The memorial complex of partisan glory in the Khovanshchina tract, thirty kilometers from Ivatsevichi, was opened in 1971. During the Great Patriotic War headquarters were located there partisan detachments, underground regional committees of the CPB and LKSMB, as well as the editorial office of the regional newspaper Zarya. In the victorious 45th, the partisans made a promise to each other that every year they would meet there on the last Sunday of May. Today, this tradition, started by war veterans, is supported by their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The correspondent of Zarya.by also visited the festive events that took place this year for two days - May 28 and 29.
Before us is a small, cozy forest glade. The pichug chirps, somewhere in the depths of the forest a cuckoo is heard. The hot summer sun barely rises above the tops of centuries-old firs, but its rays are already in myriads of beads of morning dew lying on silk grass. Rainbow overflows with lights flash here and there. Suddenly, a horse jumps out of the forest into a clearing. The hooves mercilessly beat down the dew, it goes out, leaving long, ragged tracks ... The rider - a boy of fourteen years old, rules the horse from side to side. He rushes around the clearing, obviously looking for someone. A man in a semi-military uniform, in a gray cap, with a rifle in his hands, comes out of the forest towards him.
Karniks! Vyaduts z veski ў yar zhanchyn and dzyatsey! I want to get upset! Dapamazhytse! - the guy shouts, pulling on the reins and trying to keep the horse in place.
Skokі ў atrad pa dapamogu! I will shut them up. Hide yourself! - Orders a man with a rifle.
As soon as the rider hides in the forest, a discordant column of women and children under escort enters the clearing. German soldiers and policemen. Women hug children to themselves, screams and crying are heard. The punishers urge the villagers on with commands and strikes with butts, set up and prepare a machine gun for execution. The lamentations and despair of the doomed break the heart, but the punishers are inexorable.
The main executioner raises his hand for the team, another moment and the “hellish machine” MG-42 will sow death. A shot is heard from the forest. The leader of the firing squad falls. Partisans run out of the forest into the clearing, causing the fire of punishers on themselves.
In the ensuing skirmish, women and children run under the protection of the forest thicket. Punishers, having figured out that the partisan was alone and already wounded, attacked, trying to surround him and take him prisoner, but the main forces of the partisan detachment approached in time and attacked from three sides. The people's avengers roll out a 45 mm cannon and fire at the enemy. Punishers, who did not expect such a turn of events in a panic, the survivors surrender. Victory! The partisans, having taken the wounded and prisoners, retreat to their camp.
Here is a picture of the wartime, telling about one of the episodes of the Zditovo defense of partisans in April 1944, at the beginning of the event, they tried to reproduce as reliably as possible for veterans and guests the reenactors of the clubs "Two Wars" from Ivatsevichi, "Garrison" from Brest and "4th air - landing corps "from Minsk.
At the memorial to the partisan unit, the director of the Ivatsevichi Museum of Local History, Raisa Gorbach, said that the partisan camp was located on a small island in the middle of the swamps. In addition to the headquarters, the editorial office of the Zarya newspaper, the underground regional committee, it housed a commandant platoon, scouts and messengers in 2 dugouts. The entire camp was well camouflaged from the air with trees and bushes. It was not allowed to burn fires and heat stoves during the day. For lighting, a torch and bowls with fat were used. Despite repeated attempts by the enemy to destroy the headquarters and defeat the partisan detachments during punitive operations, during the entire existence of the Brest partisan formation, not a single enemy soldier entered the territory of the Khovanshchina.
Now a narrow masonry bridge leads to a small island in the middle of a swamp in the forest.
Walking along it, we again seemed to be transported to the war years. At the dugouts of scouts on a spread raincoat, a group of partisans was preparing to go on a mission - they cleaned weapons, collected ammunition and explosives. At the headquarters house, the commander of the detachment with the chief of staff, leaning over the map, discussed intelligence. The radio operator tuned the radio station in anticipation of a communication session, and the fighter-guarantor, in anticipation of orders, cut a branch with a knife.
It is time for a communication session and the radio operator receives a radio message. " Big land”reports about the transfer of large enemy forces from the front to Ivatsevichi. The commanders decide to send a reconnaissance group to the area.
At the editorial office of the partisan newspaper, they brought us a sheet of "Zarya" still smelling of printing ink with descriptions of the military deeds of the people's avengers. In the dugout-hospital, partisan girls washed and dried bandages, rearranged bottles, counted medicines, and bandaged the wounded.
We also visited the regional committee of the Komsomol, the “forest school”.
The tour ended in a forest glade, where the staff of the Ivatsevichi Local History Museum treated us to bread with nettles, buckwheat porridge and herbal tea prepared according to partisan recipes.
