... Already our suffering cannot be found
No measure, no name, no comparison.
But we are at the end of a thorny path
And we know that the day of liberation is near.
These lines belong to the Soviet poetess Olga Bergholz, which during the years of the Great Patriotic War stayed in besieged Leningrad.
The day of liberation came a few years after this poem was written. Exactly 73 years ago, Leningrad was finally liberated from the blockade.
Hope and Football
... It was 1942. Leningrad residents survived the first blockade winter, which turned out to be quite severe: it happened that the temperature dropped to minus 32,
and there was no heating in the houses, sewerage and water supply did not work. Back in April, snow cover in some places reached 52 centimeters, and the air remained cold until mid-May.
But in the hearts of people, despite hunger, cold and shells exploding around, there was something that helped them live on - hope. Hope the city survives. Through thick and thin. This light in the soul they tried to maintain different ways: someone wrote poetry and poems, someone composed music. And there were those who played football.
It is surprising how, in the conditions of a besieged city, someone came up with the idea to hold a football match, but on May 6, 1942, the Leningrad City Executive Committee decided: there must be a game!
Club archive. 1942 blockade match
Gathering the players was not easy: many of the players fought, and those who worked in the city were so exhausted that they would hardly have run even a few tens of meters. By some miracle, the teams still scored: a goalkeeper was called from Nevsky Piglet Viktor Nabutov, from the Karelian Isthmus - Dmitry Fedorov, were withdrawn and Boris Oreshkin, Mikhail Atyushin, Valentin Fedorov, Georgy Moskovtsev, and other blockade players. Dynamo resembled the team that was before the war, but the team of the Metal Plant, against which they played, consisted of those who at least somehow knew how to play and were able to run around the field.
Initially, the match was supposed to take place at the Dynamo stadium, but the main field was so damaged by falling shells that the game was moved to a reserve field next door. Everything was like in an ordinary championship match: the teams and uniforms were obtained, the referee was invited (the referee of the all-Union category P.P. Pavlov worked at the game), even the fans were found.
It was hard to play. It is clear that this was completely different from modern football: most of the players were exhausted, so they often felt dizzy and short of breath. In the interval between half-hour halves, none of them sat on the grass - otherwise they would not have been able to get up later.
The Germans, having heard the broadcast of the game on the radio, decided to disrupt the match, so at the beginning of the second half, the stadium area was fired upon, and one of the shells fell into the corner of the field. All the players and spectators immediately went to the bomb shelter, but after the shelling the match resumed and eventually ended in a victory for Dynamo with a score of 6:0. The players left the field hugging each other.
After this game, several more matches of the same teams took place in the besieged city - on June 30 and July 7, 1942.
The city, which the Germans considered dead, was alive.
impossible to forget
In 1991, a memorial plaque was installed on one of the walls of the stadium: “Here, at the Dynamo stadium, on the most difficult days of the blockade on May 31, 1942, the Leningrad Dynamo played a historical blockade match with the team of the Metal Plant.”
The last participant of those matches, Evgeny Ulitin, died in 2002.
Monument to the footballers of besieged Leningrad
On May 2, 1943, a football match took place in Stalingrad, which became a symbol of the city's resilience. The friendly meeting, organized exactly three months after the end of the Battle of Stalingrad, was supposed to show - and showed - to the whole world that the almost destroyed city was ready to start a full-fledged peaceful life.
On the football field of the only surviving stadium "Azot" came out under the flag of "Dynamo" football players that formed the backbone of the team of the pre-war "Tractor" (today - the Volgograd team "Rotor"). Their rival was the famous Moscow "Spartak".
And even earlier, almost a year ago, there was football in the besieged Leningrad - the CITY of the UNBREAKED ....
On May 31, 1942, a football match took place in besieged Leningrad between the teams of Dynamo and N-sky Plant (as the Leningrad Metal Plant was “encrypted” at that time). The significance of this event cannot be felt if one does not take into account the historical context in which this event was forever inscribed. Indeed, in April 1942, German planes scattered leaflets over our units: “Leningrad is the city of the dead. We do not take it yet, and only because. That we are afraid of a deadly epidemic. We wiped this city off the face of the earth." The game, which took place at the Dynamo stadium in May, refuted these arguments of enemy propaganda.
Leningrad was not a city of the dead. Leningrad withstood a terrible, cold and hungry winter. Despite the fierce bombing and shelling, from February 1942, the second branch of the Road of Life began to work without interruption, which made it possible to slightly increase the quota for the sale of bread and other products. Every day, up to 200 wagons with food and other goods come to the city. Leningrad lived and even played football!
