Volokolamsk boys. The feat of the Volokolamsk “boys”: teenagers recaptured the village from the Nazis

A story about how 11-16 year old children from an orphanage defended their village from the Nazis for two days

One of the detachments of the mobile group of Colonel Porfiry Georgievich Chanchibadze from the 30th Army, operating in the enemy’s front-line rear, liberated the village of Steblevo on December 15, 1941, after a short battle. The occupiers hastily retreated, leaving a large number of military property, weapons and equipment. By the end of the day, the detachment moved on to carry out combat missions. The residents of Steblevo, who enthusiastically greeted their liberators and provided them with assistance, were left without protection: if the Nazis returned, they would not spare anyone.
Then young workers of the state farm, pupils of the Teryaevsky orphanage, Volodya Ovsyanikov and Sasha Kryltsov, proposed organizing a squad for defense, which also included 11-16 year old teenagers and young men Tolya Volodin, Kolya Pechnikov, Pavlik Nikanorov, Tolya Nikolaev, Vitya Pechnikov, Vanya Ryzhov, Petya Trofimov, Volodya Rozanov and Vanya Dervyanov. Their leader and organizer of defense was Ivan Egorovich Volodin, a participant in the war with Finland. In a combat situation, he taught young partisans the skills of wielding weapons and conducting aimed fire.
Attempts by the Nazis to recapture the village began on the morning of December 16.
Sasha Kryltsov was the first to use the rifle. Hearing a crash the next morning and then seeing a German soldier on a motorcycle, the boy fired several times. The motorcyclist immediately turned back. During the day, the guys saw a large group of fascists approaching the village. Now everyone started shooting. The Nazis began to retreat. They were met by hurricane fire from three advantageous positions. All enemy attacks were successfully repelled. This was repeated several times, the firefight continued in the morning of the next day, but by noon the Germans, apparently, decided that the village was being defended by Soviet soldiers and retreated. At noon on December 17, a unit of advanced units entered Steblevo Soviet troops. Tired but joyful partisans greeted them. The command thanked the battle group for its assistance in expelling the Nazis and for the trophies. This is how a group of teenagers helped expel the invaders from their village almost three days earlier.


Thus, the village of Steblevo near Moscow became famous as the place of heroism of the Volokolamsk boys.


Colonel Porfiry Georgievich Chanchibadze

The history of the liberation of the Moscow region from the fascist occupiers knows many examples of desperate heroism and amazing courage. But what happened in the village of Steblevo, Volokolamsk district, can only be called a miracle. Local teenagers defended the approaches to the village for two days, preventing the enemy army from capturing this strategic point, which opened the road to Moscow. The son of one of these “boys” and a local historian, who thoroughly studied the history of the extraordinary feat, told the Moscow Region Today correspondent how the children managed to cope with the advancing German units.

GUERILLA ASSISTANTS

In October 1941, when the Germans captured Steblevo, Tolya Nikolaev turned 13 years old. All his peasant ancestors were born and died here. The boy grew up without a father, he was raised by his mother, who worked in a weaving factory from morning to night.

The arrival of the Nazis deprived the Steblevites of a roof over their heads. The soldiers of the enemy army silently drove the locals out of their houses at gunpoint and moved in there themselves. It was unusually cold for the end of October, where could we go?

“Fortunately, the soil had not frozen yet, so my father dug a dugout in his garden,” says the hero’s son Andrei Nikolaev. “They lived there with their mother.” My grandmother recalled that the Germans let her into her own hut only to cook food for them.

The occupiers did not pay attention to the boys, so they could run wherever they wanted. The partisans operating in the surrounding forests took advantage of this.

The most famous of them was Hero Soviet Union Ilya Kuzin. Lame from birth, he did not go to the front, but completed the Moscow demolition courses. His group was abandoned in the Volokolamsk region, and there Kuzin and his comrades blew up trains with ammunition, warehouses and bridges. To obtain information about the enemy, the partisans used village boys, including Tolya Nikolaev. The guys wandered around the village, memorizing the amount of military equipment and the location of strategic objects, eavesdropping on the conversations of officers - many of the boys studied German at school. Then they fled into the forest and passed on intelligence information to members of Kuzin’s group.

WHO WILL PROTECT US?

“The occupiers did not commit atrocities in our village,” says Andrei Anatolyevich. – Among the soldiers who lived in our house there were French, they showed photographs of Paris, laughing, convincing my grandmother that someday she would visit there. But one day a terrible incident happened right before my father’s eyes. Three Soviet soldiers surrendered, assuming that their lives would be spared. The Nazis stripped them and shot them.

