 |
We are on the right bank of the Don river at
the JS /Joseph Stalin/ tank that was placed here by the veterans to honor the Fallen of the Russian 1st and 4th Tank Armies that had stopped the German advance in the Big Bend of the Don for about three weeks. That was a dramatic period of enormous losses and failures for the Russians. |
*****
 |
The inside of the JS tank with its turret
adjusting mechanism. We got there through the rear open hatch. It is really uncomfortable though this inconvenience was well compensated by its very efficient amour. |
*****
 |
The Don steppe near Kalach with huge ravines-former smaller rivers - joining the Don. Each could become the only escape from the German aviation for many Russian refugees. Normally steppe grass cover must be rather similar unless it had been damaged by a soldier's shovel or an explosion. The outbursts of flowers or strange grass is a good hint for those who want to reconstruct positions with the configuration of trenches, caponiers or dug-outs. |
*****
 |
The house in the background used to be
Paulus's residence in the settlement of Golubinskaya on the Don. The former
owners now possess their home again. A safe and convenient place for residence but too distant for immediate reaction in Stalingrad. |
*****
 |
Soldiers' Field. The girl holding a
cornflower which was never delivered to her. One of the most touching monuments with its story written on the envelope of stone placed at the girl's feet. |
*****
 |
One of the museums we visited with the relics found near Rossoshka. Some of them are not easy to comment like the German buckle with the Red Army star. |
******
 |
Boat trip on the Volga gives a good
understanding for many details of the battle. The river swallowed about half of all the Russian supplies sent into the city. |
*****
 |
The floating memorial to the Volga Fleet heroes is traditionally saluted with a siren by every captain of every boat passing . |
*****
 |
In the yard of the Grain elevator. The old
part of the building/on the picture/ has not changed much/in Stalingrad it
was grey/ and we knew well the story of the place so visiting it was very
impressive.
|
*****
 |
The concentration camp in Vertyachy, one of
the 47 identified, an ugly realization of Hitler's idea to populate a good
area with a good race using the locals/including old people and children/
for odd jobs, hair to stuff pillows with, housekeeping, trench digging, gun
shooting practice and whatever a damaged mind may think of.
Places like that had no special lodgings for the Soviet POW and the camps would be usually arranged in ravines for the prisoners to make their own homes-foxholes in the slopes with their bare hands. Normally their natural life resources would be exhausted in a week or two and they would be exterminated./the process was especially "efficient " in the wintertime/ The real tragedy for the Russian POW started when they were liberated to get into the hands of their home degenerates - special NKVD troops to be treated like traitors.
|
 |
One of our stands on the Don. When on the
|
 |
John on Lyudnikov's Island before the
memorial of the 138th Guards Division. "That is not an island -just a small piece of land by the Volga. Its full size is only 400X800 meters. How Russians could hold it is as
|