The Demyansk cauldron is the devilry of the anomalous zone. The diggers reached the positions of the SS troops. And so it began! Excavations of WWII Demyansk

Original taken from onepamop in Shift-2012

In April-May of this year, the Demyansk search team again worked in the Novgorod region. The Spring Memory Watch 2012 took place this time in the south of the well-known “Demyansk Cauldron”. More than 30 people from different regions of the country came to the Novgorod region to spend a couple of weeks in the forests, searching for and identifying Red Army soldiers and commanders who died during the Great Patriotic War.

One of the features of this Watch was the participation in it of a group of volunteers from Moscow, Moscow region, St. Petersburg, Belgorod and other cities. In order not to cause confusion with the word “volunteer”, I would like to clarify: our volunteers are not the ones who distribute St. George ribbons to citizens and not the ones who wave flags in holidays. Ours work a lot, conscientiously, sometimes hard and, of course, selflessly. Head and hands. It was on their shoulders that most of the worries about the economic and everyday support of the detachment fell.

It is, of course, not as interesting and exciting as digging up orders pierced by shrapnel, regimental cash registers and brand new “parabellums” in boxes, but it also requires effort and resources. With these same forces, and, partly, at the expense of volunteers, two fraternal cemeteries (Votolino and Polya) and two monuments (near the village of Medyanki and on the second kilometer of the Demyansk-Votolino highway). This distribution of forces allowed more experienced search engines to engage in searches and freed up the necessary forces to conduct one-day “reconnaissance.”

The film repertoire was quite diverse and regularly provoked heated discussions. Comments poured in one after another during the film screening. It was especially exciting to watch the feature film “The Man from the Boulevard des Capuchins.” I laughed until I cried, watching those watching. For some reason, respected spectators refused to smoke in the cinema tent and went outside. Culture!

In the future, it will be necessary to organize a squad radio point so that from the loudspeaker to set hours specially selected music flowed. Well, “on demand” programs, I’m sure, will be in demand in the evening hours before vacation.

Search kitchen equipment. Search engines from Lipetsk so severe that out of all wire they recognize only barbed wire. German forged, 70-year hardened!

She, the “thorn”, regularly serves with the original Russian cast iron. This is perhaps the most dramatic view of a cast iron I have ever seen.

Navigation on the nearby lake was opened immediately. I really wanted to row, but somehow I didn’t succeed, which is a pity.

I would like to say a few kind words about this free-standing structure.

Mobile bathhouse is just a bathhouse, which has greatly helped lovers of personal hygiene and cleanliness in general.
Prefabricated structure, its installation and installation takes little more strength and time than the same manipulations with a regular tourist tent.

The front door is equipped with a rubber cord - a “closer”, immediately behind it is a dressing room where you can undress and hang clothes, and next to the dressing room is a steam room. She is also a washroom.

For comparison, we also went to the village bathhouse, kind woman let me in. We washed ourselves, steamed ourselves and indulged in memories, rubbing our fine, strong necks with the “Chypre” and “Russian Forest” colognes purchased at the Raipo. By the way, they are still written on them: using the products for food purposes is dangerous.

Off-road thunderstorm - UAZ. For some reason it is called “chelita”. An amazing combination of unpretentiousness, discomfort and maneuverability. Megacar!

It was along these picturesque hills that the Red Army soldiers advanced 70 years ago, trying to drive the Germans out of Votolino. The ground is naturally filled with mine tailings of medium and large caliber.

The “Deeper” found something. More detailed studies are carried out using a steel probe and compact metal detectors.

An almost obligatory accessory for a seasoned searcher is a Fiskars metal shovel. A good, serviceable instrument, it’s not a pity to praise it once again. If it works out, I’ll definitely go “with a watering can and a notepad” to the Finnish production, I’ll see personally how the Finns manage to make such instruments.

Another variation of a metal detector for deep search. People with a frame on their belts walk through fields and forests, trying to find the place where the Red Army soldiers died.

Here, clearly, someone was holding the defense: a broken Red Army glass flask, “three-line” cartridges in clips, a lot of spent cartridges.

Near the mass grave there are deposits of sawn timber. They are sawing, judging by appearance, all.

This is a monument near the village of Polya. Already brought into proper shape by the volunteer team.

There was a black man standing at the table plastic bag. At first we didn’t pay any attention to it, we thought it was garbage inside. It turned out that it was not him at all, but the remains of another nameless fighter. Of course, they took it with them.

The monument was repaired, cleaned, painted, a pit was dug at the base for garbage, and the entrance was marked with stones and laid out.

We returned to camp already in the dark. By night it got very cold. And in general, the spring was cold. The day is sunny and strong wind, the night is calm, the stars and how it feels like frost! The sudden onset of night frosts is very noticeable in the tent. One night I saved myself with a ceremonial commander's sheepskin coat. And then, without any fuss, I climbed into thermal underwear and two sleeping bags. Tolerable, in general.

