TelinFyodor

   Not long ago, I wrote a post about remaining fortifications of the Moscow defense zone, where mentioned the catastrophic 1941 defeat of the Red army near the town of Vyazma. It pushed me to visit this town last weekend, because one of my great-grandfathers perished there during that war. His remains, buried in one of mass graves were not found until the 1980s.  He was one of many thousands of men who met a similar fate during that terrible time. The portrait with a carved wooden frame is the only one thing that remains of him.    Vyazma is situated in Smolensk oblast, 230 kilometers from Moscow, and connected by the train line to Belorusky. The train ride to Vyazma take about two hours. The Vyazma train station is quite large, and the most interesting thing is the many old Soviet locomotives with red stars on them.   A steam locomotive behind the typical post-war station building. For me, day trips like this, where I travel light without a ca...

    Lublino Cemetery is a cemetery in the southeastern administrative district of Moscow. It was founded in 1635. The area of the cemetery is 19 hectares. Old Lublino Cemetery, as shown on a topographic map of Moscow and the surrounding area in 1931, was demolished. Now there are blocks of flats on that place inside the boundaries of   Krasnodonskaya, Sportivnaya and Taganrog Streets.       During 1945-1949, about 600 prisoners of war who fought against the Soviet Union during the great Patriotic War were buried at the Lublino cemetery.     According to official statistics of the Office for Prisoners of War and Interned of the Ministry of internal Affairs of the USSR of October 12, 1959, 2,389,560 German soldiers were taken prisoner, and 356,678 of them died in captivity. Mortality in the first years of the war was especially high. Even Soviet citizens starved, not to speak about enemy POWs.  Due to the sever...