Prego! Please!
We are located on the territory of the Central Ajimushkai quarries. They were formed as a result of the extraction of shell rock in an underground way. By the end of the 19th century, the need for stone as a building material increased. The closed method proved to be more cost-effective for mining operations. Cracks were cut through the stone mass, the space under the ceiling was hammered and the monolith was split off with the help of wedges driven into the cracks. One of the stone-cutting saws is on display, next to the bat lantern, which was used to illuminate the tunnels. The stonecutter's set consisted of up to 25 items. Workings like the Central Ajimushkai quarries - quite a lot: Maly Ajimushki, Vergopolsky, Dedushevy. You may have heard about the Old Quarantine, associated with the name of the pioneer hero Volodya Dubinin.
In the Central Ajimushkai quarries, the total length is just under 9 km, the maximum depth is about 16 m, there is 1 tier, the average temperature is 9-12 degrees, there are areas where the temperature is no higher than 6 degrees.
All the workings became hotbeds of resistance the Second World War. In May 1942, the defense of the underground garrison began in the Central Quarries, and we are immersed in the atmosphere of 1942. In late 1941, as a result of the successful Kerch-Feodosia landing operation, Kerch and the peninsula were liberated. The enemy was driven back beyond Feodosia. The Crimean Front was created On January 28, 1942. Lieutenant General Kozlov was appointed its commander.
Stavka sent Mekhlis, the head of the Red Army Political Directorate. From February to April, our command conducted several offensive operations, but unsuccessfully. Meanwhile, by May,the German command developed a plan to destroy the Crimean Front, "Bustard Hunt". On May 8, the enemy broke through the defensive sector on the southern flank of the front. Our troops were threatened with encirclement, headquarters lost control of the troops.Then Marshal Budyonny arrived at the Central Ajimushkai quarries. On the night of May 13-14, the decision was made to evacuate Soviet troops from the Kerch Peninsula. However, the crossing was not established, in order to gain time, detachments began to form for the defense of the Ajimushkai-Kolonka sector. General command was entrusted to Colonel P. Yagunov, head of the Combat Training Department of the Crimean Front. Yagunov's squad waged a fierce battle on the surface and awaited the order to withdraw.
Here is the composition "Crimean Front Headquarters." Everything here speaks of haste: half-burned documents, a sagging table, a fallen beam. On May 18, Yagunov's squad was forced to descend to the Central Ajimushkai quarries, the order to retreat never arrived. Thanks to squads, they managed to evacuate over 120,000 people, hospitals and equipment.
About 10,000 troops and several thousand civilians descended into the quarries. The Nazis attempted to break underground, exchanged fire day and night. The exits from the quarry became the front line. On May 21, it was decided to create a defense regiment of the Ajimushkai quarries, otherwise known as the underground garrison.
It was led by Colonel Yagunov and Senior Battalion Commissar Parakhin. Intelligence, communications, logistics, a tribunal were established within the garrison. The garrison's personnel were divided into three battalions, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Burmin, Major Panov and Captain Levitsky.
You see the reconstructed defensive wall; the soldiers of the garrison were constantly on duty behind the embrasures of similar walls. The enemy, breaking from the bright light into the darkness, came under fire from our soldiers. When the German command realized that they couldn't take the quarry by storm, they resorted to a siege. The soldiers of the garrison had to resolve number of everyday issues. The first thing was the lighting. We move on to the next objective.
In 1941, the bomb shelter was built in the Central Ajimushkai quarries. Electric lighting was installed in the tunnels, as evidenced by the remains of metal staples. Electricity was generated by generators of two tractors. One was a wheeled STZ tractor in front of you; the other, as participants of the defense recall, it was KhTZ, which was buried under the rubble. In 2016, the tracked HTZ was found; it's quite possible that eyewitnesses got it wrong. Participants in the defense recalled watching the film "The Swineherd and the Shepherd" underground. On the 20th of May, tractors were covered with rubble.
They had to find other ways of lighting – They took tires, cut them into strips and set them on fire. They made a hole in the top of the shell casing, poured oil in, and used it as a lamp. The shell rock itself is a light stone, but after the garrison's presence, the walls and ceilings became dark. In the dimly lit corridors, they stretched a telephone cable to reach the right place. The lighting problem was solved, but a more difficult problem remained – the water supply. Be careful, the roof is sinking.
In May 1942, there were no underground water sources. Two wells were located above ground: a salt well and a sweet well. During the first few days they attempted to fill water from them. But the area around the wells was under enemy fire. Two detachments emerged on the surface – one to drive out the Nazis, the other to form a chain to fill buckets. Water was given to the wounded. The rest had to get the water themselves. The Water traps were found where the water seeped through the rock and fell. It was collected in any available containers and handed over to the general fund of the water supply service, headed by Political Instructor Goroshko.
