from whose names the modern name comes.
There is very little accurate information left in historical chronicles about how the village developed. It is only known that local residents were forced to move several times, since as a result of military operations and natural disasters, the village was completely destroyed. Nevertheless, despite all the disasters, the village was reborn again.
The main activity for local residents was trading in agricultural products. Considering that the territory of Kryukovo is located along the highway that connects Moscow with Tver, local goods enjoyed great success.
The development of the settlement was influenced by several factors. Thus, in 1851, a railway station appeared in Kryukovo, around which infrastructure quickly began to develop. Gradually the small village grew, and already in 1938 it began to be called a workers’ village.
Development of the village and its contribution to Russian history
The events of the Second World War brought real glory to Kryukovo. In December 1941, the Nazis occupied the workers' village and came very close to the capital. In order to defend Moscow and prevent the German invaders from occupying the suburbs of the capital, the command sent riflemen under the leadership of I.V. to defend Kryukovo. Panfilova. With incredible efforts and heroism, the military was able to recapture the village from the enemy and threw the conquerors back beyond the borders of Kryukovo. This battle became one of the most important, and it was the victory at Kryukovo that made it possible for Russian troops to prepare a bridgehead for the defense of the capital.
The post-war era was very difficult. During the fighting, the village was completely wiped off the face of the earth, and local residents had to rebuild it again. Around the same time, near Kryukovo, neighboring villages began to rise from the ashes, including Kamenka, Aleksandrovka and Mikhailovka.
Since the 60s, active construction of multi-storey buildings began in the village. At that time, the country's leadership planned to create several satellite cities of Moscow. In just a few years, Kryukovo has grown to a significant size.
At the end of 1987, the Soviet leadership decided to transfer the territory of Kryukovo and surrounding villages to the control of the city of Zelenograd, which by that time was already a district district of Moscow. This is exactly how the Kryukovo municipal district was formed, which united the territories of former villages.
The history of these places is reflected in the modern names of the district's microdistricts:
- microdistrict Kryukovo, located on the territory of a former village;
- Alexandrovka microdistrict, which is located on the lands of the village of the same name;
- Malino industrial zone, also based on the territory of the settlement of the same name.
History of the village of Kryukovo is of great importance for the entire history of Moscow. It was these places that repeatedly repelled aggressors and conquerors. And it is precisely by this that the modern district of Kryukovo has earned its right to worthily enter a milestone in the history of our country.
Zelenograd land is a place of fighting
autumn - winter 1941
Zelenograd is the only administrative district of Moscow through which the front line passed - the last line of defense of the capital.
Our land preserves the memory of the past. To this day, lines of fortifications are visible in the surrounding forests - trenches, dugouts, and observation post sites. I can’t even believe that many years ago it was here that the fate of not only Moscow, but also our entire vast Motherland was decided.
Thousands of people donated their money to the defense fund, signed up for a loan, and became donors.
The residents of our region, like all Soviet people, were bringing victory closer.
Monuments to the military glory of Zelenograd
The hard winter of the year is over. Local residents buried Soviet soldiers whose lives were cut short during the brutal battles of 1941. They buried them where they were found: in the forest, on the outskirts outside the village, at the end of the field. It was especially hard for the residents of the villages: Matushkino, Rzhavki, as well as Kamenka. They collected soldiers who had melted from under the snow and found “death medallions.” This is how many mass graves arose; modest pyramids were installed on them - a symbol of the soldier’s eternal rest. There is such a burial place on the territory of the tenth microdistrict. This collective grave consists of the remains of 17 Soviet soldiers, one of them is an officer. The monument was opened in December 1981. There is also a single burial on the territory of our 11th microdistrict. The burial was carried out by residents of the village of Kryukovo in December 1941. The grave is unmarked. The students of our school watch over her and lay flowers on holidays. At the same time, a mass grave appeared on the station square of Kryukovo station. In 1947, a sculptural image of a warrior with a lowered machine gun and a memorial granite plaque with 38 names were installed on it.
