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The other day, together with employees of the Avtodor company, I went on a short trip to the Novgorod land to see how work is being done to clear the area, as well as to search for and bury the remains of soldiers who died during the Great Patriotic War, but have not yet been buried. .

These places are associated with one of the most dramatic moments of the Great Patriotic War - the encirclement of the 2nd Shock Army and the attempt of Soviet troops to get out of the deadly “bag” with a small neck near Myasny Bor.

The tragic events began on January 7, 1942, when the Volkhov Front went on the offensive along a 150-kilometer strip. The Soviet troops were faced with a global task - lifting the blockade of Leningrad, liberating Novgorod and destroying all German troops east of Leningrad.

Thanks to the support of aviation and artillery, only the 2nd Shock Army in the Myasnoy Bor area on a narrow front was able to break through the German defenses. The breakthrough is a narrow corridor, which by February 1942, at the cost of bloody battles, was expanded to 12 kilometers. The army went 40 kilometers deep into the occupied territory, forming a “bag”. Then the offensive stopped and it was not possible to expand it. Army units went on the defensive. There was a shortage of food and ammunition...

In the area of ​​the main losses of the 2nd Shock Army, it is planned to build the seventh section of the Moscow-St. Petersburg expressway, and the route will pass directly through the epicenter of hostilities. To ensure that the road does not pass over the bones of the fallen, on May 1, 2013, work began on a thorough search for the remaining ammunition and remains of military personnel in the ground with their subsequent reburial. This is despite the fact that search expeditions (“Memory Watches”) have been going on in these parts since 1988.

1. German troops went on the offensive on March 15, and two days later the defense of the Soviet troops was broken. The encirclement ring closed. But the bloody battles for the corridor did not stop - Soviet soldiers broke through a corridor 300 to 800 meters wide, but all attempts to hold it ultimately failed. On May 31, 1942, the “bag” was completely closed by a barrier one and a half kilometers deep. According to various estimates, from 40 to 157 thousand people ended up in the cauldron. The insufficient supply of the army by land completely ceased, and due to a lack of information, cargo and food dropped from aircraft often went to the Germans.

Due to terrible hunger, the soldiers ate not only dead horses, but also belts from the teams. At the height of a man, the bark was eaten from all the trees. Cases of cannibalism were also recorded.

...the entire corridor was littered with corpses in several layers. Soviet tanks walked right over them and the tracks got stuck in a continuous mess of human bodies. Bloody pieces clogged the tracks, the vehicles skidded and the tankers cleared the tracks with pre-prepared iron hooks...

The surviving soldiers made parapets from the endless bodies of their dead comrades in order to somehow find shelter in the area under fire. On the morning of June 25, 1942, the corridor was completely blocked. After that, not a single person escaped the encirclement at Myasny Bor.

2. At the beginning of 2013, the Avtodor company, the customer for the construction of a new road, held an open competition for the right to carry out prospecting work in this area. The work is being carried out by the “ITC Special Works” company together with the Novgorod search expedition “Dolina”.

The longest and most difficult thing is combing the area in search of mounted soldiers, mass graves and especially sanitary burials. Mounted soldiers lie shallow underground, 10-15 cm.

3. Sanitary burials were usually made in shell craters. The dead were dragged there and buried.

5. During the 2013 season, 1,273 explosive objects were found along the territory of the future route and 254 soldiers were raised, including one German. So far this is a section 28 kilometers long and 150 meters wide, where the future route will pass. Currently, work is underway to survey the surrounding areas.

7. After excavating a mass grave, the number of bodies is determined by pairs of tibia bones, since they are best preserved in the ground.

9. Mounted soldier excavation site. As it turned out later - an officer. In the photo on the right you can see a rifle, pieces of binoculars, fragments of a skull underneath, boots in a backpack and a gas mask hose below.

10. Star on the cap.

11. The cartridges are broken with your fingers.

12. Rifle.

13. You can often find preserved coins. These are 5 kopecks in 1930 and 20 kopecks in 1938.

14. Medallions of fighters come across much less often. It is especially rare when medallions contain a soldier’s note, which can be used to identify him. In 2013, out of 254 bodies found, only 12 fighters were identified.