In the year of the anniversary of the Victory, we decided to talk about the partisan camp located in the Sporovsky swamps in the Khovanshchina tract (now the Ivatsevichi district), and see what is there now. In fact, this is a borderland, and the history of this place is inextricably linked with Berezovshchina. Many residents of nearby villages - Sporovo, Peski and others - were in the partisans, many were in contact with them.
As a guide, they took with them Fyodor Stepanovich Trutko, who spent the entire war in a partisan detachment. And one of our goals was to find out if there is now a direct road to Khovanshchina from our region. Attempts to find out from the residents of Pesok and Sporovo did not lead to anything. Therefore, we went there bypassing, through Ivatsevichi. By the way, in the Ivatsevichi Museum you can order a thematic tour, but we decided to use the services of F.S. Trutko.
“Once upon a time there was a road from Korochin (a village in the Ivatsevichi district) to Peski, people rode horses, prepared firewood,” says the guide. - From Sand for more than a kilometer the road went through a very swampy swamp, there was rowing, and no equipment would have passed through it. In places the horses could not stretch their legs. But we somehow rode horses, it was easier in winter.
Forest roads brought us to the sign "Memorial complex of partisan glory" Khovanshchina ". Not a soul in the place. It can be seen everywhere: swampy places. You have to go to the memorial complex along a special and rather long bridge, towering over the swamp and getting lost somewhere among the trees. Fedor Stepanovich says: “There was no road here, it was already done specifically for the museum. We walked here along the trails. There were paths on land, and masonry in the water, so that it was not visible from the planes.
Reference sources report: “From April 1943 to July 1944, the Brest underground regional committee of the CP (b) B, the Brest underground regional committee of the LKSMB, the headquarters of the Brest partisan unit, the editorial office and printing house of the newspaper Zarya, the organ of the Brest underground Regional Committee of the CP(b)B.
The underground regional committee of the party did a great deal of organizational and political work to mobilize the Soviet people to fight the Nazi invaders. Under his leadership, there were 2 underground inter-district committees, 10 underground district committees, the Brest underground city committee of the CP (b) B, 58 primary party organizations. There were 1258 communists in the party organization of the region. The regional committee regularly issued combat leaflets, appeals, summaries of the Sovinformburo, etc., published the newspaper Zarya (beginning of May 1943 - July 1944, editor V. F. Kaliberov).
The Brest partisan unit was created by decision of the Brest underground regional committee of the CP(b)B. Operated from April 1943 to July 1944. Commander - S.I. Sikorsky ("Sergey"), chief of staff - P.V. Pronyagin. By the time of connection with the Red Army, it united 11 brigades, 13 separately operating detachments, more than 13 thousand partisans. The people's avengers attacked the enemy's communications, destroyed more than 60 thousand Nazis, blew up more than 26 thousand rails, 2126 railway echelons, 644 bridges on railways and highways, defeated 110 enemy garrisons and headquarters, conducted many other military operations. The commander of the formation S.I. Sikorsky was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
I will add that our regional newspaper "Mayak" was also founded here, in those years it was called "Flame".
In 1971, a memorial complex was created in the Khovanshchina tract - four wooden huts, two dugouts, a well, a "forest school". A shield with the text of the oath of the Belarusian partisan, other information stands and a large boulder with a commemorative inscription were installed.
The entrance to the dugouts is free, we carefully look into one of them. The construction breaks the usual ideas about dugouts. Sixty people could enter this minimum, from the equipment - only long wooden bunks.
“Initially, there was nothing in the Khovanshchina tract. First we made dugouts, then we built houses out of logs. The Chertkov detachment was located here, then people arrived, there were many families with children, and the command decided to disunite the people, separate the family detachment from the combat one. There were about 120 people in the combat detachment, and several hundred lived in the family camp. The dugouts were heated a little with potbelly stoves. I myself spent two winters in a dugout. They lay down so close to each other that if one gets up, it will encourage everyone and it will be difficult to wedge back into place.
Let's move on to the houses. In these huts, which have turned green from time to time, the doorways are barred, but you can see what is inside: roughly knocked together tables and benches, lanterns, other utensils of that time, visual propaganda, and so on. Each house with a sign. Here is the headquarters of the partisan unit, the editorial office of the Zarya newspaper with an old typewriter and ink bubbles, the regional committee of the LKSMB (there is an accordion on the table inside), the medical unit (table, benches, bunks).