In 1954 and 1958, government decrees appeared on the reburials of Soviet soldiers and bringing mass graves closer to more accessible places - to populated areas and roads. Obviously, at this time mass graves appeared in Aleksandrovka, near the pioneer camp “Sputnik” (Medvedki) and 40 km. Leningradskoe highway. In 1953, the remains of soldiers were brought from mass graves in the vicinity of the village of Matushkino, 40 km of the Leningrad highway. This place was not chosen by chance. During the war, there was a well-equipped anti-aircraft installation site on this site. This place was deepened and it became the last refuge for soldiers. The Matushkinites remember that on the pyramid there was a list of buried soldiers. This is how this modest soldier’s obelisk existed until the construction of a grandiose monument began. In 1966, for the construction of the monument “Tomb of the Unknown Soldier” at the Kremlin wall in the Alexander Garden, 40 km. The ashes of one of the heroes who died in the harsh days of December 1941 on the outskirts of the heart of the Motherland were taken from the Leningrad Highway. The Izvestia newspaper wrote: “... he was fought for the Fatherland, for his native Moscow. That's all we know about him." The Marshal of the Soviet Union, as the commander of the 16th Army, in which the Unknown Soldier served, said: “This tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the ancient walls of the Moscow Kremlin will become a monument to eternal glory to the heroes who died on the battlefield for their native Soviet land, here from now on rests the ashes of one of those , who obscured Moscow with his chest.”
A few months later - on May 8, 1967 - on the eve of Victory Day, the opening of the monument “Tomb of the Unknown Soldier” took place and the Eternal Flame was lit. Years pass, generations change, and many still do not know that it was from here, from our land, that the ashes of the Unknown Soldier were taken.
On June 24, 1974, at the 40th kilometer of the Leningradskoye Highway, at the entrance to Zelenograd, a monument was unveiled - a monument to the defenders of Moscow. In Slavic traditions, a 16-meter hill was raised, and a mass grave (more than 760 Soviet soldiers) is located under a bronze wreath. Three pointed ledges stood as a symbolic barrier towards Moscow. On one of the ledges there is a symbolic image of a warrior-liberator, on the other there is a symbol of soldier’s valor - an asterisk and on the third the words: “1941. Here the defenders of Moscow, who died for their Motherland, remained immortal forever.” On the very hill of the triangular bayonet there are three closed edges. This is a symbolic image of the main types of troops: infantry, artillery, tank crews. Or maybe this is a symbol of three neighboring armies: the 16th, 20th and 1st Shock? In any case, it is a symbol of unity; the unity of all those who joined forces to repel the enemy.
One of the last monuments to appear on Zelenograd land is the “Soldier’s Stars” monument at the entrance to the city cemetery. In 1978, while laying a sewer in the eighth microdistrict, the remains of two Soviet soldiers were found and were reburied in the city cemetery. Considering that during the development of the city territory, more remains of the defenders of Moscow in 1941 could be found, it was decided to create a memorial complex at the city cemetery. A citywide competition was announced to create a monument. He became the winner and author of the project.
Zelenograd land is an eternal feat of those who defended Moscow. The memory of them lives in scarlet carnations on the graves of soldiers, sparkling fireworks and in poems dedicated to their hometown:
“There were battles here in '41,
Our fellow countrymen fought.
Fascist tanks evil muzzles
We ran into Russian bayonets.
And Rokossovsky's alarm
The soldier rose to the right fight.
Now on the outskirts of Moscow
The bayonets are granite."
Conclusion
The first sparks of Victory in the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany sparkled in the battle of Moscow in December 1941. Then the Red Army launched a counter-offensive and defeated the fascist units rushing to the capital of our Motherland, Moscow.
The Battle of Moscow is a “great battle,” - this is how Marshal of the Soviet Union Zhukov defined its significance. And indeed, in importance it was not surpassed by any battles or battles.
The most difficult defensive period lasted more than two months, during which the whole country gave all its strength to prevent the enemy from approaching Moscow.
Large forces of our army from Siberia, Central Asia and other regions of the country were sent to defend the capital. Muscovites took an active part in organizing the defense of their hometown. Georgy Zhukov, then commander of the Western Front, which was in charge of the defense of Moscow, wrote that hundreds of thousands of Muscovites worked around the clock to build defensive lines surrounding the capital. In October and November alone, up to 250 thousand people worked in the internal defense belt, three quarters of whom were women and teenagers. They built 72 thousand linear meters of anti-tank ditches, about 80 thousand meters of scarps and counter-scarps, and dug almost 128 thousand linear meters of trenches and communication passages. With their own hands, these people removed more than 3 million cubic meters of earth!
The situation around the capital in October-November was extremely difficult and dangerous. In such critical days of the defense of Moscow, on November 7, a traditional military parade took place on Red Square. Participants in the parade - soldiers of the Red Army, with weapons in their hands, headed straight from Red Square to the front.