In the morning we drove to new labor achievements through the village of Votolino. It was filmed for those interested special video clip, telling about the history of the village of Votolino.

Judging by the architectural scale, the village under Soviet rule, if it did not prosper, was certainly not poor.

And now she is like this. And they sent firewood to someone by mail.

Half capital brick houses pre-war and even pre-revolutionary buildings stand abandoned. Why and for what purpose is unclear.

In Demyansk we stopped at the place where in August of this year we will install and solemnly open a monument to the paratroopers who died in 1942 during the Demyansk landing operation.

Here, right next to the birch trees, there will be a granite slab in memory of their feat and martyrdom.

We also visited the village cemetery, where sappers who died while clearing mines in Demyansk, abandoned by the Germans, were buried.

We left Demyansk and headed to the village Stone Mountain. There we crossed the flooded Luzhonka River and stopped in for a visit to our search engine friends from Elektrostal.

On the way there we overcame a water barrier using trees thrown across the riverbed.

We walked back by a ford near the village.

It took another day to remove bags with remains from near Sobolevo. These are soldiers of the 250th Infantry Division, who were buried in a mass grave during the battles. The grave itself is located far from housing and roads, so it was decided to move the remains of the soldiers to Votolino and rebury them there.

The detachment's "Ural" was completely loaded with remains. While Podolsk search engines were exhuming them, they found several readable medallions. Some of the dead and once seemingly buried soldiers are still listed as “missing in action.”

Sinelnikov Ivan Maksimovich, born in 1920 , Voronezh region, Valuysky district, Kapisovka village. shooter 318 sp 241 sd
Snopenko Stepan Stepanovich, born in 1912, Ussr, Voroshilovgrad region, Novoastrakhan district, Orlovsky village, village. Valuyki
Antonov Grigory Denisovich, born in 1915, Tula region, Peremyshl district, village of Zhelokhovo. company of machine gunners 332 joint venture 241 infantry division

We returned to Votolino again.

All the remains were placed in coffins in advance and left in a field outside the village. The lids were sealed to avoid any incidents.

The brotherly cemetery in Votolino itself has fallen into an unacceptable state for such a place. For several days, almost the entire volunteer team worked hard there. Numerous stumps were uprooted, the fence was shortened, new gates were welded, marble slabs were removed, a new metal frame was made for them, a memorial sign to the tank crews was rearranged, and the slabs overgrown with lichen were cleaned with metal brushes.

The metal frame holding the stone plaques with the names of the victims became deformed over time and sank. Because of this, some of the slabs in the corners burst. The entire structure was dismantled, the rusty bolts were cut off with a grinder, the frame was cut and then welded again, slightly tilted and equipped with steel supports. So that the slabs do not hang, but lie on it. The slabs themselves were glued together and washed.

While we were working on the mass grave, local residents watched us with interest. The men smoked and groaned, but never came to help. Except two. But the Votolinsk ladies took on part of the work on landscaping the flowerbed very timely and by the way.

Date of burial - January 1942.

2997 people were buried, the names of 2624 are known.

In 1952, the remains of fallen soldiers from the settlements of Zaborovye, Palagino, Sobolevo, Pustoshka, Fedkovo, Dolgaya were transferred to the military cemetery of the village of Votolino, and in 1956 from the settlements of Vozdukhi, Kuznechikovo, Monakovo.

During the offensive of the North-Western Front troops in the winter of 1942, units of the 241st Infantry Division and the 20th Infantry Brigade fought heavy, fierce battles here. Later, the 250th Infantry Division fought here with them. Votolino, “Votolino direction” is mentioned in many both domestic and foreign memoir sources describing the battles for the “Demyansk Cauldron”.

The burial is supervised by the Administration of the Ilyinogorsk rural settlement.

The tractor driver was not too lazy to bring soil, and they added some to the flower bed. Following the earth, a truckload of crushed stone arrived, used to fill the path from the entrance to the monument.

An excavator dug a large and deep hole. 186 people had to be buried. This is a lot.

To give the monument its pristine appearance We scraped out the old paint from the cut out letters with brushes and painted them over with new paint.

One of the days was dedicated to visiting the village of Medyanki. It's next to Votolino. According to information from local residents, who supposedly knew where our dead were buried in the craters, they explored the area for two days. As a result, they went to the burial site and finally partially dug up some kind of animal. Embarrassment and shame, in short. It's a shame to tell. The only thing that somewhat excuses us is that the informant (who also buried the remains) was a child at that time and could not distinguish human bones from any others. We dug, in short, a hefty village cellar :).

We talked with the local police officer and it turned out that in the police Niva the rear compartment serves as a “monkey pit” for those who have stumbled, scoundrels or rural fighters against the bloody regime.

In Medyanki we also spent half a day working on the monument.

We enjoyed the view of the village bathhouse sailing into the beautiful distance.

We did not drive past the monument to the pilots, erected by the Demyansk detachment near the Demyansk-Votolino highway. All the same work: clean, paint, repair, pick up trash.