May 1942. Leningrad has not yet recovered from the most terrible, the first blockade winter. In a trench not far from the Sinyavinsky swamps, preparing to repel another attack by the Germans, Nikolai Svetlov, the forward of the St. Petersburg Dynamo, is sitting. Imagine his surprise when on the radio instead of the traditional pre-battle “pumps” he heard painfully familiar: “Smirnov passes along the flank, hangs in the penalty area on Fesenko - Dynamo goalkeeper Viktor Nabutov takes the ball in a brilliant jump!”.
Now it is difficult to say who initiated the legendary blockade match. It was not easy to recruit 22 people - as the captain of Zenit Zyablikov later recalled, several Zenit soldiers who worked at city factories were so exhausted that, having tried to accelerate, they fell on treadmill and could not get up without assistance. However, the players understood that with their game they would not only please the people of Leningrad, but also show the whole country that Leningrad was alive and even a terrible siege could not break the inhabitants of the city.
The field for the game was so plowed up by bomb craters that the match had to be moved to the reserve field of the Dynamo club.
Leningrad was not a city of the dead. Leningrad withstood a terrible, cold and hungry winter. Despite the fierce bombing and shelling, since February 1942, the second railway line "Road of Life" has been working without interruption, which has made it possible to slightly increase the rate of bread and other products. Every day, up to 200 wagons with food and other goods began to arrive in the city. Leningrad lived and even played football!
And yet, it cannot be said that the match in the besieged city was easy. It was a feat.
The Dynamo stadium at that time was a sad sight: one football field was plowed up with shells, the second was occupied by vegetable gardens. Only the third one remained, the one to the left of the main entrance - they played on it.
Needless to say, at first, the slow movements of these emaciated people across the field did not much resemble sporting event. If a footballer fell, he himself often had no strength to stand up. But gradually the players got used to it, the game got better, a few spectators (mostly wounded from the nearest hospital, 40 people), as in the pre-war years, began to cheer on the players - and the game went on! In the first (and the halves lasted for half an hour - it was simply impossible to withstand more) they didn’t even sit on the grass, they knew: if you sit down, you won’t have the strength to get up. After the match, the players left the field in an embrace. Not only out of friendly feelings - it just made it easier to go.
What is behind this significant fact in the world history of football?
Especially for this match, the front lines were withdrawn former players Leningrad "Dynamo" and "Zenith": the commander of the armored boat, Lieutenant Viktor Nabutov, the commander of the torpedo boat, chief foreman Boris Oreshkin (almost all his relatives died in the first year of the blockade, he fought in the Baltic), sniper foreman Georgy Shorets, deputy political officer of the medical unit A. Viktorov, infantrymen - privates Yevgeny Arkhangelsky and G. Moskovtsev ... K. Sazonov, the captain of the pre-war Dynamo Valentin Fedorov, Arkady Alov (both future head coaches of Zenit), Al. Fedorov. Zenit players A. Zyablikov, S. Medvedev, A. Lebedev, N. Smirnov worked in the workshops of the LMZ ... Zenit A. Korotkov and G. Medvedev worked as drivers on the Road of Life. Ivan Kurenkov and Nikolai Smirnov, who played for Zenit in 1944, when he won the USSR Cup, played for the Metal Plant, Alexander Zyablikov, Anatoly Mishuk, Alexei Lebedev, Georgy Medvedev, Nikolai Gorelkin and other Zenit masters. And now, after almost a year's break, players from famous teams have gathered at the Dynamo stadium.
So, the compositions of the legendary teams, here they are - these courageous people:
"Dynamo":
Viktor Nabutov
M. Atyushin - V. Ivanov - Boris Oreshkin
Valentin Fedorov - G. Moskovtsev
Anatoly Viktorov - A. Fedorov - Arkady Alov - K. Sazonov - Evgeny Ulitin
LMZ:
Ivan Kurenkov
Georgy Medvedev - Alexei Lebedev - Nikolai Smirnov
Alexander Zyablikov - Anatoly Mishuk
I. Smirnov - Nikolai Gorelkin - L. Losev - A. Fesenko - N. Smirnov
Referee Pavel Pavlov
It must be said that the Dynamo team was almost entirely made up of players who actually played for this club before the war, while the LMZ team was more "diverse". Many players of trade union clubs were evacuated from the city with their enterprises, the Leningrad "Spartak" almost in full force went to the front as volunteers.