In bloody battles with a technically equipped and dangerous enemy who was trying to break through to Moscow at any cost, our soldiers stopped the enemy’s advance, exhausted his forces, and on December 5-7, 1941 launched a counteroffensive. In December 1941 and early January 1942, they pushed back the fascist troops 100-250 kilometers. The offensive ended on April 20, 1942. As a result, the enemy lost more than 500 thousand people, 1,300 tanks, 2,500 thousand guns, and more than 15 thousand vehicles.
The victory near Moscow had enormous international significance. It improved the military-political position of the Soviet Union. This was our first major victory, which made a turning point in the entire war. The Battle of Moscow dispelled the myth of the invincibility of Hitler's troops. This was the first major defeat of the Nazi forces in World War II since 1939.
Marshal Zhukov, who throughout the war was Deputy Supreme Commander-in-Chief and signed the act of unconditional surrender of Germany, said: “When they ask me what I remember most from the last war, I always answer: the battle for Moscow.”
1941 turned out to be the year of greatest trials for our people. It was this year, especially in the battle of Moscow, that his spiritual strength and greatness were revealed. The people, as in 1812, turned out to be the bearer and exponent of that simplicity and greatness of spirit, which Goering said after the war, that German strategists were able to calculate everything - both tanks and planes - but did not take into account the most important thing - the spirit of the Russian people, which turned war in the Patriotic, people's war. This war became a liberation and holy war, as the people defended their Fatherland from the enemy - the aggressor, who by this time had captured almost all of Europe. The Battle of Moscow became a moral Victory for the Soviet troops.
More than a hundred years ago, while still a young man, Alexander Pushkin in his memoirs in Tsarskoe Selo, mentioning the defeat of Napoleon in the Patriotic War of 1812, wrote:
Be comforted, mother of Russian cities,
Look at the death of the stranger...
Look: they are running, they don’t dare to look up,
Their blood never stops flowing like rivers in the snow...
These same words can be dedicated to the battles for Moscow in the years.
Bodrova Anna, GOU Secondary School No. 000, Zelenograd
The exhibition dedicated to the events of the Great Patriotic War at the Zelenograd Museum begins with a large model of the village of Matushkino and its environs. It was made by a native and creator of the museum of this village. At the time of the fighting on the last line of defense of the capital, he was almost nine years old. Boris Vasilyevich worked on this layout for three years.
It clearly shows the Leningradskoye Shosse (horizontal stripe at the top) and the current Panfilovsky Prospekt (almost a vertical stripe closer to the right edge on the right), which was then called Kryukovskoye Shosse. It was along the Kryukovskoe Highway at the turn of November-December 1941 that the front line passed in this section of the defense of Moscow. To the right were the Soviet troops, to the left were the German ones. The road itself was mined by the Red Army during their retreat.
By December 1941, the village of Matushkino consisted of 72 houses. Its only street ran from what is now Panfilovsky Prospekt (approximately from the Beryozka stop) to the territory of the modern automobile plant and the Component plant. A little further south there was a so-called settlement of 11 houses, which was completely destroyed during the fighting and occupation. Many houses were damaged in the village of Matushkino itself. In place of the destroyed huts, Boris Larin depicted their skeletons on his model. In general, even such small details as the location of craters formed after the bombing of a village, or individual units of military equipment, are not accidental on the model. For example, on the outskirts of the village you can see a powerful cannon that the Germans were preparing to shell the capital, and on the Kryukovskoe highway (approximately in the area of the modern military registration and enlistment office) - a Soviet tank, which miraculously broke into the village of Matushkino and shot this cannon, and then exploded on a mine. Another of our tanks is “hidden” in a shelter behind the current Bayonet memorial. This is also no coincidence - there was a major tank battle in this area, which you will probably be told about on a tour in the museum.
The village of Matushkino, like the village at the Kryukovo station, was occupied by the Germans on November 30. A German tank column, accompanied by machine gunners, approached the village from Alabushevo, since the invaders were unable to break through along the Leningradskoye Highway a few days earlier. By that time, our troops were no longer in the village.
The Germans basically drove the local residents out of their warm houses into basements and dugouts, which they had begun to dig in advance at the end of summer - beginning of autumn. There the mothers lived in very difficult conditions and spent several days waiting for the liberation of the village. As Boris Larin recalled, they extracted water from ice, which they crushed on nearby ponds, getting out of their shelter at night. The Larin family house did not survive the occupation. Boris Vasilyevich preserved his memory of him in this model of the hut.