An international crew who died while carrying out a mission on a Pe-2. I would really like to find film information about the Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian who did not return from their next flight. The fact is that no less than Roman Carmen went on one of the flights with this crew. His the memories of that bombing mission under the command of Captain Agureev are as follows.

Information about the death of the gunner-bomber of this crew. One of the pilots (apparently the captain), who jumped out with a parachute, has not yet been found.

Five people, with shovels, rakes, brushes and paints, put the monument in order in a few hours. There is nothing supernatural in such work, don’t be lazy, clean up around your monuments too. Russia is great, of course, you can’t reach everyone, but where you can, do it. Who else will clean and repair them?

On May 8, soldiers who fell long before the Victory were buried in Votolino. Identified and unnamed. A total of 186 people.

The whole village gathered, from young to old. The head of the Demyansky district, the military commissar, arrived, and an honor guard of police officers prepared to fire a farewell salvo from military weapons.

The guys from the Demyansk military-patriotic club froze at the grave in a guard of honor.

These young men from the front row arrived in Votolino from Podolsk. All of them are pupils of the youngest department Center for Spiritual, Patriotic and Moral Education of the Podolsk Deanery of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Anatoly Stepanovich Pavlov, commander of the Demyansk search detachment, said a few words to those gathered before the burial.

The rector of the St. George Church in Podolsk, Fr. Alexey sang “rest with the saints” and explained to those gathered the price of the heroism of those whose remains would be buried here in the village today.

A farewell salvo sounded and the coffins began to be laid in a mass grave dug in advance.

According to tradition, everyone present threw several handfuls of earth.

It took several hours to bury the grave. As soon as they started burying, the people around began to whisper and point their fingers at the sky. A stork hovered in the sky above us in wide circles. Even two. The spectacle, frankly speaking, is strange. Unusual and somehow completely transcendental. The residents of Votolin considered the appearance of storks to be an exceptionally good omen. That's where we parted ways.

Local male residents, understandably, again refrained from helping with burying the hefty grave. No time, probably. This, if anything, is an illustration of the question “Why weren’t our soldiers buried during the war?”

Required FAQ:

How to say correctly - Demyansk or Demyansk?
Demyansk No soft sign.

Why do they write “eternal glory to the heroes” on the monuments, but say “eternal memory to the heroes”?
General I.N. Ryzhkov told how the words first appeared in the order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief: “Eternal glory to the heroes who died in battles for the honor and independence of our Motherland!”
- Let's go with Vasilevsky to Stalin. In our draft order it was: “Eternal memory...” Stalin read it and suggested replacing “memory” with “glory”: “Memory gives to the church,” said Stalin.

Why are some people dressed in flextarn? Why is the German flag sewn on the sleeves?
Because flektarn (camouflage clothing used by Bundeswehr soldiers) is purchased cheaply and lasts a long time. The clothes are comfortable and practical. Like some other samples of clothing and shoes produced for all sorts of foreign armies. But it never even occurs to anyone to rip the flag. I have to work, and there’s not enough time. But the question about flags was discussed several times around the fire, causing first bewilderment and then laughter.

Is this really patriotic?
No. But we try to follow the sensible instructions of the growing Internet community. Don’t pass by, teach us “how to do it.”

Are you working legally? Do you have permission?
Legal. Eat.

Is this work dangerous?
Dangerous. But if you comply with the safety requirements, do not touch unfamiliar objects with your hands and do not throw anything that comes to hand into the fire, it becomes no more dangerous than a hike in the Moscow region.

How much do you earn per season? Where do you put the gold teeth you find? Is it possible to buy a machine gun from you?
[laughs with gold teeth, hides the machine gun]
During the season we spend, but do not earn. We spend a lot, but we need even more. And the machine gun has already been sold. There is a battleship, but it is not underway. .

What are your creative plans?
Considering that in the summer-autumn it will not be possible to assemble the entire detachment, the plans are exclusively feasible: to return to its place the one that had been broken by enemies monument to tank crews, make another approach to Il-2 attack aircraft shot down in 1942, finish the installation epic monument to paratroopers in Demyansk and inaugurate it this August. Well, the autumn watch is as usual.

What about watching?
Video about last year's Watch. Video about this Shift in production.

Is there anything I can do to help you if I can’t personally work with a shovel?
Of course you can. For example, funds that are always in short supply in search work. In order to accumulate voluntary financial assistance and establish complete and transparent reporting, a special fund was established. . The fund’s website is currently in the “sea trials” stage; the opening of a full version is planned for June 22, 2012.

I have more questions about the squad and search work In general, who should I ask them to?
You can post questions directly in the comments or send them to info(a)fondoborony.ru

Demyansky Bor, located in a picturesque tract of the Novgorod province, has long been known as a place where something strange and transcendental happens. (website)

Back in 1862 the manager of the local soap production cooperatives, Nikolai Prokhortsev, wrote to his owner Alexei Yurskov that this natural area, similar in relief to a huge cauldron, is abundant in a variety of plants, fruits and natural aromas, ideal for perfumery purposes. There’s just one “mystical little thing”: in this place a person develops a disgusting feeling when something appears “in certain guises” (the manager calls it a nightmare). For example, someone’s gaze fixed on a traveler from behind, capable of knocking him down... Or loss of orientation in space, when from the “right place” you suddenly find yourself in the “wrong place”. And if no one helps you, you will perish and will not come back.