The backbone of the "N-factory" team was made up of Zenit players: Zyablikov, Kurenkov, N. Smirnov, I. Smirnov, Medvedev, Mishuk, Lebedev. There was not a single goalkeeper in the team, so the defender Kurenkov, the future captain of the Cup Zenit-44, took the place at the gate. A few remaining "vacancies" were supplemented by players who had never played in teams of masters before. However, all the same, I think there is every reason to say: on May 31, the Leningrad teams Dynamo and Zenit met. Especially since many old printed materials say so.
The game ended with the victory of the more played "Dynamo" 6:0. Does it really matter who won then? Here is an excerpt from a letter from the former Dynamo striker N. Svetlov, who did not play in that match: “I will never forget the day when I heard a report from the Dynamo stadium in the trenches on the Sinyavinsky swamps, 500 meters from the Germans. At first I did not believe it, I ran into the dugout to the radio operators, and they confirmed: it’s true, they are transmitting football. What was done with the fighters! It was such a fighting rise that if at that moment a signal had been given to kick the Germans out of their trenches, it would have been bad for them! ".
The fact that this match was held in a besieged city caused such a resonance throughout the country (naturally, this event did not go unnoticed by either ours or the Germans), it raised the spirits of the city's residents so much that it's time to say: the game ended with the victory of Leningrad!
In fairness, it should be noted that this match was not the first! On May 6, 1942, a game was held, which was later recognized, allegedly, as a “training game”. The same Dynamo played, and its opponent was a team representing the stationed in Leningrad military unit Baltic naval crew of Major A. Lobanov (7:3 in favor of Dynamo, referee - Nikolai Usov). Moreover, it was this match that for many years was officially considered the real first blockade match. At least in the Leningrad reference calendars back in the mid-80s, this particular match was described under the name "blockade". But the names of those brave sailors are not mentioned anywhere, and the match itself was consigned to oblivion. As if he didn't exist...
Football match between the teams of "Dynamo" and the Red Banner Baltic Fleet (KBF) at the stadium. IN AND. Lenin in besieged Leningrad. May 30, 1943
Obviously, by the time the first commemorative plaque was erected at the Dynamo stadium in 1991, it was decided to recognize the match with a more “serious” opponent as official, “canonical”. (A memorial plaque was installed on the pediment at the entrance to the Dynamo stadium on Krestovsky Island. It depicts the silhouettes of football players and carved the words: “Here, at the Dynamo stadium, on the most difficult days of the blockade on May 31, 1942, the Leningrad Dynamo held historical blockade match with the team of the Metal Plant.")
Then, already on July 7, Dynamo met with LMZ again. The game ended with a score of 2:2, and was not interrupted even during shelling (fortunately, they were shooting at another area)! This match was again judged by Nikolai Usov.
And after that, matches in the besieged city became regular. In the autumn of 1942, a championship was even held among the military units of the city garrison. Dynamo also went to Moscow in the summer to play matches with the capital's teams. They played with Spartak and Dynamo (Moscow). Now everyone knew - the city lives!
July 19 at the bombed stadium named after Lenin, now it's "Petrovsky", Dynamo played on the Day of the Athlete. Then the poet Nikolai Tikhonov was present at the stadium and in the book "Leningrad Year", published in 1943, he wrote: "No more stadium, there was only one small tribune and a huge green field, framed by a barrier of scrap iron. ... And yet the spirit Soviet sports, the spirit of Leningrad perseverance owns the field. There will be time, the stadium will become full-length ... "And it happened! There is a stadium and this stadium is now hosting the brightest matches of Zenit. And, no matter how the games went, Zenit will always be the champion for St. Petersburg.
A football match was held at the Dynamo stadium in the besieged besieged Leningrad.
The blockade of Leningrad is an example of tragedy and triumph, unprecedented in the history of mankind, the highest heroism and fortitude, the will to live and the ability to find means and strength to survive in inhuman conditions.
During the blockade, more than 640,000 people died of starvation alone in Leningrad, and more than 17,000 people died from bombs and shells.
In April 1942, German planes scattered leaflets over our units: “Leningrad is the city of the dead. We do not take it yet, because we are afraid of a cadaveric epidemic. We wiped this city off the face of the earth."
But Leningrad was not a city of the dead. Leningrad withstood a terrible, cold and hungry winter. Despite the fierce bombing and shelling, since February 1942, the second railway line "Road of Life" has been working without interruption, which made it possible to increase the rate of delivery of bread and other products.