The counteroffensive of Soviet troops near Moscow began on December 5, and the official date for the liberation of Matushkino is the 8th. After the liberation, local residents were tasked with restoring the economy and burying the dead soldiers. On the model of the village you can see in its center a pyramid on the mass grave of Red Army soldiers. Soldiers were also buried in the area of the current Bayonet memorial. The choice of this place was largely due to practical considerations - after the battles, a convenient crater remained there next to the anti-aircraft gun position. In 1953, a decree was issued to enlarge the burials, and the remains of soldiers from the village of Matushkino were also transferred to the grave at the 40th kilometer of the Leningradskoye Highway. At the same time, the first full-fledged monument was unveiled here. In 1966, it was from here that the ashes of the Unknown Soldier were taken, who were in the Alexander Garden near the walls of the Kremlin. And in 1974, the Bayonet monument was opened on this site.
By the way, even during the period of occupation, a burial place for dead German soldiers was arranged in the village of Matushkino - crosses over their graves can also be found on the model of Boris Larin. But soon after the liberation, the remains of the Germans were dug up and buried again in the forest - away from human eyes.
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The last line of defense passed through the territory of modern Zelenograd and its environs along the Lyalovo-Matushkino-Kryukovo-Kamenka-Barantsevo line. Behind the Leningradskoye Highway the defense was held by the 7th Guards Rifle Division. From the Leningradskoye Highway to the Red October state farm (the territory of the current 11th and 12th microdistricts) - the 354th Infantry Division. It is in honor of its commander, general (at the time of the fighting in the area of modern Zelenograd - colonel) Dmitry Fedorovich Alekseev, one of the avenues of our city. Kryukovo station and its surroundings were defended by the 8th Guards Rifle Division named after Panfilov. The legendary Ivan Vasilyevich Panfilov himself did not reach our lands - a few days before in the village of Gusenevo, Volokolamsk region. South of Kryukovo stood the 1st Guards Tank Brigade and the 2nd Guards Cavalry Corps (in the area of Malino and Kryukovo) and the 9th Guards Rifle Division (in the area of Barantsevo, Bakeevo and the Obshchestvennik state farm). All these units were part of the 16th Army under the command of Konstantin Rokossovsky. The army headquarters was literally in the village of Kryukovo for several hours, and then was moved first to Lyalovo, and then to Skhodnya.
By the beginning of winter 1941, the situation at the front was critical. On December 2, Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Germany's minister of public education and propaganda, asked German newspapers to leave room for a sensational report about the capture of Moscow. The German press in those days reported that Moscow was already visible through field binoculars. For Wehrmacht officers, sabers with gilded hilts were made, with which they had to march in the parade along Red Square. One of these sabers is on display at the Zelenograd Museum.
Here you can also see samples of German weapons found in our area. Mostly all these exhibits were brought by local residents. The Zelenograd Museum owes the appearance of a significant part of the exhibits to the search team led by Andrei Komkov, who actively worked in our area in the first half of the 90s. The searchers had to not only dig out the skeleton of a German MG34 machine gun (the largest object in the center of the stand), but also straighten it. At the time of discovery, it was bent at almost 90 degrees. Ammunition found in our area is still brought to the museum to this day. They say that during the construction of the interchange at “Bayonets” with the question “Do you have this?” they came almost every day.
This photo shows a German helmet, boxes for powder charges, an engineer's shovel and a gas mask case that every German soldier had.
The Soviet army was significantly inferior to the German in the quality of weapons. Suffice it to say that the most common weapon in our troops was the Mosin rifle, which had been in service since 1891 - since the time of Alexander III.
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The Germans were superior to us not only in weapons, but also in personal equipment. Of course, mostly officers could boast of cameras and shaving accessories, but the equipment of German soldiers also included, for example, a small pencil case with an antiseptic that disinfected water. In addition, pay attention to the metal medallions, which even now, 70 years after the war, allow us to identify the newly discovered remains of German soldiers. For Soviet soldiers, as you know, the role of a medallion was played by a pencil case, in which they put (and sometimes, out of superstition, did not put) a piece of paper with a name. Such a pencil case, by the way, can also be seen in the Zelenograd Museum.