In the evenings in bad weather you will certainly see a fiery goblin here. A kind of “foggy bundle” will grow out of the ground in front of you and begin to glow until it covers everything with fiery wet cotton wool. Compasses don't work here. In a word, a lonely person will have a hard time in this fight, it happens that even his bones will not be found, summed up the detailed Prokhortsev.

Mysterious forest with surprises

Half a century passed, and in 1912. Petersburg geologist Afanasy Zabrodov (by the way, a native of these places) along the perimeter of the Demyansky Bor cauldron, an abnormally high magnetization was revealed, as well as the electrical conductivity of the soil (that’s why the compass needle pointed in the wrong direction in the forest). Zabrodov used the most advanced instruments of that time for his research.

There is another very interesting testimony about the wonders of the Demyansky Forest, belonging to the red commander Nikolai Savelyev. In 1926 Savelyev was in these places on leave and told his brother Vasily about how he went mushroom hunting in a mysterious forest.

According to Nikolai, there were so many honey mushrooms on the rotten cart that there wasn’t enough cart box. The horse did not move and trembled. It soon became clear what she was afraid of: the low clouds were filled from the inside with a red, ominous light, and from them ice pellets fell to the ground, and then shreds of some kind of gray prickly cotton wool flew. Nikolai filled a bag with this cotton wool.

In the early autumn twilight, the clouds burned like large lanterns and illuminated everything around. What else was surprising: the grass, bushes, conifers, rotten heaps, even the mushrooms lying in the box shimmered and shimmered with a green trembling light. With every chopping wave of the hand, a green tracer line was drawn through the red air. Nikolai, despite the devilry that was happening, decided to light a fire and then watched as the flame, the pot and what was being cooked in it pulsated and glowed alternately red and green.

Savelyev was about to go get some brushwood, but suddenly he saw a ghost that exactly repeated his, Nikolai’s, movements. It was the light double of the man, walking at a distance. When the timid Savelyev returned to the fire, the double recoiled from him and floated through the air into the thicket. There it turned into a white ball and crumbled into multi-colored sparks.

The next morning, nothing reminded Nikolai of the adventures of the previous evening. Only the bag where he filled the cotton wool from the sky was very dirty and wet. However, as Savelyev said, it seems he was mistaken: it was not dirt, but tar. But where did the tar come from in a clean, dry bag?..

Findings of search engines in Demyansky Bor

Until the 60s of the last century, official science did not study this anomalous zone, considering all rumors and eyewitness accounts to be fiction and superstition.

During the war, there were fierce battles in these places; On the Soviet side alone, more than ten thousand soldiers died in the “Demyansk cauldron”...

In the 60s, sappers arrived here, who partially neutralized and eliminated mines and unexploded shells, as well as scientists. The latter concluded that the area is indeed characterized by “active deviations” that have a detrimental effect on human health and cause hallucinations and unmotivated actions.

The public began burying the remains of the dead Red Army soldiers. People have done a lot, but they could have done more if not for the devilish nature of Demyansk Bor. This forest apparently does not tolerate intruders and blocks all their endeavors. The head of the search engines, Levchenkov, an undoubtedly brave and decisive man, admitted in his letter that he was powerless before the secrets of this place.

He wrote that there are many unburied human bones in the forest, bleached by the sun and rain, and sometimes they glow in the dark. Fog condenses over the destroyed dugouts and crumbling trenches, taking on the shape of human bodies. This could be considered a natural curiosity, if not for the nightly encounters with ghosts in the swampy lowlands - where the well-preserved bodies of the Red Army and Germans remained.

Levchenkov writes that he and three other eyewitnesses (collective farmers Nikolaev, Trotsenko and Milovanov) witnessed how, with the appearance of such a ghost, fresh vegetation spontaneously caught fire and then the fire went out just as spontaneously. Sometimes oppressive, unreasonable fear overwhelmed people so much that they forced them to look for other places to sleep.

The conclusion that Levchenkov draws is clear: in places where there are unburied human remains, a dead energy reigns, alien to life. Even the river water there is dead, it takes away the strength of people. But behind the forest, the water “comes to life” and already gives strength. Of course, the bones of fallen soldiers must be buried. The head of the search engines advised scientists to forget about scientific pride and set about unraveling the secrets of the Demyansk Forest.

Demyansky Bor still scares people

Unfortunately, scientists still refuse to recognize this anti-scientific “devilishness.” Meanwhile, the number of victims of Demyansk Bor continues to grow. It is no secret that “black trackers” often come here in order to find German award badges, soldiers’ and officers’ badges, and fully serviceable weapons that can be sold at a profit. Often these risk-seekers are blown up by rusted ammunition they themselves disturbed. The anomalous zone casts its spell over even the most experienced “black diggers”...