It is difficult to say who was the first to remember football then. In besieged Leningrad, on May 31, a football match between the teams of Dynamo and the Leningrad Metal Plant took place. The game, which took place in May at the Dynamo stadium, refuted the arguments of enemy propaganda. Leningrad lived and even played football!
It was not easy to recruit 22 people. For this match, former players were recalled from the front line. The players understood that with their game they would please the people of Leningrad and show the whole country that Leningrad was alive.
The Dynamo team was almost entirely made up of players who played for this club before the war, while the factory team was “diverse” - those who played simply knew how to play and who were strong enough to play football, because the hungry residents of Leningrad had strength barely enough to just move around!
Not all athletes were even able to even enter the field. Too much exhaustion prevented them from accept participation in the game. With great difficulty, Zenit midfielder A. Mishuk, who was discharged from the hospital after a severe stage of dystrophy, was able to play. The very first ball he received in the head game knocked him down.
The field of the Dynamo stadium was "plowed" with bomb craters. It was impossible to play on it. We played on the reserve field of this stadium. The townspeople were not warned about the match. The fans were wounded from a nearby hospital.
The match consisted of two short halves of 30 minutes. The meeting went without a hitch. The players spent the second half under bombardment. How the exhausted and exhausted players were able to spend all this time on the field, no one knows.
At first, the slow movements of these people across the field bore little resemblance to a sporting event. If a football player fell, he himself had no strength to stand up. Spectators, as in the pre-war years, cheered the players. Gradually the game improved. During the break, they didn’t sit down on the grass, they knew that they wouldn’t have the strength to rise.
After the match, the players left the field in an embrace, so it was easier to go. The match in the besieged city was not easy. It was a feat!
The fact that the match was being held in a besieged city did not go unnoticed by either ours or the Germans. It caused a huge resonance throughout the country, it raised the spirit of the city's residents so much that we can say with confidence: the game ended with the victory of Leningrad!
Now - after many decades after the blockade of the city on the Neva by the Nazi invaders - it is impossible to remember exactly who was the first to remember football, but with full confidence we can say that the love for this amazing sports spectacle did not die at that harsh time, did not looking at hunger, cold and the ubiquitous presence of death. To understand how it was, let's remember... how it all began...
Spring 1942. The Nazis are unceremoniously hosting on the territory of the USSR. The Red Army is waging fierce battles against them with varying success. Leningrad residents have already survived the first - perhaps the most difficult blockade winter. In April 1942, the Germans issued a leaflet on which it was written in black and white: “ Leningrad is the city of the dead!» And they scatter it around the besieged city. In response to this, the Military Council of the Leningrad Front, in order to raise the spirits of the fighters and ordinary citizens, decides to hold the first football blockade match.
Almost immediately after the events described, shelling and bombardment of Leningrad intensified. New artillery batteries are being drawn to the city - the enemy covers the blockaded residents with shells from a distance of 13-28 kilometers. According to reports, the state of the Dynamo stadium at that time was disappointing - one of the two football fields was literally plowed over by enemy shells, the other was given over to vegetable gardens. As an alternative, we decided to use the reserve field on Krestovsky Island. On May 6, 1942, the Leningrad "Dynamo" held its first football match in the history of the blockade of Leningrad against the military unit of the Baltic naval crew of Major A. Lobanov. It was he who for a long time was considered the official blockade match. A confirmation of which can be considered the fact that in the Leningrad calendars and reference books until the mid-80s of the XX century, it was he who was mentioned under the name of the Blockade. However, no one mentioned the names of the players of the opposing teams for a number of reasons. Let's fill this gap and pay tribute to the memory of the heroes!
Dynamo squad:
- V. Nabutov;
- G. Moskovtsev;
- B. Oreshkin;
- P. Sychev;
- D. Fedorov;
- Shaft. Fedorov;
- K. Sazonov,
- A. I. Fedorov;
- A. Alov;
- A. Viktorov;
- E. Arkhangelsky;
Some sources claim that the Dynamo Blockade match was initiated by NKVD captain Viktor Bychkov, who was on assignment from the headquarters of the Leningrad Front, agreed with the party leadership of Leningrad. According to the memoirs of Bychkov himself, the team also included Georgy Shorets. The list of Baltic sailors who played against the Dynamo team, unfortunately, is not complete. But it is known for certain that the Baltic Fleet spoke from the crew of Major A. Lobanov:
- Vladimir Anushin;
- Vladimir Brechko;
The meeting was judged by the well-known referee N. Usov. The game consisted of 2 halves of 30 minutes each. The match ended with the victory of Dynamo, the score - 7:3.