Fyodor Stepanovich and I walk around the camp on wooden planks. Its former resident shows one of the kitchen places: “We chose several nearby standing trees, with foliage, pulled together and tied them by the tops, and a fire was lit in this shelter. A bucket was hung over it, and then a cauldron - to cook for the whole detachment. Firewood was collected dry so that there was less smoke. But they still used blackout and tried to cook at night. Our boys task was to collect firewood. There was constant duty in the kitchen.
Let's go to the "forest school". Now these are two rows of wooden tables with benches. F.S. Trutko sits down in his place in the last row: “Then our tables were not wooden, but made of perches. And next to them lay armfuls of branches. Only an enemy plane will appear in the sky - we are under the tables, and branches are upstairs for disguise. The board was about the same as now. All children studied at the same time. The younger ones sat at the front small tables. They wrote on birch bark, on all sorts of German propaganda leaflets with charcoal. The first graders still kept a bag of yellow sand at hand - next to them on the ground they wrote numbers and letters on it. We had two teachers - Pyotr Ivanovich Ivanovsky - he taught literature and history, he knew a lot of works in both Belarusian and Russian. And mathematician Faina Petrovna Karabetyan.
“We also had our own weapons workshop. And a Tula gunsmith. Give him a rifle barrel - make him military weapon. And we always had weapons. Even in the daytime, from the edge of the forest, the partisans fired armor-piercing bullets at locomotives from an anti-tank rifle, at night they mined the highway and railway. The steam locomotive was out of order. Until a repair tractor comes from the station and the holes are riveted, traffic is paralyzed. Let at least two or three hours. But grown-ups did this. We, who are older, as well as women and the elderly, were taught fire training. It used to be that I was taken on trips. I smelled a German from a hundred meters away, they liked to perfume themselves with cologne. And especially if they still smoke tobacco ... I far smelled ambushes.
Taking this opportunity, I ask about some moments of partisan life, omitted in books and memoirs:
- And what did you smoke in the camp?
- Grass from under your feet.
- Did you make moonshine?
- Not from what was. They took from people. But only for needs, there was no drunkenness. Although Peskovsky alcohol was more often used for medicinal purposes. There, our man Alexander Kozhuh worked as a cellar and brought alcohol to us. That's why I went to his house. He lived next to the gate, near the distillery itself. I remember a case, one Yugoslav, who surrendered to us, was blown up by a mine. His leg was amputated with a hacksaw. They disinfected him with alcohol, drank a glass of alcohol as anesthesia - and was in a dead sleep.
- There were women in the squad. Have there been any weddings?
- Not. Everything was strict. Men were forbidden to enter the women's dugout. Once one disobeyed, for which he was shot on the spot by the commander.
- Where did you get the medicines?
- treated with herbs. I myself got sick with typhus in the camp. Sporovtsy saved me, cured me with herbs. For centuries they did not know a doctor, they were treated with what nature gives.
- Did you prepare for the winter?
- Yes, they picked mushrooms, berries, nuts, dried in the sun, on a fire.
- Did you hunt?
- Then there were more partisans than animals. Finding the animal was a problem. I don't know where they went. The fish was caught together with the Sporovites on the lake. They fished all the time.
There were no animals - pigs, dogs, cats - in the camp. There were several dairy cows, milk - for small children, the wounded, the sick. Huts for animals were made for the winter, hay was harvested.
We had one German in the camp. He did not want to fight and surrendered to us. Not all Germans who were driven to the front shared the Fuhrer's ideology. They did not take him on combat missions, he performed various work in the camp in the economic platoon. After the war he was released, he went to Germany.
- Movies about the war, partisans and real life in the squad are very different?
- Yes. Everything is done in the movie. There is little reality there, real life is not shown. Restoring now is not easy. And no one needs.
- What is your message to the world?
- The most important thing is that there is friendship among the people. Our squad was called international. It included Poles, and Jews, and Yugoslavs, and Hungarians, and all the nationalities of the Union. I would like people to live like neighbors even now.
We ask the hunters for directions and return directly to the Berezovsky district. On the way, Fyodor Stepanovich shows a place, a “forester”, where during the war years there was a partisan observation post. “Observers were constantly on duty in the tall fir trees. When they knew that the Germans would go, the road was mined. We also had our own post on the road, a machine-gun bunker. The Germans only once poked their nose at us along this road, but they came under fire and did not try again.
The road took us to the village of Sands on the street. Partisan.
The partisan camp in Khovanshchina is worth a visit to everyone who has not been there yet. It is close, interesting, informative and provides good food for thought.
” introduces readers to the Ivatsevichi Museum of Local History and its branch - the memorial complex of partisan glory “Khovanshchina”, where you can see the reconstruction of partisan life.
