Geography of the USSR. Smolensk under the german occupation

[toot]

this is a rely great TUTORIAL, these photos belong in a book!

[TabsTabs1964]

Here is a group of photos from closer, on the street that goes up to the Cathedral.

In the first one a house burns, the city has just been conquered.




















Postkarte tabstabs collection



Although the main tourist attraction for German soldiers, it is a little higher, on the esplanade between the first and second steps of the cathedral.

[Woolgar]

Outstanding work

Very educational and a a great insight to this beleaguered city

Nick

[TabsTabs1964]

So let's go up the first flight of the steps





This is the exact place today, although currently the cathedral is painted green.



On this esplanade was the great attraction of Smolensk Cathedral, which were two old Mark V tanks from the First World War.



Approximately 70 Mark V tanks were sent by the United Kingdom to support the White Russians in the Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War and in the Northern Russian Campaign. Most were captured by the Red Army, which used them in 1921 during the Soviet Invasion of Georgia, contributing to the Soviet victory at the Battle of Tbilisi.

[TabsTabs1964]

Many German soldiers were photographed in front of the old tanks....

[TabsTabs1964]

tabstabs collection












View from the upper balcony


Another one






Panorama from the terrace

[TabsTabs1964]

This veteran panzerman looks at the camera like he's thinking: Oh guys! I handled an old junk like this in the Great War and made the Tommies run!




tabstabs collection







Although this photo was taken on the way down from the Hotel Molotov (which we will talk about) to the cathedral, I did not want to separate it from the previous one as they are from the same pair of soldiers.

[TabsTabs1964]

In 1945, Allied troops found two heavily damaged Mark Vs in Berlin. Photographic evidence indicates that these were survivors of the Russian Civil War and had previously been on display in Smolensk before being brought to Berlin after the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.

There, four years later, other soldiers were photographed again in front of them.





Berlin, the Lustgarten. On one side the Berlin Cathedral and on the other the Altes Museum.

[TabsTabs1964]

But the cathedral kept inside a treasure of great beauty. An exceptional witness tells us about it in his memoirs.

General Guderian visited it shortly after conquering the city, as it was intact. An antireligious museum had been installed in it, by the Soviet authorities.





Guderian recalls in his memoirs:

“The silver altar and the chandeliers apparently tried to hide, but failed to do so before our arrival in the city. In any case, all these extremely valuable things were piled up in the center of the cathedral. I ordered to find someone from the Russians who could be responsible for its preservation. They found an elderly church watchman with a long white beard, whom I commissioned through an interpreter, to take these treasures at his own risk and put them in a safe place. The most valuable carved gilt frames in the iconostasis were completely intact. What happened to the cathedral afterwards, I don't know.”





He spoke of this marvel: the five-tiered iconostasis on the altar of the Orthodox cathedral.

He was not the only German who visited and photographed it.


















In a clever maneuver the occupation authorities reopened the temple to the worship of the faithful, since the Soviets have kept it closed since the revolution.

[TabsTabs1964]

I finish the chapter dedicated to the cathedral with an image of the time of the occupation among a sea of signs and posters



A couple of german postcards





A couple of panoramic views from the southern part of the city today





Two other views from the other bank of the Dnieper, with the Kremlin wall, in summer and winter today.





And finally a closer image.




See you at the Hauptbahnhof in Smolensk !!