The garrison noticed that the rock was absorbing damp in some places and formed teams. They made a hole in the stone and sucked out the liquid. After persistent sucking, their lips hurt terribly. The Germans couldn't completely control the area around the wells. They filled the sweet well with corpses of Soviet soldiers and the salt well with technical junk. The truck's engine got stuck in the trunk of the salt well, forming a plug. The garrison's soldiers dug a tunnel to the salt well, about 19 m long. By June, the water appeared, the garrison found a hand pump and installed it in the trunk. However, the Germans discovered the tunnel, as the salt well was blown up by the enemy in the autumn.
Simultaneously with the excavation, on the advice of local resident Danchenko, underground wells were dug in the territory of the battalions. The well was not found on the territory of the 3rd battalion, the well of the 1st battalion was found by an expedition in the southern part of the quarries under the rubble. We managed to save the well of the 2nd battalion, where we are now. Let's get closer and take a look. Its depth is fourteen and a half m. It was hollowed out by hand, using working tools: a pickaxe, a shovel. Nearby there is a makeshift rope ladder. The water issue was resolved: life underground was improving. How? You will learn about this at the next object.
There is a barracks in front of you. Before the start of the defense, the Crimean Front services were located here, later garrison soldiers took their places. It is where they left their things when they went into battle. Weapons, hard hats, mugs – all the things are authentic. The soldiers slept on stone beds covered with seagrass. On the wall you can see a copy of the "Combat Leaflet" No. 2, where the topics of the articles are indicated: "More vigilance," "Death to the fascists" and "Take care of your weapons." There were just not enough weapons in the garrison. It was assembled during sorties, repaired already in the barracks. The diary of political instructor Sarikov-Trofimenko was found in the quarries, from which it became known that political talks, meetings and letters were held in the barracks. Life was getting better, but after a few days everything changed. We go to the gas shelter. Take care of your heads! There will be a groove in the floor, be careful.
The garrison conducted raids on the surface, causing considerable damage to the enemy. Then the German command decided to put an end to the garrison at once. On May 24, in 1942, the Nazis tried to destroy the garrison with gases. We know from Sarikov-Trofimenko's diary that the first gas attack claimed 824 lives of the 1st battalion. The exact mixture of gases is unknown. The attacks continued until the end of August. The gas masks were out of order. After the 1st gas attack, Yagunov called a meeting, where his deputy Verushkin proposed the construction of gas shelter. To do this, the corridors were fenced off by walls. The cracks between the stones were filled with clay, leaving a narrow passage covered with a blanket. The garrison spent most of their time in gas shelter. People have lived through this horror. How? You will find out at the headquarter of the underground garrison.
Here are portraits of 3 commanders: Colonel Yagunov, Lieutenant Colonel Burmin and Commissar Parakhin. During the gas attack Mikhail Kaznacheyev conveyed Yagunov's message: "Everyone! Everyone! Everyone! To all the peoples of the Soviet Union! We, the defenders of the defense of Kerch, are suffocating from gas, dying, but we are not surrendering." Sevastopol was abandoned on July 3, and there was no hope of landing troops. And On the night of July 8th, the personnel of the garrison came to the surface. The fighters managed to dislodge the enemy from the village for a day. There were not enough forces and weapons, so they returned to the quarries with the trophies. On the morning of July 9th, Colonel Yagunov was blown up by a German grenade while inspecting the trophies. He was buried in a coffin made of planks from the back of a truck in the quarries with military honors.
Lieutenant Colonel Burmin became the new commander of the garrison. Thanks to his discipline, the garrison held out for another 4 months. On September 2, the Nazis sent troops to the Taman coast. And from that moment on, the command allowed the soldiers to leave the quarries in small groups. The reconstruction of the garrison headquarters resembles the headquarters of the Crimean Front, but everything looks carefully here. The table is in the center, there are diagrams on it, the AKA 5 radio station is in the far corner. The quarries were not ready for either defense or accommodation. Famine hung over the garrison. We move on to the field kitchen.
Before the start of the defense, warehouses of the Kerch military trade were located in the quarries, they did not have time to be taken out during the evacuation. The reserves allowed them to set a daily rate: bread – 200 g, sugar - 100 g, concentrates - 15 g, fats - 10 g. They were running out of food anyway. In May, cavalrymen descended into the quarries, their horses were slaughtered, the meat was eaten, bones and hooves were buried. At the end of June, the leftovers were dug out and grout soups were cooked. The fighters made forays for food, extracted grass from the surface and caught rats. The kitchen in front of you was found by researchers in the pre-entrance part of the quarries in August 1997, it was moved to the museum later. The soldiers of the garrison cooked food on it, when there were practically no food left, the kitchen was no longer needed. With hunger comes a period of passive defense. Let's move on to the next object.
Enemy soldiers tried to break into the quarries many times, and the number of our fighters decreased. For safety, the corridors have been equipped with alarm devices, here is one of them - rovik. It was dug from wall to wall, filled with rattling objects. There was a sentry at the tunnel intersection, and if someone was walking, he bumped into the ditch and made a noise. The sentry asked for the password, which was numeric and constantly changing. If the review was incorrect, the sentry shot the man according to the laws of wartime. Let's move on to the children's burial. Carefully, the roof will drop lower.
