Construction against memory: the authorities of the Moscow region deprived the objects of the Great Patriotic War of the protection status

The GUKN MO refused to recognize the combat positions of 1941 as objects of cultural heritage, but a residential area has already been designed on this territory.

"Neither the instructions of the presidential groups, nor the memory of the heroic feat of our ancestors - is not a decree for Moscow and Moscow region officials", - noted in the appeal VOOPIiK (All-Russian Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments). Why be surprised that someone abroad distorts history and belittles the role of the Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic War, if the administrators of the Moscow Region appointed to the GUKN (the Rubezh, where the Nazi invaders were stopped for the first time in the history of the Second World War) make such decisions?

“In the year of the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Moscow, the last undeveloped landscape of the 1941 Moscow Defense Line remains without a security status, that is, legally unprotected.

From now on, some of its memorable places are deprived of such an opportunity - military field fortifications that have survived since the war. On the eve of the May holidays and Victory Day, the Main Directorate of Cultural Heritage of the Moscow Region (GUKN MO) under the leadership of V.V. Berezovskaya refused to place six combat positions in 1941 in the vicinity of Zvenigorod under state protection - without any justification, as has long been established in this organization.

The history of the protection of a landscape unique for the Moscow region with places of battles, memorials and remnants of fortifications has been going on since 2012. Then part of the floodplains of the Moskva River downstream of Zvenigorod and the surrounding fields were included in the New Moscow line. In December 1941, it was on these fields that, by the feat of Soviet soldiers, the offensive of the German fascist invaders on the capital was stopped. However, the authorities of Moscow and the Moscow region adopted master plans, according to which millions of square meters of housing should be built on the battlefields.

The status of an object of cultural heritage could have saved the memorial sites from building up, but the Department of Cultural Heritage of Moscow has repeatedly refused to stage the landmark “Moscow Defense Line of 1941. The last frontier "under protection, referring to a letter from an employee of the Museum of Defense of Moscow (later dismissed) with the following wording:" The battles in the indicated area were short-lived, were not bloody. This episode has no significance for the defense of Moscow".

Recognized historians, academicians of the Russian Academy of Sciences, express a completely different opinion about the significance of this episode of the Moscow battle and the value of the landscape of the Defense Line. So, in the expert opinion of the director of the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of History Yu.A. Petrov, it is noted that "the monument is unique in that it has come down to our time almost unchanged since the Battle of Moscow, referring us to the events of the great feat of the people".

In the expert opinion of the head of the Center for the Study of War and Geopolitics (CPIVG) of the Institute of General History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Historical Sciences M.Yu. Myagkov said : “The main thing is the only part of the front line of defense of Moscow that has been preserved intact in nature, which has not undergone mass development, and where there are all conditions for the memorialization of the places of fierce battles of the Great Patriotic War in the form of an open historical, cultural and military-historical complex, the project of which is currently prepared at the Russian Academy of Sciences under the auspices of the Institute of Archeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences".

Recommendations and instructions on the preservation and protection of the Defense Line were given to the authorities of Moscow and the Moscow region and from the presidential working group for the preservation of cultural heritage sites, places of interest and their protection zones.

So, minutes No. 1 of January 17, 2019 of the meeting of the working group chaired by the adviser to the President of the Russian Federation V.I. Tolstoy contained instructions on:

- identification and inclusion in the Unified State Register of Cultural Heritage Objects of the landmark “Moscow Defense Line. Point of no return ";

- creation in 2019-2021. the open-air museum-reserve "Not a step back!", timed to coincide with its opening to the 80th anniversary of the defense of Moscow;

- ensuring the identification and inclusion in the register of cultural heritage objects, establishing the boundaries of territories and zones of protection of mass graves and other places of military burials located in this territory.

Since July 2020, having received the support of the Presidential Grants Fund, the Moscow regional branch of VOOPIIK has been implementing the project "The line of defense of Moscow near Zvenigorod", aimed at studying, preserving and memorializing the historical landscape.

Within the framework of the project, pedestrian routes have been developed, along which excursions have been conducted for the second season, measures are being taken to identify, survey and preserve military field objects, the result of which was the preparation of nine applications for the protection of combat positions in 1941 (3 of them were sent to DKN of Moscow).

It must be admitted that until recently the history of the battles of the autumn-winter 1941 near Zvenigorod was practically not covered in publications about the Moscow battle, historians and the public were little informed about events in this direction. But thanks to the project, the situation is changing.

This year, the result of many years of work by L. Chetverikov and I. Mikhalev “The battles near Zvenigorod in the fall - winter of 1941” was published in the form of a book. A View from the German Side: Chronology”. Most of the work is based on never published German documents and memoirs - the authors studied a huge array of materials in foreign archives.