Iron Cross Class II is a German award from World War II.
Field medical bag of a German paramedic with a set of surgical instruments, dressings and medicines.
The adjacent display case displays items from German military life, including dishes. They say that such dishes could be seen among local residents for a long time after the war - when retreating, the Germans abandoned their property. And every self-respecting family had a German canister.
However, no matter how well the Germans were equipped, the hope for a quick end to the war played a cruel joke on them - they turned out to be not very ready to fight in winter conditions. The overcoat presented in the window, of course, cannot be touched with your hands, but it is clear that it is not designed for the Russian cold. And December 41 turned out to be cold - on the day the Soviet counteroffensive began, the temperature dropped below 20 degrees.
In the same part of the hall you can see a fragment of the interior of a village house of that time: a Viennese chair that was fashionable in those years, a bookcase with books and a bust of Lenin, and a loudspeaker on the wall. The same “plate” - only larger and with a bell - hung at the Kryukovo station. Local residents gathered at her place to listen to Sovinformburo reports on the situation at the fronts.
The hall, which houses the military exhibition of the Zelenograd Museum, created for the 50th anniversary of the Victory in 1995, is divided into two parts by a red carpet running diagonally. This is both a symbol of the last line of defense of Moscow and the beginning of the path to distant Victory. Next to the symbolic Eternal Flame are sculptural portraits of the commanders who led the defense of the capital: the commander of the 16th Army, Konstantin Rokossovsky, and the commander of the Western Front (which included the 16th Army).
The bust of Rokossovsky is a preliminary design for the monument that has stood in the park of the 40th anniversary of the Victory since 2003. Its author is sculptor Evgeny Morozov.
Let's start with the 7th Guards Division. On November 26, she arrived from Serpukhov to Khimki, took up positions in the Lozhki area, and there she took part in the first battles on our soil. One of the division's regiments was surrounded in those places. 66-year-old local resident Vasily Ivanovich Orlov led the soldiers out of the ring of encirclement along paths known to him alone. After this, the division took up defensive positions on the right side of the Leningradskoye Highway and on December 8, 1941 liberated Lyalovo and other neighboring villages. A street in Skhodnya is named after the 7th Guards Division.
The division was commanded by Colonel Afanasy Sergeevich Gryaznov.
In the exhibition of the Zelenograd Museum you can also see Gryaznov’s jacket, cap and gloves, in which he took part in the Victory Parade on June 24, 1945.
Political fighter Kirill Ivanovich Shchepkin fought as part of the 7th Guards Division near Moscow. He miraculously escaped death several times, and later became a physicist and corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences. You will be told on a tour in the museum about how political fighters differed from other soldiers.
The 354th Rifle Division was formed in the city of Kuznetsk, Penza region. She arrived in our region on November 29 - December 1, landing under heavy fire at the Skhodnya and Khimki stations. The “Penzentsy” took up defensive positions between the 7th and 8th Guards Divisions - as already mentioned, from the Leningradskoe Highway approximately to modern Filaretovskaya Street.
The original map, punctured by a mine fragment, shows the division's combat path - from November 30, 1941 to September 1942 - from Moscow to Rzhev.
On December 2, 1941, one of the regiments of the 354th division under the command of Bayan Khairullin tried to liberate the village of Matushkino, but the baptism of fire ended in failure - the Germans managed to gain a foothold in the village and set up firing points. Several days after this were spent on reconnaissance, and during the counteroffensive that began on December 8, the 354th Division nevertheless liberated Matushkino (and then immediately broke into Alabushevo and Chashnikovo) - a memorial sign near the Beryozka stop is dedicated to this event.
In the battles near Moscow, the division suffered huge losses. If on December 1, 1941, its composition consisted of 7828 people, then on January 1, 1942 - only 4393 people.
Among the dead was division political instructor Alexey Sergeevich Tsarkov. His name is engraved first on the mass grave near the Kryukovo station. In the exhibition of the Zelenograd Museum you can read his letter, which he sent to his wife and son on December 1: “Shura, I have the honorable share of protecting the heart of our Motherland, beautiful Moscow. […] If I stay alive, I’ll send a letter.” Nearby is a funeral dated December 6...