For example, a group of such “stalkers” came here to look for rewards and German weapons. At first, someone in the swamp almost strangled one of them, and then - even worse: someone got into the habit of coming to them at midnight from the forest and scared them so much that these guys “fired back” with a machine gun and threw grenades!.. And then they ran away anyway.

Yuri Nikolaev, artist and designer, traveler and collector, has his own “ horror stories» about staying in Demyansky Bor.

Yuri noticed that in the same place in the swamp he felt someone’s haunting gaze. He looks around - it seems there is no one, but turns away - again someone is boring his eyes into his back. Fearing ridicule, the man did not tell anyone about this. But one day, Yuri’s nephew, who came running to the camp, also reported that the brave husky was so frightened that she pressed herself to her feet and began to squeal pitifully...

One day, Yuri and his nephew found a shell and a good rifle, which they decided to take to Moscow as souvenirs. We, says Yuri, took pictures of each other with the finds, after which I looked at my watch: it was 12:06. Neither uncle nor nephew remembered what happened next. They woke up in tall thickets of reeds at 16:10. Both of their heads were buzzing, as if they had a hangover, but the men only drank tea. The strangest thing was that there were no traces of them anywhere: the reeds around stood like a wall, only the patch under their feet had been trampled. The “trophies”, by the way, disappeared in an unknown way. Yuri and his nephew tried to remember how they got into these thickets, but were unable to. At the same time, they felt as if someone had fooled them.

And one day, as soon as they entered the forest, another devilry began. You reach, Yuri says, a certain line, but you can’t take a single step further: your body becomes numb, your legs become heavy, and such horror seizes you that your hair stands on end, and perspiration appears all over your body. And only when the travelers silently turned back and went down to the river did their fear go away. True, my knees were shaking for some time...

This is how it is, the Demyansk forest - mysterious and terrible, and no one can unravel its secrets, or even get even slightly closer to this solution...

In any country there are places that for centuries have been considered bad and cursed by the people. People avoid them, not daring to go there even during the day.

Something strange happens to those who accidentally end up there: either the person’s memory is lost, or he/she dreams of something, or some force leads people in circles until they become exhausted.

In Russia, in the old days, it was believed that goblins, mermaids and swamp kikimoras ruled here, and they were the ones who put people in trouble. Modern scientists who have examined some of these places (which they call geopathogenic zones) believe that the electromagnetic field of the Earth influences human well-being in them.

But science cannot yet explain the strange phenomena occurring in one of the tracts of the Novgorod region, in the so-called Demyansk cauldron.

The designer and artist, collector and traveler told our author about them Yuri Ivanovich Nikolaev. The author immediately warns: Yuri Ivanovich does not suffer from a mental disorder, is not interested in mysticism, and is very skeptical about otherworldly forces...

“I first learned about the Demyansk Cauldron in 1970, when friends who had returned from a campaign campaign gave me a tape recording of a local resident’s story. She talked about fierce battles, burned villages, the unburied remains of our fighters and cried.

I went to those places the following summer. From Demyansk, along a disgusting road, I reached a village, from which only one house remained. The old people living there showed the way to the place where the defense line passed in 1941-1942. After walking four kilometers, I came to a large swamp.

Rusty helmets, rifles, shells, and machine-gun belts were scattered around, wherever you looked. Those who fought here lay nearby. There were an incredible number of them. In the swamp, near the boulders, by the river, in the forest surrounding the swamp, I came across human bones and skulls. What I saw shocked me extremely.

So many years have passed since the war, so many monuments have been erected, every May 9th we declare that no one is forgotten, but here our soldiers lie, white in their bones, and no one cares. I began to collect materials about the military actions of the 2nd Shock Army, which fought in these places, finding itself surrounded.

I found veterans. From them I learned that more than ten thousand of our soldiers alone died in this patch. And they died not only from bullets and shells, from mines and bombs: some froze, some died from terrible hunger, some were eaten by cannibals, who, in turn, were torn to pieces by the soldiers. In a word, grief, hatred, pain, despair, fear were overwhelming in the Demyansk cauldron. I began to come there every year: alone and with friends, then my sons and nephews grew up.

They buried what they could and erected three homemade monuments. The collected weapons, helmets, and medallions were transferred to museums in Moscow and Leningrad. I myself can’t explain why, I just felt drawn to the Demyansk Cauldron. Although every year something happened to me, and to other people, that should have scared us away. I will tell you only about a few cases.

It all started on my first visit. It was then, walking through the swamp, that I noticed that someone’s gaze was following me in the same area. You look around - no one, turn away - again someone is drilling your back. You feel your gaze for two to hundred meters, then everything disappears.