This book, in which the history of battles on the far and near approaches to Zvenigorod is presented and illustrated by day and hour, is, without exaggeration, unique.

It is hard to imagine that after the research and published documents, someone will be able to repeat the words about the insignificance of the battles near Zvenigorod.

Local residents, for example, a resident of the village of Palitsy, Maria Vasilievna, born in 1928, will answer such a person from the pages of their publications: “Our village had very strong battles. The Siberians then attacked. How many of them died here! Hundreds. Impossible to remember. The whole field was covered".

But neither the instructions of the presidential groups, nor the memory of the heroic feat of our ancestors are not a decree for Moscow and Moscow region officials, the VOOPIiK statement says.

Particularly cynical and openly criminal activities in the Moscow region are carried out by the Main Department of Cultural Heritage - a state body authorized to preserve the monuments of our history and culture, in fact, to preserve our national memory.

By order of the Main Department of Cultural Heritage of the Moscow Region dated 26.04.2021 No. 34RV-80, Valeria Berezovskaya refused to include the following objects in the list of identified cultural heritage sites: 1. The combat positions of Soviet troops east of the village of Palitsy (Palitsy-2). 2. Fighting positions of the Soviet troops "Sinkovo". 3. The combat positions of the Soviet troops "Salkovo". 4. The combat positions of the Soviet troops southeast of the village. Mozzhinka. 5. The combat positions of the Soviet troops on the territory of the village. city hospital № 45 ("City hospital № 45 - 1"). 6. The combat positions of the Soviet troops on the territory of the village. city hospital № 45 ("City hospital № 45 - 2").

Detailed statements with topographic plans for the fortifications were prepared by the head of the archeology department of the Zvenigorod Museum and the scientific leader of the project "The line of defense of Moscow near Zvenigorod" A.V. Lazukin and sent by the Moscow Regional Department of VOOPIiK to the Department of Cultural Heritage in December 2020. The statements noted that the identified objects are genuine "markers" of the Defense Line on the eve of the start of the counteroffensive on December 5-7, 1941, on the basis of which a detailed reconstruction of the Soviet defense line and the border of the enemy's maximum advance is possible.

Among the objects that V.V. Berezovskaya refused to be guarded - the military fortifications of the Red Army on the western edge of the Maslovsky forest (Palitsy-2). Positions are trench lines, rifle slots, machine gun nests, and mortar cover. From here, our fighters from the 43rd Infantry Brigade advanced on December 5-6, 1941, and here they were subjected to return fire from a German strongpoint in a birch grove near the village of Palitsy, located just 700 meters away. For the Moscow region, this is an exceptional case when at such a close distance opposite each other the positions of the two belligerent parties were preserved. In 2018, on the southern outskirts of the Soviet positions, search engines found the remains of two unknown Soviet servicemen, later reburied in a common grave in a birch grove. Within the framework of the project "The line of defense of Moscow near Zvenigorod" information plates have been installed here.

In the book by L. Chetverikov and I. Mikhalev “The battles near Zvenigorod in the fall - winter of 1941. A view from the German side: chronology”, recollections of the commander of a mortar platoon of the 43rd separate rifle brigade N.K. Atamanova: “...Before dawn we went to the firing line in front of the village of Palitsy. With the onset of dawn, our guns hit, and we, the mortars, also opened fire on the fascists who had settled in the village. Our infantry guys went on the offensive. The Nazis met them with massive fire from all types of weapons...".

Another example of a refusal in protection status is the combat positions of the artillerymen near the village of Salkovo. A whole complex has been preserved here, consisting of trenches for heavy weapons, dugout-type shelters and individual shelters.

Archival documents in this place indicate the deployment area of the 3rd division of the 664th heavy artillery regiment of the RGK, which supported rifle units with its fire on the opposite bank of the river. Moscow during their counteroffensive on December 5-6, 1941. The complex includes at least 26 objects - including 10 large trenches for sheltering heavy weapons (152-mm howitzer-cannon, model 1937). In principle, there are no analogues to this complex in the Moscow region!

In the draft master plan of the Odintsovo urban district, which has already been submitted for public hearings, a residential development zone has been designed on this territory and in the adjacent fields. A potential museum object identified in 2020 will simply be destroyed.

Then why be surprised that someone abroad distorts history and belittles the role of the Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic War, if the administrators of the Moscow Region (Rubezh, where the Nazi invaders were stopped for the first time in the history of the war), appointed to the GUKN, stamp such documents?

But I would like to get a clear answer from the Governor of the Moscow Region. Or someone who, even without a specialized education, decided to “refuse” and continues to insist that the battles were not bloodshed, and thus embodies the governor's idea of an integrated and sustainable development of the Moscow region; or the leadership of the GUKN MO is catastrophically inconsistent with the position held and, destroying the national heritage, deliberately endangers both the reputation of the governor and the future of the country".