Peremilovo.
I have passed the village of Peremilovo many times, on the way to Dmitrov. There is a large monument there, dedicated to the soldiers who fell in the Battle of Moscow. It can be very easily seen from the main road, but this is the first time I visited the monument itself. This area was the site of the most decisive episode in the Battle of Moscow (1941). It is one of the frontiers where the German Army advance was halted, and it was the most eastern point of their progress on the fronts to the north of Moscow.
In order to appreciate the strategic importance of the site, you should definitely visit it yourself. You will see that its steep slopes stretch for 2 kilometers along the Volga--Moscow canal, rising more than 50 meters above it, and virtually hanging over the Yahroma bridge. Due to the slopes’ length and irregularity in height, it gives the impression of not one, but several, slopes, so the place is often referred to as "Peremilovskiye Heights." The opposite bank--the west bank of the canal--is a rather flat long climb, so the attacking Germans were in a very vulnerable position there.
On the way to Dmitrov, it's possible to see many buildings along the canal as well as the canal itself. The Moscow Canal, named the Moskva-Volga Canal until 1947, is a canal that connects the Moskva River with the Volga River. It is located in Moscow itself and in the Moscow Oblast. The canal connects to the Moskva River in Tushino (an area in the northwest of Moscow), from which it runs approximately north to meet the Volga River in the town of Dubna, just upstream from the dam of the Ivankovo Reservoir. The canal is 128 kilometers long.
It was constructed between 1932 and 1937, with the help of 200,000 prisoners under the direction of the Soviet secret police and Matvei Berman (a Soviet intelligence officer and head of the GULAG Soviet prison camp system from 1932 to 1937).
Thanks to the Moscow Canal, Moscow has access to five seas: the White Sea, Baltic Sea, Caspian Sea, Sea of Azov, and Black Sea. This is why Moscow is sometimes called the "port of the five seas". Apart from transportation, the canal also provides for about half of Moscow's water consumption, and the shores of its numerous reservoirs are used as recreation zones.
Peremilovo is an ordinary village, similar to many others around.
The woods on the way to the monument.
On December 6, 1966—in the year of the 25th anniversary of the Battle of Moscow--a large monument was erected at the top of this hill. It’s an attacking bronze soldier with a PPSH submachinegun raised above his head, and he stands on a high, grey pedestal with bas-reliefs. The total height of the monument is 28 meters (the pedestal is 15 meters, and the bronze figure is 13 meters).
At the end of November 1941, the front lines of the Battle of Moscow was located very close to the route of the Moscow-Volga Canal. German aircraft began to fly over the towns of Dmitrov and Yakhroma. The factories and institutions began to evacuate their workers, and destruction battalions began to patrol the streets. The population was involved in the construction of fortifications--trenches, anti-tank ditches, and barriers. On November 26-27, 1941, advance units of the German Army came to Yakhroma and Krasnaya Polyana (now it is the district of the town Lobnya, 37 km from Moscow). By this time, the population of Yakhroma had already been evacuated. The frontline of battle was along the canal route from the Tourist railway station (to the South of Yahroma) to the Ivankovo water reservoir. The Volga-Moscow canal was vital for Moscow water and energy, as well as an important transportation artery. Along its banks there were roads and railways. The Germans didn't bomb the canal or even the barges which floated along it, since they planned to capture it and use for it all for their own purposes.
Fighting for the Peremilovskaya Heights began on 28-29 November, 1941. At about 7am on November 28, 12 to 15 tanks and one or two companies of enemy infantry attacked the Soviet forces who were in a defensive position on the western edge of Yakhroma. Soviet soldiers, with no anti-tank weapons or hand grenades, could not withstand a tank attack. The Germans seized Yahroma and rushed on to the village of Peremilovo. On the bridge over the canal, the Germans appeared, dressed in red army uniforms. They killed the sentries and captured the bridge. As a result, a group of German tanks were able to cross the canal, and the enemy entrenched on its eastern shore. They took the village of Peremilovo and pursued the retreating Soviet forces. Armored vehicles moved in the direction of Dmitrov. The Germans reached the most eastern point of their offensive north of Moscow. The commander of the first shock army, Lieutenant General V. I. Kuznetsov, was in Dmitrov at the time. In a telephone conversation with him, Stalin demanded he "throw the invaders behind the canal." Kuznetsov had only one rifle brigade at his disposal, in an area that stretched more than ten kilometers along the front. It consisted of the Dmitrovsky construction battalion, an armored train of NKVD No. 73, and Katyusha multiple rocket launchers. Kuznetsov decided to attack the enemy, and his seemingly inadequate force managed to take control of Peremilovo.
Launched at around 2pm, the offensive of the 29th Infantry Brigade ended in failure. The fire of enemy infantry and tanks stopped the advancing Soviet forces about 300 meters from the eastern edge of Peremilovo, and forced them to withdraw to their original positions. One lone ski battalion managed to reach the eastern bank of the canal, knocking small units of the enemy out of two villages. The next morning, Soviet troops received reinforcements and repeated the attack on Peremilovo. The attack began at 6am. Having approached stealthily under cover of darkness, parts of the 29th and the 50th Infantry Brigades, under the command of Colonel Subbotin, commander of the 50th Brigade, suddenly went on the attack and rushed into the village. Germans lost a few dozen soldiers of the 14th Motorized Division and 20 tanks of the 7th Armored Division, and the enemy withdrew in disarray to the west bank of the canal, via the bridge.
To create additional obstacles to the advancing enemy, the Soviets decided to blow up the bridge over the canal, which was on the neutral strip, so a group of 13 engineers was sent to perform the mission. It was a success.
But still, there was an opportunity for the enemy to move forward on the frozen-over canal. There were severe frosts between -20 and -30°C, and the ice was strong. The Russians worked the locks to launch much of the water from the canal into the Yakhroma River. A vacuum was formed under the ice. German tanks tried to move forward on the ice, but fell through the ice, under which there was no water. (According to other sources, the ice failed by itself). Then the water started up again, destroying the remnants of ice. The channel turned into a water barrier 80 meters wide. Floodplains of the Yakhroma and Sestra Rivers, for many kilometers, were flooded and became an additional obstacle for the enemy.
On the 6th of December, Soviet troops went on the offensive on all fronts near Moscow. On December 8, just 10 days after the breakthrough of German troops, Yakhroma had been liberated, and by December 10 the Dmitrov district was liberated.
The list of Soviet troops who took part in combat actions in the Dmitrov district during November and December, 1941.
The part of the memorial on the bottom of the hill. The small poem on it says:
Memorize:
From this place
In an avalanche of smoke, blood and trouble,
Here in 1941 began the road
To victorious 1945.
Among the interesting sites in the village area, there is a nice old church, built in 1792, that has the look of a child’s toy.
Memorize:
From this place
In an avalanche of smoke, blood and trouble,
Here in 1941 began the road
To victorious 1945.
Among the interesting sites in the village area, there is a nice old church, built in 1792, that has the look of a child’s toy.
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