But the most famous match - and there were several of them in the history of besieged Leningrad! - was the one in which Dynamo opposed the "Team of the N-sky plant" (so, due to the preservation of the strictest secrecy during the Great Patriotic War, they called LMZ - the Leningrad Metal Plant).
The team that opposed Dynamo included players from Zenit, Spartak and other city teams. The match was scheduled for May 31, 1942. The same Dynamo stadium on Krestovsky Island was chosen as the venue. Pavel Pavlov was appointed as the referee - with his consent, the halves were extended to 30 minutes. Even before the match, certain difficulties arose with the composition of the "N-sky plant" team. First of all, they were connected with the fact that some factory workers could not enter the field for the simple reason that they were exhausted from hunger. They also lacked a goalkeeper. Therefore, defender Ivan Kurenkov stood up instead of him. But even this was not enough full membership Another player was missing. Dynamo offered a way out. They lost their player Ivan Smirnov to the factory workers. But one way or another, in spite of the Nazis besieging Leningrad, the game still took place. And it could not be otherwise, because of the inhabitants of the city on the Neva at that time, as the well-known proverb says: “Nails could be made!”
After the start of the match, shelling began. One of the shells hit the corner playing field. The players and spectators went to the bomb shelter, and after the end of the shelling, the athletes continued the game. It is noteworthy that the radio broadcast of the match was carried out simultaneously in two languages - Russian and German. The result of the friendly meeting is the score 6:0 in favor of Dynamo.
The Dynamo team includes the following players:
- Viktor Nabutov;
- Mikhail Atyushin;
- Valentin Fedorov;
- Arkady Alov;
- Konstantin Sazonov;
- Viktor Ivanov;
- Boris Oreshkin;
- Evgeny Ulitin;
- Alexander Fedorov;
- Anatoly Viktorov;
- Georgy Moskovtsev;
For the "Team of the N-sky plant" played:
- Ivan Kurenkov (Spartak);
- Alexander Fesenko;
- Georgy Medvedev (Zenith);
- Anatoly Mishuk (Zenith);
- Alexander Zyablikov (Zenith);
- Alexey Lebedev (Zenit)
- Nikolai Gorelkin (hockey player);
- Nikolai Smirnov (Zenith);
- Ivan Smirnov (Dynamo);
- Pyotr Gorbachev (Spartak)
- V. Losev;
A. Alov and K. Sazonov scored 2 goals each. According to eyewitnesses, the players left the football field, embracing - the players simply supported each other so as not to fall from exhaustion. Everyone rejoiced at the success of Dynamo - both the Dynamo themselves and their opponents from the “Team N-sky plant”, since it was impossible to divide it. She was one at all in an effort to survive, no matter what, and live after June 2, an article about this grand event was published in the Leningradskaya Pravda newspaper, on June 3 - in the Smena newspaper.
June 7, 1942 was a replay between the same teams. She was again entrusted to judge Nikolai Usov. This time the "Team of the N-sky plant" managed to give a fight to "Dynamo" and draw the match with a score of 2:2.
Played for Dynamo:
- Gavrilin;
- Atyushin;
- Titov;
- Oreshkin;
- Shaft. Fedorov;
- Moskovtsev;
- Sazonov;
- Al. Fedorov;
- Alov;
- Viktorov;
- Ivanov;
The "N-plant team" was represented by:
- V.G. Ponugaev;
- G. Medvedev;
- Fesenko;
- Zyablikov;
- Lebedev;
- Kurenkov;
- Gorelkin;
- I. Smirnov;
- Abramov;
- N. Smirnov;
- Konin;
Memory of the Blockade match:
- 1991 - a memorial plaque was opened at the Dynamo stadium;
- 2012 - a monument was unveiled at the Dynamo stadium;
- 2012 - street exhibition "In memory of the blockade match";
- 2015 - a tournament among amateur teams "Memory Cup" was held at the Dynamo stadium;
Such friendly meetings subsequently became almost traditional. Shelling and bombing sometimes interrupted them, but for us and future generations they forever remained a symbol of stamina and courage, both athletes, fans and ordinary Leningraders who managed to survive the Blockade of the city on the Neva.
BLOCKADE MATCH.
