Description of the attraction
In the vicinity of the village of Astracha, which is located near the Tikhvin district, there is a memorial dedicated to the soldiers who died during the Great Patriotic War. There are burials of 600 soldiers under the memorial. According to tradition, every year on May 9, a race begins from this place, which runs to the city of Boksitogorsk, after which the blockade participants, as well as war veterans from nearby villages, come here.
The discovery of the remains occurred in the winter of 1968 during reclamation work. It turned out that the soldiers fought for Tikhvin. It was decided to bury the bodies found on the outskirts of the village, on the territory of which a defense was carried out in the fall of 1941 - in a place where a mass grave was already located. A funeral ceremony was held at this place on Victory Day in 1969; a year later, the Memorial Complex was opened here.
According to historical information, the village of Astracha became an insurmountable obstacle on the way of the German troops in the fall of 1941. At the end of autumn, the Germans were able to capture Tikhvin, the most ancient Russian city, on the territory of which a bloody battle took place, which played a huge role in the life of Leningrad. After the capture of this city, the fascist troops were going to move to Leningrad, which was only 100 km away. The plan was to completely block the road through Ladoga, then the city would find itself in a closed ring.
Judging by the calculations of the fascists, it should have fiercely waged a war for Moscow, for which reason it would not be able to allocate the necessary number of soldiers to defend Leningrad. But the plan went wrong when the Soviet command threw all efforts to interrupt the enemy's path near Tikhvin. General K. A. Meretskov.
In November 1941, reinforcements from Moscow arrived in the Astrach region under the leadership of P. K. Koshevoy The 46th brigade under the leadership of V. A. Koptsov a - Hero of the Soviet Union. After all the forces had been assembled and a plan of action had been envisaged, on November 19, an order was given for an immediate offensive.
During the offensive, many soldiers gave their lives for the good of their homeland. Among such people were the secretaries of the committees of the Boksitogorsk peat plant and bauxite mine Ivan Zhukov and V. Kostenko, as well as workers of the alumina plant, including I. P. Smirnov. In the difficult battle near the village of Astrachi, the soldiers of the Soviet artillery regiment showed their valor. Mananov Ildar showed incredible courage, who, in a grave condition, continued the offensive, covering with himself the repulsing Nazis of our troops. For his exploits, Mananov Ildar received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. The lieutenant of the artillery regiment V. K. Petrushok behaved fearlessly on the battlefield, who secretly made his way to the rear of the enemy, after which he corrected the direction of fire at bunkers and enemy manpower. Petrushok remained unnoticed all night and returned to his troops only in the morning, but was mortally wounded.
In the winter of December 5, the decisive battle for Tikhvin began. It was the battles near the village of Astracha that completely turned the tide of events in the battle for the city. As a result of offensive operations, the fascist troops were thrown far behind the Volkhov River, which thwarted Hitler's plans to form a blockade ring, thereby capturing Leningrad, and then moving to Moscow.
In 1975, not far from the memorial, the museum of military glory "Astracha, 1941" began its work. The museum is housed in the building of a pre-existing primary school, which was built long before 1917, which was preserved during the war. The school corner became the main component of the museum, where schoolchildren collected all things found since the war. Of great importance were the so-called "red trackers" - secondary school students in the city of Boskitogorsk, as well as students from schools in the Tikhvin region.
At the first time of its existence, the Astrach 1941 museum worked only on a voluntary basis, but after a while it became one of the branches of the local history museum in the city of Pikalevo, after which, since 2001, it has been a branch of the Boksitogorsk State Regional Cultural Institution “Museum Agency”.
