Explosion (monument)

The monument is an architectural composition: in the center of the memorial square there is a granite pedestal with engraved dates “1941-1945” and a commemorative plaque. On festive days, the Eternal Flame was lit here, the technical possibility of this was preserved. The line of concrete trenches , communication passages and shooting cells, running along the perimeter of the square, symbolizes the defensive position of the sappers . Opposite each of the cells is a commemorative granite pedestal with the names of the heroes. The dominant feature of the composition is the "explosion", the rays of which reared the German self-propelled guns StuG . With the starboard side, the car buried itself in the ground, from the port side the “explosion” tore the track and tore the road wheels.

The monument was erected by engineering troops in 1981 on the 114th kilometer of the Volokolamsk highway. When it was created for reliability, they were looking for a real enemy tank for a long time. Thanks to the residents of Volokolamsk, Shakhovsky, Lotoshinsky and Istrinsky districts of the Moscow Region, the military and the Veselovsky group managed to establish that two German tanks lie in the swamp near the village of Podmarkovo, on the border of the Moscow and Kalinin regions ^[1] . A special team pulled the car from the bottom of the swamp, the ammunition in it was removed and defused. The tank turned out to be a German self-propelled artillery unit StuG III ^[2] . According to the architect’s plan, she was “stopped” by a mine explosion near the line of defense of sappers. The monument was inaugurated on October 31, 1981 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Battle of Moscow.

In October - November 1941, in opposing the units of the Nazi army group “Center” , advancing on Moscow, the main task of the 316th Infantry Division under the command of General Panfilov was not to miss the enemy in the Volokolamsk direction, which turned out to be the main one on the outskirts of Moscow. From October 20 to October 27 alone, 80 tanks were shot down and burned by the division, more than nine thousand enemy soldiers and officers were destroyed. But under the blows of superior enemy forces, without a prepared defense, the division was forced to retreat. In its direction, its departure covered the 1077th Regiment. Having completed the task of restraining the enemy and giving the division the opportunity to break away, on November 12, 1941, when it became impossible to hold on to the occupied positions, the regiment withdrew, according to the order, to the line Maleevka - Strokovo - Golubtsovo , leaving three cover groups.

The defense of the central, most responsible site was entrusted to a platoon of sappers under the command of junior lieutenant Pyotr Firstov. With him was a junior political instructor Aleksey Pavlov and an assistant platoon commander Aleksey Zubkov. In addition to them, there were eight sappers in the group: Pavel Sinegovsky, Gleb Ulchenko (he was seriously wounded, the locals saved him. He died in 1943), Vasily Semenov, Prokofiy Kalyuzhny, Erofei Dovzhuk, Vasily Manyushin, Petr Genievsky and sergeant Daniil Materkin ^{[3 ]} . On November 18, 1941, at about 10 o’clock in the morning, the enemy troops began a breakthrough in the direction of the Firstov’s defense position. For five hours, sappers managed to restrain the enemy, despite its numerical superiority and support for tanks. “Hero-sappers all fell to one in this battle, but for five hours delayed the advancement of the enemy! Exactly as much as the 1077th rifle regiment needed to retreat and secure at a new frontier, ”wrote V. I. Markov, artillery chief of the 316th division later in his memoirs ^[4] .

The Military Council of the Western Front presented the sapper heroes for the award - posthumous orders of Lenin . This is the only case in World War II when a whole platoon of sappers was awarded a high government award ^[5] .

In 2011, on the eve of the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Moscow, restoration work began on the monument. By this time, the monument, left unattended, due to numerous acts of vandalism and lack of repair came into a deplorable state. For its restoration, as part of a charity initiative, by agreement with the administration of the city of Volokolamsk , which was in charge of the memorial, the Leibstandart company took over.

The project, according to the contract, provided for a range of measures: replacement of looted slabs, site arrangement, restoration of StuG III . Self-propelled gun to work to bring it to a historically reliable form was removed from the pedestal and transferred to the company workshop. This fact served as the basis for the prosecutor’s inspection and criminal proceedings under article 243/1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Destruction or damage of historical and cultural monuments”. The story caused a wave of interest in the monument in the media, among the local community and in the circles of reenactors , modelers and history buffs. Meanwhile, on July 29, 2011, as part of the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Moscow, the updated monument was inaugurated in the presence of invited veterans, the city and district administration. The Council of Veterans of the Engineering Troops of Russia sent an official thanks to the restorers. In the course of the investigation, they were charged with vandalism , damage to monuments and illegal entrepreneurship. The investigation lasted more than two years, as a result, the main person involved in the case was Dmitry Bushmakov, the head of the Leibstandart, accused under Article 164, part 2, paragraph “c” of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “theft of objects or documents of special historical value by prior conspiracy” . However, in April 2014, the Volokolamsk City Court of the Moscow Region fully acquitted D. Bushmakov ^[6] . The court decision was upheld in response to the appeal of the prosecutor's office. The Leibstandart Director was formally apologized for the unlawful prosecution.

• Battle for Moscow
• Panfilovtsi
• Alley of 11 heroes of sappers
• The artillery memorial “A” is the “Explosion” monument (another monument with the same name, near St. Petersburg).

• Malkin V. M. Unknown - known. - M .: Moscow Worker, 1983 .-- 236 p.

• Volokolamsk and Volotsky Uyezd. Peter Firstov
• Victory 1945. Portal about the war veterans
• Prosecutor's Office of the Moscow Region
• Volokolamsk City Court of the Moscow Region
• The official portal of the Mayor and the Government of Moscow. Decree No. 235-PP of 04.15.2013 “On Assigning Names to the Streets of Moscow”