On May 31, St. Petersburg celebrates the 70th anniversary of an incredible event that has gone down in history forever. According to the official version, on May 31, 1942, in the midst of the blockade, a football match was held in Leningrad, in which the players of the local Dynamo met with the team of the Leningrad Metal Plant.
Text by Igor Borunov
Almost everyone in St. Petersburg knows this story in one form or another. Having survived the most terrible winter of 1941-1942, besieged Leningrad was just beginning to recover. The Road of Life was launched, besides, up to 200 wagons of food began to arrive in the city every day ... It was very important to support the belief of the Leningraders that everything would end well. And someone up there came up with an idea: in the besieged city, they should play football against all odds. And they played - at the Dynamo stadium, on Krestovsky Island.
Until now, disputes have not subsided about which match should be considered the very first blockade. Versions are different. It is widely known that the real blockade match took place on May 6th. Football players of the Leningrad "Dynamo", they say, met with the team of the Baltic Navy crew and won with a score of 7:3. Perhaps it was, especially since the direct participants in the events insisted on this, in particular the goalkeeper, and later commentator Viktor Nabutov. But there is much more evidence that allows us to consider the first official match the game on May 31 between Dynamo and the team representing the Stalin Leningrad Metal Plant (LMZ), which included football players from the Leningrad clubs Zenit and Spartak, as well as several workers. For wartime reasons, the name of the rival team of the blue and white sounded like "team of the N-factory."
The meeting ended with a convincing victory for Dynamo, who were better prepared for it - 6:0, but a week later, in the replay, the N-sky plant almost took revenge, achieving a draw - 2:2. After these matches sport competitions in the besieged city became almost regular.
WHO PLAYED
"Dynamo" - "N-sky plant" - 6:0
"Dynamo": Victor Nabutov, Mikhail Atyushin, Valentin Fedorov, Arkady Alov, Konstantin Sazonov, Viktor Ivanov, Boris Oreshkin, Evgeny Ulitin, Alexander Fedorov, Anatoly Viktorov, Georgy Moskovtsev.
"N-sky plant": Ivan Kurenkov, Alexander Fesenko, Georgy Medvedev, Anatoly Mishuk, Alexander Zyablikov, Alexei Lebedev, Nikolai Gorelkin, Nikolai Smirnov, Ivan Smirnov, Petr Gorbachev, V. Losev.
Judge Pavel Pavlov.
Honored coach of the USSR German Semenovich Zonin came to Leningrad from Kazan in 1949. On the Volga, he attended matches with the participation of Dynamo and Zenit players evacuated from Leningrad.
- The Dynamo team was the hallmark of the city. Everyone knew and loved them. The guys were good. friendly team. Her soul was Valentin Fedorov, who played for Dynamo together with his brother Dmitry. Almost the entire Zenit team was evacuated, and only a few people from Dynamo left for Kazan. They worked at the factory there and played football on Saturdays. The people at the matches were packed! They played great football. I will never forget how Peka Dementyev (at that time a Zenit footballer. - Ed.) At the request of the public, began to do his tricks. It was simply impossible to take the ball away from him without a foul,” recalls Zonin.
Zonin met the participants in the blockade matches already in Leningrad, when he began to play for Dynamo.
- We met with goalkeeper Viktor Nabutov at the Dynamo stadium. Nabutov returned from his illness, and I trained him every day. With Arkady Alov was in good relations, but when I arrived, he was already playing not at Dynamo, but at Zenit. I played in Dynamo together with Anatoly Viktorov. Then he left - Vsevolod Bobrov took over, and Viktorov became the champion three times Soviet Union hockey in the Air Force. I remember Kostya Sazonov - a handsome guy! Played as a winger. Before matches, he always made a circle around the square by car. The girls were running after him! And then he returned to the stadium, - says Zonin.
I ask German Semenovich to tell about the prehistory of the blockade match.
- The war found Dynamo in Tbilisi. They returned to Leningrad and, as one, enlisted in the ranks of the Red Army. Since they represented the Dynamo society, many worked in the police and the NKVD - they neutralized spies who showed the Germans where to bomb. There was such a young player - Fedor Sychev, a central defender. In the autumn of 1941 he was on duty. The bombing started. Seeing an elderly woman crossing the road, Fyodor decided to help her go to the shelter. At the time of the explosion, he covered her with his body. She survived, but he died, - the veteran of national football sighs.
In addition to Sychev, the harsh wartime did not spare a few more players from that team. Under different circumstances, Nikolaev, Shapkovsky and Kuzminsky died.