I mentioned that civilians went underground. Even before the first gas attack M. Yagunov gave the order: the entire civilian population should rise to the surface. Most of them left and were sent to their former places of residence, except for the village Ajimushkai. Jews remained in the quarries, such families as Danchenko, Protsenko, whose fathers worked in the quarries, and 14-year-old Mikhail Radchenko. The civilian population tried to help the soldiers of the garrison. Many of them died. Danchenko's father and son died in the quarries; Olya and Kolya Protsenko went up, were captured and shot by the Nazis.
In 1967 During the creation of the museum, children's remains aged 1 and 3 were found in a shell box. They do not relate to the defense of 1942, although search expeditions find traces of children staying underground. In memory of the civilians, adults bring flowers here, and children bring toys. Let's move on to the next object, there are stairs ahead.
Not only gas was used to destroy the garrison, but the exits and the roof were also blown up. The Fascists made a pit on the surface, set up aerial bombs and blew it up. Later, it was noticed that the explosions were preceded by the noise of work from the surface. Teams of "hearing people" were created to take people away from a dangerous area if they heard a noise. In the future, the number of victims of landslides decreased. There is a blockage in front of you, 17 aerial bomb stabilizers were found in its thickness. The rubble is being dismantled to this day in order to find the remains of the dead, to identify the cut-off areas. And find the archive of the underground garrison that the surviving participants were talking about. The archive was hidden in army safes in September 1942. Let's turn to the modern mass grave.
Here is a modern mass grave, built in July 2000, contains the remains of about 140 people discovered after 1995. Most of the names are unknown. The last reburial took place in 2013. It was possible to establish the name of Sergeant N.M. Salnikov. We are moving to the most remote section of the route. Careful, there's a narrow passageway ahead. Gentle descent!
The temperature in this part of the quarries does not exceed 6 °C even in summer. Landslides are not terrible, that's why the underground hospital of the garrison was located here. In front of you is an operating room, in the center is an operating table – it is authentic, a piece of cloth was stretched over it so that stone chips would not get in. In these conditions, the most difficult operations were performed for traumatic brain injuries and amputations. This is how the political instructor Isakov, who was wounded in the leg, underwent an urgent operation without anesthesia. Then he was able to walk on a wooden prosthesis. Two teams were created at the hospital: one took care of the sick, the other dealt with burials. The dead were buried in the "lower reaches", in the floor, when they did not have enough strength for that, the corpses were dragged to distant sections of the tunnels. There were "sanatoriums" operating underground. As a result of the explosions, sinkholes appeared where patients could be brought to breathe air. Let's move on to the next object.
Here is a hospital ward created on the basis of an Act of the Commission of the 414th Infantry Division in 1944. You can see the iron beds where the patients were lying, on the left is the stove. A doctor was constantly on duty at the table, behind the wall was the morgue, where the corpses were dragged away. As a result of the Kerch-Eltigen operation, the village was liberated. In 1944, soldiers of the Separate Primorsky Army descended here into the quarries and were horrified to see the remains. It was the furthest part of the route, we return to the two mass graves.
We are at the lower mass grave, on the right, on the wall, pay attention to the inscription: "Here is the grave of the heroes who fell in the battles for the Soviet Homeland." Below is the date: "May 31, 1942." The victims of the gas attacks are buried here. There is a plaque with a portrait of S.T. Chebanenko, a junior political instructor. In 1944, his remains and note were found in the pocket of a decayed tunic. It said: "To the Bolsheviks and to all the peoples of the USSR. I'm not a very important person. I am only a Bolshevik communist and a citizen of the USSR. And if I died, then let children, brothers, sisters and relatives remember and never forget that this death was a struggle for communism, for the cause of workers and peasants... The war is cruel and has not ended yet. But still we will win!" I will tell you about the end of the defense at the upper mass grave.
The defense of the Central Ajimushkai quarries lasted from May 18 to October 31, 1942. The soldiers of the underground garrison pulled off a significant part of the fascist troops. The garrison fell, but was not defeated. At the end of October, the Nazis descended into the quarries with searchlights and (after the battle) took out the last 7 people, including Lieutenant Colonel Burmin and Commissar Parakhin. Parakhin died in the Simferopol Gestapo; Burmin died in the "Nord 365" in Vladimir-Volynsky; the other five were captured and also did not survive. Kerch residents have great respect for the feat of the Ajimushkai people. In 1990, President M. Gorbachev signed a decree awarding 33 Ajimushkai people posthumously. This is an official recognition of their feat.
Our museum has a tradition of honoring the memory of the dead with a minute of silence. Now I suggest turning off the flashlights and honoring the heroes.
Открывая тайны Аджимушкая : 70-летию героич. подвига подзем. гарнизона Аджимушкая и 40-летию начала проведения ежегод. молодеж. поиск. экспедиций / Ростовский областной клуб "Память-Поиск" [и др.] ; ред. В. К. Щербанов. - Ростов-на-Дону, 2012. - 469, [3] с. : ил.
Portka A.A.