Not wanting to look funny, I didn’t tell anyone about this, although I tried to avoid that section of the swamp. And in 1989, my nephew came running to the camp and reported that someone was watching him in the swamp: “I didn’t see anyone nearby, but our fearless husky was so scared, she pressed herself to my legs and began to squeal pitifully.”

In September 1976, I got ready to go to the Demyansk Cauldron with my friend Yura, an avid tourist. Since I had to stay in Moscow, we agreed that he would leave a day earlier, find a camp site and wait for me there. On September 18, I reached the camp at eleven o'clock in the morning.

Yuri, who crawled out of the tent, was clearly frightened by something; he began to talk quickly about the events of the previous night, while his lips trembled. Yuri reached the village I indicated, asked the local residents how to get to the camp, and sent I'm on my way.

While it was light, he walked slowly through the forest. Every now and then he came across dugouts and trenches, which he inspected, and there was plenty of “iron” under his feet. When it began to get dark, Yuri realized that he was lost. He circled for a long time until he came across an old tank track, which brought him to his senses. - new boron.

The distance from the forest to the camp is short, but since it was completely dark, Yuri decided to spend the night in the forest and go to the camp in the morning. He pitched a small tent, built a fire, and began to settle down for the night.

After some time, I felt an inexplicable anxiety. Then fear crept up. Yuri, a timid man, tried to convince himself that he, a strong guy, armed with an ax, who had spent the night alone in the forest more than once, had nothing to be afraid of, but the fear became stronger. Grabbing his things, Yuri started to run. When he approached the camp, it became easier, but he fell asleep only at dawn.

After drinking tea and laughing at Yuri’s nightly fears, we decided to go to a distant river, where I had been planning for a long time.

Having walked a few meters from the camp, we saw two bunches of short silvery threads on the grass. I took them in my hands, the threads were silky and completely weightless. “Come on,” said Yuri, “you’re taking all sorts of rubbish!” But I continued to look, trying to understand how the threads got here: the grass around was uncrushed. Then we came to the swamp. I immediately saw a good rifle, and Yuri found a shell that he wanted to take to Moscow as a souvenir. We took pictures of each other with the finds, and I looked at my watch - 12.08. What happened next, none of us remembers.

We woke up in thickets of reeds taller than human height. It was already 16.15. Both of our heads were buzzing, as if from a hangover, although we only drank tea. Breaking the reeds, we came to a huge boulder. When I climbed onto it and looked around, I couldn’t believe my eyes... The reeds were trampled down only in the place where we came to our senses, and on the way to the boulder, and around it stood like a wall.

It turned out that we were transported into the reeds by some unknown force... It is not clear where the rifle and the shell went. We tried to remember how we got here and where our finds were, but to no avail. We felt as if someone had fooled us greatly.

There was still time before darkness, so we decided to walk to the desired river. Making our way through the reeds, we came to the river. This place was familiar to me; we came here for water. About a hundred meters from the river there rises a hillock, and on it is the same forest from which Yuri ran away. As soon as we went to the forest, some kind of devilry began.

You reach a certain point and cannot take a single step further: your legs become heavy, your body becomes numb and, what’s most disgusting, such horror seizes you that your hair stands on end and perspiration appears all over your body. I look at Yura, something wrong is happening to him too. Silently we turned back, went down to the river, immediately let go, only trembling in the knees.

They began to think what it was that could frighten us, healthy men who had been in various troubles, so much. The only conclusion we came to was that a bear was guarding us. They started banging on the pot, shouting in bad voices, but in response - not a sound.

We try to climb the hill again, the same picture. After the third attempt, we gave up and went to camp. By the time we reached the tent, we calmed down. We crossed the river near the camp and found the dugout that I had noticed last time; it was located about a hundred meters from the river. And as soon as we got out of the dugout, we realized that we had lost our orientation.

I reached into my pocket for the compass, but it was empty. And Yura lost his compass. Well, this has never happened to him or me in ten years. Okay, Yura was doing orienteering. According to signs known to him, he found the way to the camp, but we still got lost for more than an hour. And as we approached the swamp, again someone’s gaze fell on the back.

We had dinner. When it got completely dark, we noticed that the peat layer in the swamp that stretched between the camp and the nearby river was burning. During the day it was windy, and we did not feel the burning, but by night the wind died down, and we saw our fire going out. The layer of carbon monoxide rose higher and higher and began to fill the hollow where the tent stood. We realized that if we went to bed, we would never wake up. Walking off-road to the village at night was completely insane.

They climbed a huge pine tree and tied themselves to the branches. It was about twelve o'clock at night. The moon is big - everything is visible well. Ten minutes passed, a sound reminiscent of dogs barking was heard, and a flock of wild boars passed towards the river, passing our tent. Then a huge elk slowly walked by. A fabulous night, fabulous guests, only the owners are sitting in a tree.

Suddenly there was a crash: it was cartridges exploding in a burning swamp, and then a dry bush growing near the river suddenly burst into flames, but the fire quickly went out and the bush began to smoke. I don’t know why, but this bush caught my attention. I peered into the clouds of smoke and was amazed. And Yura almost fell out of the tree. Imagine such a fantastic picture.