– Valentin Fedorov was a good organizer. He and Alov were entrusted with gathering the players. They called in the city committee of the party. Why were they called? Goebbels' propaganda rang out to the whole world that the city of Lenin is the city of the dead, the inhabitants are already beginning to engage in cannibalism. Then the city committee decided to hold a football match. Fedorov and Alov were given the task of gathering the players. The other team was assembled by the trade unions. Of course, people were thin and hungry, but they came out to play, Zonin continues.
"THE GAME IS A MISSION"
Unfortunately, none of the direct participants in those events survived to this day. The last one, Dynamo striker Yevgeny Ulitin, passed away in 2002. It was he who was captured in the only surviving reliable photograph of the blockade match, taken by TASS photojournalist Vasyutinskiy. Let us turn to the blockade memoirs of the organizers of the game, published in newspapers in the 1970s and 1980s.
Valentin FEDOROV, Dynamo midfielder:
- Once, Arkady Alov and I were summoned to the military department of the city party committee. The manager asked which of the players remained in the city, whose addresses or places of service we know. Seeing our bewilderment, he explained: “The military council of the front decided to hold a football match in the besieged city and attaches great importance to this game. Consider it your most important combat mission." The task was difficult. The Dynamo team did not actually exist then. Six players were in Kazan, four were killed, one was seriously injured and evacuated. But picking was not the most difficult. How to play when there was not enough strength even for walking? However, the players gradually gathered, and we started training. We trained twice a week.
Alexander ZYABLIKOV, midfielder and captain of the N-factory team:
- We, the players of the pre-war "Zenith", in the spring of 1942, there were not so few left in the city. Almost everyone worked in the shops of the Metal Plant. For example, I was the deputy head of the air defense department. Naturally, we did not even think about any football. At the beginning of May, I quite by chance ran into Dynamo player Dmitry Fedorov on the street and quite unexpectedly immediately received an offer from him to play with Dynamo. We had more problems with recruitment. I had to collect players from Spartak and other city teams. Some included in the squad never entered the field - they were so exhausted from hunger. Our opponents gave us the form. Dynamo players, who managed to practice a little, offered to play two halves of 45 minutes. The factory workers agreed only to two for 20. “Let's start with half an hour,” I said, going up to Judge Pavlov. “If we endure, then all 45 minutes.” We did not have a goalkeeper, so the defender Ivan Kurenkov got into the goal, but still one more player was missing. Then Dynamo gave us their player Ivan Smirnov. And yet we survived two halves, because we understood: the city must know that we played.
Before the second match on June 7, the N-factory team found the goalkeeper, Kurenkov took his usual place in defense, and the factory workers almost won.
The son of Dynamo goalkeeper Viktor Nabutov, commentator, journalist and producer Kirill Nabutov, admitted that his father did not like to talk about the blockade match. But he told the impressions of another white-and-blue player - Mikhail Atyushin, an operative of the Leningrad police, who before the war played football only at an amateur level.
“I spoke with Mikhail Atyushin, a football player and gymnast who participated in the match and whose name is also on the memorial plaque,” says Nabutov. - He once went to the Dynamo stadium in May to do gymnastics. In the winter months I did not train - blockade, hunger. Came and met the guys-footballers. They say to him: “Oh! Good thing we got you! Come on, let's play." We played, but he did not remember the details very well.
"DO NOT BEAT IN OUT - THERE IS A POTATO"
Beloved by many Leningraders, the Dynamo stadium has hardly changed over the past 70 years, except that buildings designed for other sports have appeared instead of large stands.
In 1942, only one of the three spare fields was suitable for playing football at Dynamo. A German shell fell on the main platform. On the other two, rutabaga and cabbage were grown. And only on the third field, to the left of the main entrance, it was possible to play football, although also not without restrictions.
- When they entered the field, they were told: try not to hit out of bounds, because potatoes are planted there. Blockade potatoes are life. When the first half ended, the players were offered to rest, but they replied that they would not rest, because if they sat down, they would no longer be able to get up, - says German Zonin.
The testimonies of the players allow you to understand how hard it was for them.
Anatoly MISHUK, Zenit player, midfielder of the N-factory team:
- In the spring I was placed in the factory hospital in the last stage of dystrophy. When I got out of there, Zyablikov found me, said that there would be a game. It seems that I was the weakest of ours. I remember such an episode: there is a slight long transmission. I, as I did hundreds of times in pre-war matches, take the ball with my head, and he ... knocks me down.