The central episode of the battles on the last line of defense of Moscow was, of course, the battles for the Kryukovo station. The village under her was the largest settlement on the territory of modern Zelenograd - it consisted of 210 houses and about one and a half thousand inhabitants. At the end of November, the section of the railway from Skhodnya to Solnechnogorsk was defended by armored train No. 53, equipped in Tbilisi. In the Museum of Zelenograd you can see an authentic combat leaflet of the armored train, the issue of which dated November 27 tells about the battle with German tanks at Podsolnechnaya station. It is noteworthy that for reasons of secrecy, the names of the stations are given in this text in abbreviated form: Podsolnechnaya - P., Kryukovo - K. In the last days of November, the railway in Kryukovo was partly dismantled, the station buildings were destroyed, and the armored train went towards Moscow. Subsequently, he fought on the North Caucasus Front, where he ended his combat career.
Very stubborn battles were fought for Kryukovo. Over the course of 9 days, the station changed hands eight times, sometimes changing its “owner” several times a day. Local residents recalled that, sitting in their shelters, they heard either Russian or German speech. The first attempt at liberation was made on December 3, but failed. After this, forces were sent to obtain intelligence information about the location of enemy firing points. In addition, tank destroyers crawled into the village at night and threw Molotov cocktails at the equipment and houses occupied by the Germans. The next attack of our troops on Kryukovo happened on December 5, for this purpose an operational group was created, which was personally commanded by the commander of the 8th division Vasily Andreevich Revyakin, who replaced the deceased Panfilov in this post. Kryukovo was finally liberated only in the evening of December 8th. After the battles, a huge amount of equipment remained here, which the Germans abandoned, rapidly retreating so as not to be surrounded.
Despite the fact that the Germans spent very little time here, they managed to mark Kryukovo and other settlements by executing local residents. For example, a Russian language teacher from the village of Kryukovo and the chairman of the Kamensk collective farm were executed. The Germans left their bodies on the street and did not allow them to be removed - to intimidate others.
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In 1943, the artist Gorpenko painted the first known painting, “The Battle for Kryukovo Station.” These days it can be seen at an exhibition dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Moscow in the exhibition hall of the Zelenograd Museum in the 14th microdistrict. The main exhibition of the museum presents contemporary work by the artist Sibirsky. It, of course, should be perceived as a work of art, and not a historical document.
By the way, since we’re talking about works of art, let’s also remember the famous song “A platoon dies near the village of Kryukovo.” Surely many Zelenograd residents are interested to know whether it is dedicated to our Kryukovo. There is no clear answer to this question. There are several settlements with this name in the vicinity of Moscow, but in the context of the Great Patriotic War, our Kryukovo is, of course, the most famous. And it doesn’t matter that in 1938 it received the status of a village - for a song this is an acceptable “inaccuracy”. However, according to the author of the text of this song, Sergei Ostrovoy, the village of Kryukovo in his work is a collective image.
One of the most famous participants in the battles in the Kryukovo area was senior lieutenant of the Panfilov division Bauyrzhan Momyshuly, who commanded first a battalion and then a regiment. In early December he was wounded, but did not go to the hospital. In the photo below he is in the center of the frame.
Momyshuly is the main character of Alexander Bek’s story “Volokolamsk Highway”. After the war he became a writer himself. Among his works is the book “Moscow is behind us. Notes of an Officer" and the story "Our General" about Ivan Vasilyevich Panfilov. At the former 229th school near the Kryukovo station there is a monument to Bauyrzhan Momyshuly, and his name was inherited by school No. 1912, which included the former 229th several years ago.
The commissar of the regiment under the command of Momyshuly was Pyotr Vasilyevich Logvinenko, whose name is immortalized in the name of the street between the 14th and 15th microdistricts. In 1963, Logvinenko moved to Zelenograd and spent the rest of his life here, being an active participant in the veterans' movement. His portrait and some personal belongings can also be seen at the exhibition of the Zelenograd Museum in the 14th microdistrict.
General Panfilov, unfortunately, did not reach our lands, but two other, no less famous military leaders took part in the battles in the Kryukovo region: the future Marshal of the Armored Forces Mikhail Efimovich Katukov and the commander of the 2nd Guards Cavalry Corps, Lev Mikhailovich, who died on December 19, 1941 Dovator.
Cavalry played an important role in the defense of Moscow. In snowy, frosty winter conditions, light, maneuverable cavalry often turned out to be more reliable and effective than equipment in battle.
