World War II

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The Mainila Incident - the beginning of the Winter War 1939

Preobrazhenskoye SNT, 22, Preobrazhenskoye SNT, Leningradskaya, Russia, 188839

The alleged artillery shelling of Soviet soldiers near the Soviet border village of Mainila, which occurred on November 26, 1939. The incident became the formal pretext for the Soviet-Finnish War of 1939.

The Holocaust in Leningrad

Moskovskaya St., 5, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 196601

The Jews were gathered in the city center, near the "Avangard" cinema, lined up in a column, and led towards the Alexandrovsky Palace. A resident of Pushkin, Ivanova, recalled seeing the column of Jews, which included elderly people, women, and children, totaling about 800 people. Witnesses reported that when the Jews were being led to the execution, they sang a mournful song.

KaUR, Sestroretsky Frontier, "Elephant" and its neighbors.

Primorskoe Highway, 309, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 197706

Visiting the memorial complex near Sestroretsk will be interesting not only for military history enthusiasts. The staff of the complex constantly update the exhibition and work on detailed reconstruction of the entire area. Today, there is an open-air museum here: visitors can see more than ten exhibits, including two reinforced concrete firing points brought to the complex from the Beloostrov district and from Mednoye Lake, an observation tower from 1938, a Finnish machine gun armored cupola, the Izhora tower, and the tower of a KV-1 tank. The centerpiece of the exhibition is the artillery half-caponier APK-1 (call sign "Elephant"), built in the late 1930s and part of the Sestroretsk defense district of the Karelian Fortified Region (KaUR).

Monument to Swedish and Finnish soldiers who died in Kalelovo

7X3J+XC Pebbles, Leningrad Oblast, Russia

On the way to the Kallelovo border post, about a kilometer before reaching it, on the right side of the road, Swedish veterans who fought here on the side of the Finnish army have installed a granite plaque in memory of the soldiers of the 17th and 18th heavy artillery divisions, mostly staffed by Swedes, who went missing or were left on the battlefield on June 11-12, 1944. The divisions were mainly staffed by Swedes.

Salpa Line (Finland) - history, description

54490, Hostikantie 28, 54490 Lappeenranta, Finland

In the autumn of 1940, after the end of the Winter War, to replace the lost Mannerheim Line, the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces appointed Lieutenant General Edvard Hanell as the chief of the construction of the defensive line. Under his leadership, a plan was approved for the construction of a defense line along Finland's eastern border. It was named the Salpa Line (salpa in Finnish means bolt or latch). The construction of the line mainly took place during the 1940-1941 armistice period.

Death Valley (Meat Forest)

Memorial Complex Myasnoi Bor, M-10, 1941, Myasnoi Bor, Novgorod Region, Russia, 173503

A place northwest of the village of Myasnoi Bor in the Novgorod region. It can be found by the remains of a narrow-gauge military railway. During the Great Patriotic War, hundreds of thousands of Soviet, German, and Spanish soldiers died here in a relatively small area. The surrounding terrain is heavily marshy, making the road to the Valley of Death difficult.

The last public execution in Leningrad

Kondratyevsky Ave, 42, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 195197

The Leningrad trial of German war criminals was one of the postwar Soviet open trials against foreign military personnel accused of committing war crimes during World War II. Eleven German soldiers, led by Heinrich Remlinger, stood before the court. They were charged with war crimes committed on the territory of the Leningrad region (within prewar borders). The trial took place in late December 1945 – early January 1946 in Leningrad at the Vyborg House of Culture and was widely covered by Soviet media. As a result of the court proceedings, all the defendants were found guilty and convicted. Eight defendants, led by Remlinger, were publicly hanged in Leningrad, while three defendants were sentenced to penal labor.