“OUTSIDE THE WAR, AND HERE IS SOMETHING
SHANTRAPA IS RUNNING THE BALL!”
Information about how many fans there were at the game is different in different sources - from several dozen wounded from a nearby hospital to 350 graduates of command courses. Before the war, Dynamo players were the favorites of the city, they were known by sight, but the hardships of the blockade changed people beyond recognition. Leningraders, who were at the meeting place, were extremely surprised when they realized who was in front of them.
Evgeny ULITIN, Dynamo player:
- On the eve of the game, the unit where I served as a communications sergeant received a telephone message that it was necessary to arrive at the match. Early in the morning I drove to Leningrad in a passing car, got off the truck at Palace Square. Then I walked to the stadium. There he hugged with his comrades, picked up boots and a uniform. “There is a war in the yard, and here some kind of scammer is chasing the ball!” fans were outraged. They just didn't recognize their recent idols. In the first minutes, neither the legs nor the ball obeyed us. But the guys slowly wound up, and the game went on. “Bah! Yes, it's Oreshkin! Nabutov! Fedorovs! - was heard from the stands, which immediately thawed and began to ache to the fullest. Despite the warm day, it was difficult to play, at the end of the match my legs were cramping. However, most of the Dynamo players had much more strength than our rivals. In addition, a field player stood in their gates. This largely explains the large account. In the course of the game, I wanted to change, but with great difficulty we recruited people for two squads. The meeting participants left the field in an embrace. And not only because they were proud of each other - it was just easier to go that way. He returned to the unit near Shlisselburg and barely walked for two weeks.
The players were well aware of the importance of the mission entrusted to them. It was necessary to shame the fascist propaganda and give the city hope for a peaceful life.
Valentin FEDOROV:
- It was difficult. And the muscles ached terribly, and the ball seemed heavier than usual. And he didn't fly very far. But all this was nothing compared to the mood. We understood how important it is to just play…
Indeed, the radio report on the game, which appeared the next day, was met with extraordinary enthusiasm on the front lines. Former Dynamo striker Nikolai Svetlov wrote about this in a letter: “I will never forget the day when in the trenches in the Sinyavinsky swamps, 500 meters from the Germans, I heard a report from the Dynamo stadium. At first I didn't believe it. I ran into the dugout to the radio operators. They confirmed that they are broadcasting football. What happened to the soldiers! Everyone was excited."
MYTHS AND LEGENDS
Around the blockade match, or rather blockade matches - we know that there were several of them - there is a lot of dubious information, and sometimes outright speculation. But what is important is that in the difficult year of 1942 in besieged Leningrad they really played football, and more than once. At the same time, a number of photographs of the supposedly blockade match have nothing to do with it, since they depict a game at the dilapidated Lenin Stadium, and not at all at Dynamo. There was not and could not be a direct radio broadcast to the Soviet and German trenches. On the radio, they talked about the game in a recording.
“There was no report on the enemy trenches,” says Kirill Nabutov. - Intelligence work. In the case of a live report, the Germans would instantly determine where the match was taking place, and they could calmly fire at the crowded place. And so the shots were, but far away. A shell fell a few hundred meters away, and that was it. As always, reality is more modest than the legends that accompany it. I spoke with the Austrian communist Fritz Fuchs. During the blockade, he worked on the Leningrad radio - on German hosted propaganda news broadcasts that were broadcast to enemy troops. Someone on the radio told him: “Have you heard? They played football at Dynamo yesterday” – “What are you talking about? Of course I'll tell you about it!" And in the news release, he announced the match. There were many blockade matches.
“In 2018 TO THE MONUMENT TO FOOTBALL PLAYERS-
FLOWERS WILL BE PLACED TO BLOCKADERS"
On May 31, on the day of the 70th anniversary of the legendary match, a monument will be unveiled next to the field on which the game took place: two struggling football players, next to it is a bench with flowers and a military uniform. St. Petersburg TV commentator Gennady Orlov hopes that the matter will not be limited to the opening of the monument and the memorial plaque that appeared in 1991.
– Can you imagine, football players and fans from the most different countries and lay flowers in memory of the victory of the spirit. The participants of the blockade match were dystrophics. They said: “You better not give us a break between halves, because if we stop, we will not be able to get up.” I had the honor to know many of the participants in the match. Amazing people - such inner beauty! This should be sung, and there should be a museum, - Orlov is convinced.