And Dovator and Katukov were not just colleagues, but also friends. The Zelenograd Museum displays a cavalry burka, a kubanka hat and a bashlyk (a headdress tied over a hat), which Dovator gave to Katukov. These items were given to our museum in 1970, after the death of her husband, with the words “given to you on your land, to keep” by Ekaterina Sergeevna Katukova.
The counter-offensive of our troops, which began on December 5, largely turned the course of the Great Patriotic War. On December 8, Kryukovo, Matushkino, Lyalovo, and other villages in the vicinity of Zelenograd were finally liberated, on December 12 - Solnechnogorsk, on the 16th - Klin, on the 20th - Volokolamsk. Joyful events on the fronts, naturally, were reflected in the Soviet press. At one time, at a dacha in Mendeleevo, a whole stack of newspapers from those times was found - some of them can be seen by museum visitors.
The military exhibition of the Zelenograd Museum presents many more interesting items: a soldier’s tunic from 1941, the already mentioned “medallion” of a Red Army soldier, personal belongings of the commander of the 354th division Dmitry Alekseev. Here you can learn about the conflict between Zhukov and Rokossovsky, hear the story of Erna Silina, a resident of the village of Aleksandrovka, who as a 16-year-old girl became a nurse in the Panfilov division and went through the entire war, and study weapons from the war.
The exhibition “Where the Unknown Soldier Died” occupies a very small area, but has enormous depth. Therefore, we advise you not just to visit the military hall of the Zelenograd Museum, but be sure to do it with a guided tour. All necessary information about the museum’s opening hours and visiting conditions is presented on the institution’s website. Let us remind you that the Zelenograd Museum also has permanent exhibitions “History of the Native Land”, “” and “”.
Prepared by Pavel Chukaev. Photos by Vasily Povolnov
We thank the staff of the Zelenograd Museum Svetlana Vladimirovna Shagurina and Vera Nikolaevna Belyaeva for their help in preparing the material.
The next anniversary of the Red Army's counteroffensive near Moscow, which began on December 5, 1941, is a good reason to objectively look at the true scale of the feat of the soldiers and commanders of the Panfilov division.The efforts of the “myth-fighters” led to the fact that the “anti-legend” they created obscured the space of real history in the perception of many of our fellow citizens. Recently, much has been written about the battles of November 16-17, 1941 in the Dubosekovo-Shiryaevo-Nelidovo area, when during the German offensive on Moscow several thousand Panfilov men showed truly massive heroism, steadfastly fighting Nazi tanks. But we should not forget that the Panfilov division defended the capital for about two months, starting from the October battles near Volokolamsk until the beginning of December, when it held a dramatic defense at Kryukovo. This is exactly how Muscovites perceived Panfilov’s men back then: as those heroes who, in mortal combat, stopped the invaders at the last defensive line and defended Moscow. Important details about these events were found in the archival funds of the Commission on the History of the Great Patriotic War of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
By the beginning of the battles for Kryukovo, Panfilov’s men were already called that quite officially. On November 18, 1941, on the day of the death of Major General Ivan Vasilyevich Panfilov, the 316th Rifle Division, which he commanded, was reorganized into the 8th Guards Rifle Division; On November 23, the division received the honorary name "Panfilovskaya". And the then Kryukovo, a village and a station, has long been, since 1970, located within the boundaries of Moscow, in Zelenograd. In 1941, it was believed that this area was located 22 kilometers northwest of the capital. And yet the circumstances of the place are very alarming...
On November 30, after several days of bloody defense in the village of Sokolovo, the remnants of the Panfilov division retreated to a new line - to Kryukovo. The battles here lasted for a week - from December 1 to 8. As Kazakh Baltabek Dzheptysbaev, a participant in those battles, recalled, “there are few old Panfilovites left.” Another Panfilov member, L.N., recalled why this happened. Kurganov: “The regiment is battered. Of the 2.5-3 thousand, about 600-700 people remain in the regiment.” In the 1073rd regiment, command of which was taken by senior lieutenant Bauyrzhan Momysh-Uly, there were only about 200 people left.
On December 2, the Germans still managed to break into Kryukovo. Fierce street battles broke out, Panfilov’s men fought for every house. The commissar of the 1073rd regiment, Pyotr Logvinenko, said in December 1946: “Kryukovo was changing hands. From December 1 to 7, we went on the attack every day. At four o’clock, as a rule, we went on the attack.” .