The smoke, rising up from the bush, then sank to the river, turning before our eyes into a ghostly human figure, which, smoothly moving its arms, moved over the water surface and disappeared into that same pine forest, where we never managed to get during the day. Then the bush “exhaled” another portion of smoke, and everything was repeated.

Of course, if you have imagination, you can see anything in the clouds of smoke, but I could swear on anything that they were human figures. Yura and I watched their appearance and procession for almost an hour, during which time a hundred ghosts went into the pine forest.

By four in the morning the breeze dispersed the carbon monoxide, we went downstairs and fell asleep. Later, when we sat down to dinner, a peasant whom Yura had met in the village and from whom he learned the way to the camp came to us. He explained his appearance with concern for Yura, saying he went to the swamp new person, but it’s better not to go there without a weapon, it’s a bad place. We did not tell him about our adventures, but asked what he meant by a “bad” place.

The man grinned embarrassedly: “Young people came here before you, they didn’t believe in God, they didn’t believe in anything... They were looking for all the awards and German weapons. So at first, someone almost strangled their friend in the swamp, then at midnight someone got into the habit come to them from the forest, so out of fear they not only fired from a machine gun, but also threw grenades. And soon they fled."

We did not question him further, although we later regretted it. The old-timers knew a lot about what was going on in the swamp and in the forest, but now there is no one to ask.

Often something extraordinary happened in those places, warning of danger. I remember how I came there in 1984 with my children and nephews. On June 22, we erected another monument to our soldiers. Then the nephews ran away to the swamp, and I remained in the camp with my seven-year-old son Sasha.

Suddenly a flock flew up to the tent large butterflies. I was surprised by their appearance - such butterflies can only be found in the south, but here I have never come across them. Butterflies, circling, suddenly surrounded me and my son. We took pictures of each other without touching them. But for some reason the thought occurred to me that this was not good. Then the butterflies, as if on command, rose and flew towards that same pine forest.

Half an hour later the nephews returned. One of them found cartridges and a grenade with a rusty fuse. I don't carry such toys in the car. He took three cartridges and a fuse from the guys, put them in a tin can and put them on the fire. When four explosions were heard, we approached the fire. And then suddenly another explosion sounded. I felt pain on my face and heard my son scream. Looking at him, I saw blood gushing out through his T-shirt.

That day we removed 38 tiny fragments from Sasha’s body. Another one that got into the eye was removed by doctors during surgery. And some of the fragments are still visible on the son’s hands. I got it too. One fragment pierced the right cheek and broke a tooth, the other hit the right eyelid and is still there. Some time later, when we printed photographs with butterflies, we noticed that the butterflies on Sasha and me were sitting in the places where the fragments later fell.”

Taisiya Belousova

All three documentaries about “black diggers”, quite versatile material, I recommend it!

A variety of people visit Death Valley. Search teams are looking for remains, soldiers' suicide medallions, Red Army books, orders and medals in order to use them to establish the identities of the dead and bury them in mass graves. Trophy hunters and marauders, known as black rangers, come to the Valley for cold and firearms, cartridges, grenades, mines, shells, they search and excavate unknown burial places of Soviet and German military personnel in search of gold teeth and wedding rings, personal items and awards - all of this subsequently ends up in private museums or goes on sale, providing a stable income for amateur military archaeologists, because the demand for such things does not weaken over time.

Local residents of the settlements on the outskirts of the Valley are primarily of interest weapon and ammunition for it, explosives and detonators for poaching animals and killing fish - the need for survival in the post-Soviet space and the poverty of the majority of the population dictate their harsh conditions.

IN Lately a new, quite numerous category of people has appeared who come to Death Valley exclusively for scrap non-ferrous metals - at semi-legal collection points, which are located in almost every regional center and large villages in Russia, they willingly accept brass cartridges, aluminum pots, mugs and flasks, copper rims from artillery shells, fragments of duralumin skins from crashed planes. For some, going to the Valley is a means to earn a living, someone comes there because of ardent patriotism, for others it is a hobby and simply an exciting pastime - but all these people were united by the war.

The realistic, shocking film "VALLEY OF DEATH" was shot in 2001 on an amateur video camera and edited by the author on a PC based on his own thesis on criminology for a limited circle of viewers. The film "VALLEY OF DEATH" is equipped with comments by the author and music, is dedicated to amateur military archeology and talks about the activities of search parties and black trackers at the battlefields of the Great Patriotic War. Not recommended for viewing by persons with unstable mental health!

"HUNTER'S NUMBER"- these are several short stories on a military-archaeological theme in the cyberpunk style, united by one lyrical hero, who considers himself a hooligan and a bastard, an emotional, sincere and contradictory person. Exhumation of the remains of a Red Army soldier. Our response to black journalists. Excursion to the Stalin Line. Grandfather Hans's chest. Excavations of four MAXIM machine guns, Eva Braun's dildo and many other interesting trophies.