Meanwhile, our units were approaching. On December 15, a mobile detachment of Colonel Porfiry Chanchibadze completely unexpectedly attacked Steblevo and with a powerful hurricane knocked out the unsuspecting Germans from there. Usually, the occupiers burned villages, towns and villages behind them when retreating. But in this case there was no retreat, but flight. The Nazis fled, abandoning military equipment, weapons, and personal belongings. Andrei Nikolaev still has a trophy - a toolbox left by the occupiers who lived in their house.

Having knocked out the enemies from Steblevo, Chanchibadze’s detachment moved on. But the residents were worried: what if the Germans returned? By that time, it was already known about the atrocities committed by the fascist punitive forces, about the burned neighboring villages, about the executions of civilians. Who will protect their homes?

VETERAN OF THE FINNISH WAR

“The father and several other boys went to the Finnish War veteran Ivan Volodin,” continues Andrei Nikolaev. “He was wounded in battle, he became disabled and therefore avoided mobilization. During the occupation, he hid from the Germans in some kind of cache.

The guys asked the veteran to help organize the defense of the village. And Volodin got down to business. First of all, he ordered the boys to collect weapons and ammunition, which were lying in disarray throughout Steblevo. Taught me how to shoot.

There was a lot of snow that winter. The snowdrifts were one and a half meters high. Volodin ordered the boys to dig trenches in them, encircling the village from the side of the Joseph-Volotsky Monastery. Place weapons in them every few tens of meters. And wait.

The Germans appeared the next morning. The guys heard the crackling sound of an engine and saw a soldier on a motorcycle. They shot him several times. They didn’t hit, he turned around and left. A few hours later, a large group of fascists approached Steblev. The boys started shooting again. They ran across the trenches and fired indiscriminately from several changing points so that the enemy got the impression that the village was defended by a large detachment. The Germans launched attacks over and over again, but never dared to approach. They were cautious, apparently deciding that Steblevo had been occupied by one of the Soviet military units or, possibly, a partisan detachment.

For almost two days the guys shot and ran, ran and shot. Until Chanchibadze’s detachment returned to the village and cleared the area of ​​enemy troops.

ELEVEN THE BRAVE

Anatoly Nikolaev later told his son that for him what was happening was something like an exciting game. He didn't think that this adventure could end in death. I just wanted to shoot and didn’t feel like a hero at all. Volodya Ovsyannikov, Sasha Kryltsov, Tolya Volodin, Kolya Pechnikov, Pavlik Nikanorov, Tolya Nikolaev, Vitya Pechnikov, Vanya Ryzhov, Petya Trofimov, Volodya Rozanov and Vanya Dervyanov - these are the names of the Volokolamsk “boys” who saved their native village.

– Why were a handful of guys able to withstand the onslaught of selected Wehrmacht soldiers? – asks Volokolamsk local historian Tatyana Baburova. – I think psychology worked here. The children were on native land. And the invaders were in an area unknown to them, which they knew only from maps. They were afraid of everything.

In addition, the “boys” acted according to the canons military science. Ivan Volodin, who went through battles in the Finnish snows, simply applied his experience.

THERE WAS NOBODY TO TROUBLE

Just as the guys did not consider themselves heroes, no one considered them heroes. What they did was natural for the villagers. You need to defend your land, period!

“The feat of the Volokolamsk “boys” was undoubtedly worthy of a reward,” Tatyana Baburova is convinced. “But there was no one to take care of them.” Ivan Volodin was soon, despite his injury, sent to the front, from where he did not return. Porfiry Chanchibadze, who witnessed this feat, died almost immediately after the war.

The “boys” lived their own lives. During the war years they worked in logging - it was necessary to rebuild blown up bridges and destroyed houses.

In peacetime, they joined the army, returned to their native village, worked here, got married, and had children. And they died. Now none of that brilliant detachment is left alive. The memory of their feat is slowly fading. From time to time there were proposals to erect a monument in Steblevo or at least a memorial plaque with the names of the guys who saved the village. But the idea never came to fruition.

During the Great Patriotic War, several brave teenagers defended their village, fighting off the German invaders and managing to hold out until the arrival of Soviet soldiers.

During the fighting in the enemy’s front-line rear on December 15, 1941, Colonel Porfiry Chanchibadze’s detachment from the 30th Army, after a short battle, liberated the village of Steblevo near Moscow and moved on to carry out combat missions. The Germans, during their hasty retreat, left behind a large amount of military equipment and equipment.