Both sides used mainly melee weapons: machine guns, grenades, and artillery - direct-fire anti-tank and regimental guns. The Germans, having captured the village, immediately created a powerful defensive unit. The attempt to drive the Germans out of Kryukov on the night of December 2-3 was unsuccessful. The enemy, concentrating two infantry battalions and up to 60 tanks, put up stubborn resistance. German tanks were in ambush in destroyed houses or were buried in the ground, conducting aimed fire at our advancing units.
These days, severe frosts began near Moscow, the temperature dropped to minus 37. Hitler's aircraft attacked Panfilov's positions from the air. “What’s the worst thing: we cursed the clear weather near Moscow, we hated clear weather. But here (near Kryukovo) there’s a blizzard and a blizzard, but they still fly and hit and hit,” said Dmitry Potseluev-Snegin, in those days commander of the artillery division of the 857th artillery regiment.
Panfilov’s memories of Kryukovo are the harsh reality of an unimaginable feat, once again confirming the inexorable correctness of the poet Mikhail Kulchitsky, who died at the front: “War is not fireworks at all, but simply hard work.” This is what participant A.S. said about those battles in October 1942. Trefilov: “I reached a stone building, through a curtain of fire. There was mortar shelling. I ran through a field, ran up to the building. There was an ambulance cart. They were killed. I saw one guy killed, whom I had seen alive the day before. I went down into the pit. There a torn man lay there. I buried him. into the snow."
There were also episodes that later ended up in the famous Soviet song about the village of Kryukovo based on the verses of Sergei Ostrovoy: “All the cartridges are gone, there are no more grenades.” Panfilovka Z.A. Bondarina said in August 1942: “Near Kryukov, our division fought a long and difficult battle. The front line of the defense occupied brick sheds, these brick sheds will forever be remembered by Panfilov’s men. People dropped out, sometimes there was not enough ammunition. After the battles, remembering them, we they loved to sing “Ten rifles for the whole battalion”... But they held on tight and didn’t move away.”
The song about ten rifles to the melody of “The blue ball is spinning, spinning” was performed for a front-line film collection in 1941 by Boris Chirkov. The poems of Vasily Lebedev-Kumach were not at all ceremonial:
Ten rifles for the entire battalion,
Each rifle has the last cartridge.
In torn overcoats, holey bast shoes
We beat the Germans on different routes.
But even in such extreme conditions, people fought ingeniously, baffling the Nazis. Here is the story of Panfilov’s P.V., recorded in December 1946. Tatarkova: “Reconnaissance Protasov especially distinguished himself. We had to take an observation post at the brick factory in Kryukovo, and observe from here. Protasov, despite the fact that this place was cut off by the Germans, German machine guns were firing in crossfire, he climbed into the chimney of the brick factory. With A number of soldiers from the infantry and other battalions climbed through him. From there he conducted observation and transmitted the command.”
The ending of the story about Panfilov’s battles near Kryukovo turned out to be optimistic. On December 4, by 17:00, the division received reinforcements in the amount of 380 people. Commissioner Logvinenko recalled: “Selected people were sent to us - Siberians. There were 80 of them in the regiment, I would have given two thousand of any other people for them. (...) We didn’t even have time to write down the names of all of them, because they came in such a a situation where there was no time to write or read, all that was left was to shoot.”
On December 5, soldiers from the Momysh-Uly regiment managed to capture the oven and the very same sheds of the brick factory. And a day later, the position of the Nazis became vulnerable. Here is the story of A.M., recorded in December 1946. Vinogradova: “On December 6, 1941, at 12 o’clock at night, we began artillery preparation for Kryukov, and the Headquarters of the Main Command gave us solid reinforcements. The Eresov units appeared for the first time, and they provided us with a very great service. Each division, each battery was assigned a certain a map of the field, a certain area, and this battery must literally mix into the ground everything that is there - both living and dead."
Panfilovets F.D. Tolstunov in October 1944 briefly described the victorious outcome of those December battles: “On the night from the seventh to the eighth we went on the offensive. We knocked out the Germans from the Kryukovo station, captured 18 tanks. There were many Germans killed. After this victory of ours over the Germans at the Kryukovo station, drive the Germans and drove them to Istra."
As Commissar Logvinenko recalled, after the division had already been sent to the reserve for replenishment, a ceremonial meeting was held in Kryukovo, and those few Panfilov men who did not manage to receive awards for the October battles and remained alive in November-December were awarded their combat orders
Text: Konstantin Drozdov
Photo: Georgy Zelma/ ITAR-TASS