A part of workers not engaged in military production is sent to the front. Photography – workers of the Kirov factory. The line of fortifications is sometimes only 5—7 kilometers from important industrial sites, and 16 km. from the Winter Palace… N. Nikulin: «… The houses were transformed. Everywhere, the glass of the windows was crossed crosswise with strips of paper. Storefronts were scored and covered with sandbags. Inscriptions appeared on the walls – signs of bomb shelters and shelters. Observers were on duty on the roofs. Anti-aircraft guns were installed in the gardens, and some not-so-young people in wide ski pants marched there from morning to evening and were stuffed with bayonets. On the streets, girls in ridiculous riding breeches and poorly made tunics appeared every now and then. They carried monstrously sized gas balloons for barrage balloons that rose above the city on long cables. Recalling the huge fish, they clearly loomed in the cloudless sky of the white nights. And the war, meanwhile, was going on somewhere. Something was happening, but no one really knew anything. In the hospital began to bring the wounded, mobilized left and left. The scene of the sending of marines ran into the memory: right in front of our windows overlooking the Neva River, soldiers fully armed and equipped were loaded onto a pleasure boat. They quietly waited for their turn, and suddenly a woman ran up to one of them with a loud cry. She was persuaded, reassured, but without success. The soldier was tearing his hands together convulsively, and she continued to cling to the duffel bag, the rifle, the gas mask bag. The boat swam away, and the woman howled for a long time, banging her head against the granite parapet of the embankment. She felt what I learned much later: neither the soldiers, nor the boats, on which they were sent to the landing, no longer returned.»
On the ice of Lake Ladoga, bypassing the positions of the Wehrmacht, the «Road of Life» is being laid. Under attacks from the air, grain is brought into the city. Children are evacuated on return flights. From December 25, 1941, the norms for bread production are somewhat increasing. N. Nikulin: «… Then we all signed up for the militia… We were given rifles, ammunition, food (for some reason, herring – apparently what was at hand) and loaded onto a barge that stood near the Malaya Neva River. And here for the first time I was saved by my Guardian Angel, who took on the image of an elderly colonel, who ordered everyone to disembark from the barge and build ashore. At first we did not understand anything, and the colonel carefully looked at everyone with his red eyes for insomnia and ordered several to break down. Among them was me. «Go home! Said the colonel. «And without you, the snotty, TAM is sickening!» It turns out that he was trying to fix something, to do it properly, to prevent the senseless death of yellow-headed youths. He found time and energy for this! But I understood all this later, and then returned home, to the bewildered family…The barge, meanwhile, proceeded along the Neva and beyond. On Volkhov, it was rumored to have bombed and drowned Messerschmitts. The militiamen were sitting in the holds, the hatches of which the prudent bosses ordered to lock-so that good things would not run away, darling!I returned home, but a week later I received a formal mobilization agenda … ”
Finnish soldiers pose with tortured Soviet prisoners of war, early 1942. In the summer and autumn of 1941, Finland regains territories lost in the Winter War. The German-Finnish Karelian army continues the offensive, seizes Petrozavodsk and blocks Leningrad from the north. In the occupied territories, the Finns carry out segregation of the population according to their nationality. All responsible Soviet officials, business leaders, newspaper editors, police officers, and the like, are sent to concentration camps. A justified hatred of the Bolshevik regime, the Finns mingle with nationalist aspirations. Finland is hardly better than fascist Germany. The ambitions of a sparsely populated country are not shackled by spiritual ideals, but only by its technical capabilities. But, July 30—31, an ally of the USSR, the UK inflicts air strikes on Petsamo and Kirkenes. Damaged ship, two go to the bottom. British Air Force lost 16 aircraft.After this prelude, December 6, 1941, the United Kingdom declares war to Finland.One way or another, Suomi refuses to conduct active hostilities. N Nikulin:“… In early November, we were returned to the cold, without glasses, Leningrad barracks. Before being sent to the front, the companies were instructed to patrol the city. Checked documents, detained suspicious. Among the latter were the entourage, who came out of the Luga and other "boilers". They were terribly emaciated people – bones covered with brown weathered skin …The city was very different from what it was in August. Everywhere traces of splinters, a lot of houses with destroyed facades, opened the apartment as if in a section: in some places were kept on the remnants of the floor bed or chest of drawers, on the walls there were clocks or paintings. It's cold, dank, gloomy. Klodt horses removed. Yusupov Palace is damaged. From the bottom to the top of the Museum of Ethnography there is a huge crack. The spiers of the Admiralty and the Peter and Paul Cathedral are in dark cases, and the dome of Isaac is painted in neutral paint for masking. In the squares buried anti-aircraft guns. Occasionally, German shells rush with a howl and rush away. Dimensionally knocking metronome. The wind is wearing yellow foliage, branches, some dirty paper … "
German soldiers on the outskirts of Moscow. According to the directive of Hitler, the assault is carried out without proper preparation and strengthening of communications, since September 30, 1941.
Sevastopol, 1941. The first assault on the base of the Black Sea Fleet will take place on October 30 – November 21
Sailors of Sevastopol. On land, sailors form elite infantry, aware of the value of combat brotherhood, accustomed to handling sophisticated equipment.
The outskirts of Sevastopol, autumn 1941
The battleship Sevastopol is firing. The first and second storming of the city of military glory is frustrated thanks to the artillery support of the ships in the bays.
The Germans are increasing the pressure in the center of the USSR. Wrecked tank KV-1 with marks from dozens of shells in the city of Venev, Tula region
The defense of the city of Tula, November 1941. The most important center of the Soviet defense industry is almost completely surrounded by German units. The city holds a siege, and does not allow the Wehrmacht to strike at Moscow from the south
On December 28, 1941, the Red Army and the fleet landed troops in Kerch. A day later, landing in Feodosia. This operation is successful. The German division occupying Kerch evacuates into the depths of the Crimea peninsula, throwing heavy equipment
Subsequent, poorly prepared and indecisive attacks on Wehrmacht fortified positions only exhaust the mechanized units of the Red Army in the Crimea.
The downed tank KV-1. District of the city of Old Crimea. This is the last frontier of the advancement of the Soviet marines. December 1941
The construction of earthworks for the streets of the capital of the USSR