The population of the village, having joyfully met their liberators and provided all possible assistance, were left without protection, because if the Nazis returned, they would not spare anyone. Then Sasha Kryltsov and Volodya Ovsyanikov, young workers of the state farm and pupils of the Teryaevsky orphanage, decided to organize a squad for defense.

This squad also included 11-16 year old teenagers: Vanya Dervyanov, Petya Trofimov, Vitya Pechnikov, Kolya Pechnikov, Pavel Nikanorov, Volodya Rozanov, Vanya Ryzhov, Tolya Nikolaev and Tolya Volodin. Their leader and organizer of defense was Ivan Volodin, a participant in the Soviet-Finnish War. Ivan Yegorovich taught young defenders the skills of wielding weapons and conducting aimed fire.

The Nazis began attempting to re-occupy the village on December 16th. Tried to approach the village on a motorcycle German soldier was met with fire: Sasha Kryltsov, hearing the noise and seeing the fascist, began shooting with a rifle. The German immediately turned back.

A little later, a large group of fascists began to approach the village, and all the partisans began to shoot at them. Having occupied three advantageous positions, they met the German invaders with hurricane fire. The Nazis began to retreat.

This was repeated several more times on the same day and in the morning of the next day, until the Germans stopped trying to capture the village, apparently deciding that it was being defended by Soviet soldiers.

On the afternoon of December 17, a unit of advanced units of the Soviet troops arrived in Steblevo, greeted by tired but joyful partisans. The command expressed gratitude to the group for its assistance in protecting Soviet land from the Nazis and for the German trophies. So a group of very young boys were able to expel the German occupiers from their village.

And the village of Steblevo became known as the place where the “Volokolamsk boys” performed the feat.

Colonel Porfiry Georgievich Chanchibadze

Not far from Volokolamsk near Moscow is the village of Steblevo. In December 1941, during the famous Battle of Moscow, a very interesting event took place in this village, which I want to tell you about.

Mobile combat groups of Colonel Porfiry Georgievich Chanchibadze from the 30th Army operated in the enemy’s front-line rear. One of these flying detachments, after a short battle on December 15, 1941, liberated the village of Steblevo. The occupiers hastily retreated, leaving behind a large amount of military property, weapons and equipment.

They drove the Germans out of the village, but a small detachment from the 107th Motorized Rifle Division had other tasks. Therefore, by the end of the day, the Red Army soldiers left Steblevo and moved on to carry out their combat missions.

The villagers, who at first enthusiastically greeted their liberators, realized by the evening that they were left without protection, and that if the Nazis suddenly returned, they would not spare anyone. Then young workers of the state farm, pupils of the local orphanage, Volodya Ovsyanikov and Sasha Kryltsov, proposed organizing a squad for self-defense. The Pioneer-Komsomol military detachment included teenagers aged 12 to 16 years: Tolya Volodin, Kolya and Vitya Pechnikov, Pavlik Nikanorov, Tolya Nikolaev, Vanya Ryzhov, Petya Trofimov, Volodya Rozanov and Vanya Dervyanov.

Their commander was a former soldier, participant in the Soviet-Finnish War, Ivan Yegorovich Volodin. He began to teach young partisans the skills of wielding weapons and conducting aimed fire. Ivan Egorovich organized the defense and set up posts. And he did absolutely the right thing. Because already on the morning of December 16, the crash of a motorcycle was heard - it was a German intelligence officer trying to assess the situation. Sasha Kryltsov opened fire on him, but missed. The motorcyclist turned sharply and sped off towards his own people.

The Nazi attack began in the afternoon. But the uninvited guests were met by fire from young militias. Having competently taken up defense in three directions, Malchishi-Kibalchishi of the village of Steblevo spent the whole day repelling the enemy’s onslaught. And, using their knowledge of their native area, they did it quite successfully - without losses. By the next afternoon, the Germans apparently decided that the village was being defended by Soviet soldiers and retreated.

And on the afternoon of December 17, a unit of advanced units of the Soviet troops entered Steblevo. Tired but joyful young partisans greeted the Red Army soldiers. The command of the rifle division thanked the Malchishi combat group for their help in expelling the Nazis and for the spoils of war.

This is how a group of teenagers defended their village. Let me paraphrase our classic Mikhail Yuryevich a little:

- Yes, there were children at that time, not like the current tribe!