Heroes of the 13th Guards
This page will cover the real heroes of the 13th Guards Division and this month it is Sgt. Pavlov...
When the war came to Stalingrad, when nobody expected it. Those who lived in the standard 4-story house near Volga mostly stayed there and were not evacuated. Almost all of them died. The bodies were buried right near the house, since it was not possible to get them to the cemetery. When the battles started no time left to bury the dead.
Before the war the house that later became the famous house of Pavlov was considered one of the most prestigious block of flats in Stalingrad, since many famous officer clubs surrounded it. Elite members of the communist party, and industry experts lived there. The house was built with the view to the picturesque banks of Volga.
This exact fact became vital in the days of battles. The Soviet command considered the house as an important point of defense. They ordered general Rodimtsev and his 13th elite division to seize the building and hold it to the bitter end. The whole company was trying to capture the house, only four of them survived. Among them was Sergeant Jacob Pavlov, who was put in charge of the house defense. Four days four brave soldiers were defending the building from the enemy onslaughts till reinforcements came.
13th Guards Soldiers during Stalingrad reenactment
Suren Mirozian, the former paratrooper of the 62 army, was near the building. From his position he could see much pain and grief.
Suren Mirozian tells that he saw dead bodies of women and children burnt or half-burnt. Body parts all around and the sea of blood. It would really bring us down a lot. But we fought to the end, we fought for each block, for each house. I remember how Germans seized the house that was next to us; our soldiers leaded by Pavlov threw them out at night. They mostly acted with knives and bayonets. We had no mercy, it was more like a gamble... Why did they come here? We didn’t want them! Soldiers thought, if Nazis finally managed to reach Volga, let them stay here forever.
Hitler’s troops could take the whole city in a day. By that time they enslaved nearly whole Europe. However even in 58 days they failed to seize only one building of Stalingrad. The house was defended by Pavlov and his soldiers, later it became clear that this special defense became a breaking point of the whole battle for Stalingrad. The house became a monument, and was named after Pavlov – the real hero of the Great Patriotic War.
Pavlovs House after the fighting at Stalingrad
Ivan Afanasiev, one of the soldiers who participated in that operation, remembered: "October 3 1942 the enemy started to assault our building. They were ready to fight till the last breath, since the house was a "key" to Volga. Every day we had to beat off several fierce attacks. Only 15 of us left, others died, but we destroyed a good deal of Hitlerites". On the General Paulus’ personal map the house was marked as a stronghold.
Ilia Voronov’s machine-gun was firing burst after burs without a stop. Despite the fact that the enemy’s main target was Voronov and his machine-gun, Ilia was lucky enough not even to be wounded. The enemy was in 12 meters from Ilia.
"They delivered us ammunition by boats, - remembered Voronov in his last newspaper interview. – Ten of us would go to get it only six would return. We had to eat burnt grain. Under the heavy fire guys used to climb over the storehouse wall to get it. Then I tied two grenades to the storehouse door; we blew it up. Pavlov really appreciated that idea of mine. We were not frightened at all, but we were tired. You shoot day and night, then you try to build a bunker to hide ourselves from fire. We slept on the ground. Rest? What rest could we have in this hell? Everything burns, everything rumbles, the house walls collapse... But we were not scared. They stop shooting, it gets boring; they start shooting – that’s fun. It was especially hard to fight with Nazi machine-gunners. They were sitting in their holes, so we couldn’t reach them. However there was no panic at all. In the rare minutes of calm we would sit together and say, almost praying: We won’t let them through!"
And that is what Sergeant Pavlov wrote of all this: "They bombarded us from the air, our house was assaulted by the heavy tanks, we lived under heavy fire of artillery. Machine-guns were shooting without stop. Sometimes we would run out of ammo, we did not have enough water and food. We couldn’t breath, because of dust and ashes, but our soldiers have survived the attacks and defended the front line. We fought for our motherland".
Yes, exploit was a norm these days. "Exploit as a norm" – that sounds ridiculous, but it was true. To die for the country became an ordinary thing under fire. The soldiers understood that their motherland began right from the place they were fighting.
We admire, and we will keep on admiring the courage of those who covered enemy’s machine-guns with their bodies like Alexander Matrosov did. We admire those who would crash the burning plane into the enemy tanks – that is what Nikolai Gastello did. We admire those soldiers who rushed towards the enemy tanks exploding themselves with their grenades, destroying the enemy.
Heroism was a mass happening in the days of battles. Each soldier, platoon, company, battalion, regiment, division, each unit was ready to contribute the victory. We remember all of them. We remember the defenders of the Brest stronghold. For more than a month they were throwing the enemy back from their positions, they had no hope to survive, they fought to the end. During the battle near Moscow 28 soldiers from the General Panfilov’s division crossed the enemy tanks’ way... Almost all of them died.
Today their exploits are symbolized by hundreds of "eternal flames" burning all around the country. Courageous soldiers now are set in bronze and stone on the central squares of big cities of Russia. Tanks and warplanes that freed our motherland became monuments. This is a tribute to those who fought for this country to the end.
The Hall of Valour, Stalingrad
People remember the brave defenders of Pavlov’s house. The hero of the Stalingrad battle Marshall Tchuikov wrote in his memoirs:
"Soviet troops were ready to fight to death, they were ready to defend each meter of the territory. "We won’t let them through" – that phrase was in every soldier’s mind. Several fighters were defending the house, later named after Sergeant Pavlov. People of different nations fought there. Many heroes died, but the city on Volga remembers them. They are: Russians Alexandrov and Afanasiev, Ukrainians Sabgaida and Luschenko, Georgians Mosiashvily and Stepanishvily, Uzbek Turgunov, Murzaev from Kazakhstan, Turdiev from Tajikistan, Ramazanov from Tatatrstan. Pavlov’s house became a symbol of Soviet soldier’s courage for next generations.
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