A group of enthusiastic diggers (read black trackers or illegal archaeologists) searched for a long time interesting places in order to accumulate rich trophies. When they came out to seemingly untouched pits and trenches, joyful excitement awaited them. The first pits showed the presence of rubbish, but when they began to come across more or less intact and meaningful things, the diggers could not believe their eyes for a long time: in front of them were things marked SS.

SS helmets, SS buckles "Meine Ehre heiss Treue", lighter, SS eagle and silver ring and other artifacts dear to the heart! But... Some experts and experienced diggers, after watching this video, doubted its authenticity. There are too many SS things on square meter forests, isn't this fake? And the fact that the author of the video cut it off a lot and did not fully show the process of finding the ring, the buckle... This all makes you watch the footage from the excavations especially carefully, and watch them several times. And the final scene, where the digger, seemingly even deliberately filming the process of cleaning the SS buckle from dirt in a nearby crater, immediately hides it in his trouser pocket, suggests that this is all a staged video, and not at all a documentary. What do you think about the authenticity of this video? Have you ever come across such rich and sweet places?

The SS men wore a black uniform, as well as insignia in the form of two Sieg runes. Initially, the SS men wore the usual stormtrooper uniform. There were differences, but they were not very large. The SS men wore black caps, ties, breeches and an armband with a black border. At first, the SS men wore a death's head on their caps with a round metal cockade with concentric rings in black, white and red.

In the fall of 1929, the uniform of the musicians of the SS units was supplemented with black and white “swallow’s nests” - a kind of mantle. In 1930, Himmler abolished the old brown uniform and black ties and introduced a new black uniform. New black uniforms were worn with breeches and knee-high boots, as well as officer's traveling belts. Usually they wore a light tobacco-brown shirt; for special occasions there was a white shirt. To visit society (balls, clubs, etc.), a black club jacket with SS symbols was designed for officers. On June 27, 1939, officers received a white version of the daily uniform, intended for use as a summer dress uniform during the period from April 1 to September 30. White uniforms then appeared among soldiers, but, with the exception of cavalrymen, they were rarely worn.

Since 1934, the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler and the SS Troops began military training, and it was discovered that the black SS uniform was not suitable for combat. Therefore, in 1935, a gray field uniform was developed, differing from the black one only in color. By 1940, the SS troops had adopted army-style uniforms. As the formation of SS troops expanded, new uniforms and insignia appeared: SS tank crews received black jackets, reminiscent of the cut of Wehrmacht tank jackets (the difference was in the cut of the lapels, which were smaller).

In 1938, the Allgemeine-SS received a new, pale gray uniform. New form It looked like a black one, but had two shoulder straps, and an eagle was located in the place of the armband. The pale gray uniform was given first to employees of the main departments, and then to everyone else. During the war, the pale gray uniform was gradually replaced by the gray uniform of the SS, especially often worn by SD members and Allgemeine-SS officers serving in the occupied territories. By 1944, the black uniform had become associated with the concept of “rear rat,” so wearing it became less prestigious than before the war. During operations in Italy, the Balkans and the south of the USSR, SS men wore tropical sandy yellow uniforms, designed according to the Italian model. This uniform was worn with short-capped boots, which replaced expensive boots as the war progressed.

Initially, the SS men wore a black overcoat. A black overcoat with white ammunition was very often worn by soldiers of the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler. Simultaneously with the introduction of the gray uniform, a gray overcoat was introduced. The double-breasted smell of the overcoat provided reliable protection from the wind. For sentries there was a version of the same overcoat, made from thicker cloth. Officers of the rank of Oberführer and above received permission not to fasten the top three buttons of their overcoats so that the colored flaps were visible (they were entitled to gray lapels on their overcoats).

Since 1941, holders of the Knight's Cross also received the right not to fasten the top buttons. However, the overcoats turned out to be “weak” against the harsh Russian winters, so in the fall of 1942 the SS men received thick, warmly lined parkas with a hood. The hood had a cord, which, together with the waist belt, protected the soldiers from the piercing wind.

The SS recruited on a voluntary basis tall men of Aryan origin, 25-35 years old, who knew their origins to the fifth generation (more precisely: officers - until 1750, others - until 1800), also the soldier had to have healthy teeth and should not there were problems with vision. However, later this requirement began to apply only to the so-called Allgemeine-SS. During the Second World War, the SS created numerous national units where they recruited people of any nation, except Jews and Gypsies.

They could not count on a career in the Allgemeine-SS, but had the right to obtain German citizenship after a few years of service. Ethnic Germans living outside Germany (Volksdeutsche) played a prominent role in the formation of the so-called “native” SS divisions (divisions in which non-SS members could serve) - in many of them the battalions were mainly or entirely staffed by soldiers - Volksdeutsche.

However, the leadership of the divisions noted the lack of reliability of these units, which began to manifest itself more and more as the war progressed, closer to the defeat of Nazi Germany.