The Ivatsevichi Local History Museum was opened in 1996 on the basis of the Folk Museum of the pioneer hero Kolya Goyshik. Now the museum is located in a building built in the middle of the 20th century, which has a rather rich history: at first it was a hotel, and now the museum's exposition is located there.
A branch of the museum - the memorial complex "Khovanshchina" - is very popular with visitors to the city. It is located in a forest tract near the village of Korochin, Ivatsevichi district.
Capture of German officers and policemen
The memorial was created in 1971 at the request of the Brest Regional Council of Veterans. In August 1998, it was transferred by the Brest Regional Museum of Local Lore to the Department of Culture of the Ivatsevichy District Executive Committee as a branch of the Ivatsevichy Museum of Local History.
In "Khovanshchina" the atmosphere of the war time was recreated. The museum tells about how the partisans lived during the Second World War, thanks to an interactive reconstruction.
Interrogation of a captured officer
The memorial complex is located on a piece of land surrounded by swamps and ditches. This is an island in the thick of the forest, to which, as in the past, only one masonry leads. But during the war years, the masonry was buried in water and was completely invisible from the air. Now here is the bridge. It is raised above the water so that current visitors do not get their feet wet.
Descendants of the partisans
One of the memorial signs is installed at the entrance to the complex. It is a reminder that during the harsh years of the war, here, in the Khovanshchina tract, in 1943-1944, the headquarters of the Brest partisan formation, the regional committee of the Communist Party of Belarus, the regional committee of the Komsomol and the underground editorial office of the Zarya newspaper were located.
This memorial is a page of the living and imperishable history of the military exploits of fathers and grandfathers. It is open to the younger generation. This is a tribute to the grateful memory of those who fell in the fierce battles for the freedom, honor and independence of our Motherland. An excursion to the museum complex "Khovanshchina" is a lesson in courage and patriotism, - says Raisa Gorbach, Director of the Ivatsevichi Museum of Local History. - Therefore, it takes place in such a lively format, with the reconstruction of historical events.
The action takes place at all facilities of the complex: at the headquarters of the partisan formation, in the editorial office of the regional newspaper Zarya, in the Komsomol regional committee, in the medical unit, in the forest school. Before the eyes of visitors, the partisan camp lives its own life.
A Day in the Life of a Partisan Detachment
Interactive participants
In the dugouts you will see sunbeds, tables, benches that were used by the partisans.
A plan of a military operation is being developed at the headquarters, the next issue of the Zarya newspaper is being typed up in the editorial office, preparations for the conference are being actively carried out in the Komsomol, and wounded partisans are being treated in the medical unit.
Komsomol members draw up a wall newspaper
In the editorial office of the newspaper "Zarya" you can see photographs, some issues of the newspaper itself, a leaflet with an appeal to young people.
Information Bureau summary is being printed
In the headquarters itself there are photographs of the commanders of partisan detachments, documents, leaflets, newspapers (copies), bowlers, lamps, a field bag, an ink device. The attention of visitors is always attracted by the development map partisan movement in the Brest region. The authenticity of the situation is made up of two sun loungers, benches, a long table, and an oven.
Lessons are going on in the forest school. Children write letters to the front, they count. Together with the teacher, they dream of victory, of a peaceful life, in which there will be beautiful schools with spacious and bright classrooms, gyms and swimming pools.
At school, you can see desks, benches, a blackboard, a teacher's desk, and even real textbooks from the 30s and 40s of the last century!
Lesson in the forest school
The partisans who came from the mission take food around the fire. The accordion player plays military melodies, women sing songs, cooks treat everyone with partisan porridge, bacon and bread.
What a delicious partisan porridge
Guerrilla wedding
Visitors to the interactive reconstruction often describe the naturalness of the action, it seems that time has turned back and we all became participants in those distant events.
The interactive action is not repeated. Every year a new script is written, new participants are involved.
About 5 thousand people visit the Khovanshchina memorial complex a year, most of them are residents of the city and the region, schoolchildren of the Ivatsevichy, Baranovichi, Berezovsky districts and the city of Brest, Bobruisk, as well as foreign delegations (France, Denmark, Germany, Australia). Guests came from Moscow, Chelyabinsk, Smolensk, Kiev, Chernigov.
On the basis of the memorial complex, bike and car races, tourist rallies are held annually, correspondents of the Russian media, schoolchildren and students from Russia come here as part of the Little Heroes big war” on patriotic education of youth, participants in the pilot project of the UNESCO Youth Club “Unity” (Moscow) together with the active of children’s and youth organizations in Brest, participants in a socio-political action dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Belarus from Nazi invaders in the years of the Great Patriotic War, “From Minsk to Berlin”, “Youth of the Union State on the way to a culture of peace and harmony”, veteran organizations of Belarus.
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