Bolshoi Tyuters is the island of death. Big Tyuters reveals its secrets Big Tyuters Island
Big Tyuters(Finnish Tytärsaari; Swedish Tyterskär; Est. Tütarsaar - daughter island) - Russian island in the central part Gulf of Finland, located 75 km from the coast of Finland and southeast of Gogland. It is part of the Kingisepp district of the Leningrad region. The area of the island is 8.3 sq. km.
The island of Bolshoi Tyuters in the Gulf of Finland was also called the “island of death” after the war. People continued to die there into the 1950s and 1960s.
The Finns and Germans captured the archipelago, located in the very center of the Gulf of Finland, at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. The islands of Gogland and Bolshoi Tyuters were of exceptional importance. After all, they are located right on the fairway, along which both military and civilian ships sailed in those years, and even now. The Finns then occupied the island of Gogland, and a German headquarters group and a large garrison were located on Bolshoi Tyuters. A powerful battery appeared there to fight the Soviet fleet. It is quite clear that the Nazis, preparing for a serious battle in the Baltic, brought a huge amount of ammunition to the island. In addition, for some time shells were produced right there. In their haste to leave the island, the Germans were unable to remove the accumulated arsenal. They acted insidiously - they mined the territory of the island, essentially turning it into one large mine. The Soviet paratroopers who landed on Tyuters in the summer of 1944 fell into this terrible trap.
There were repeated attempts to clear the fortifications and the territory of the mined island, both immediately after the war and then in the 1950s. In this case, many sappers died. In order not to kill people in vain, they decided to simply not touch the island. At the same time, a lighthouse appeared on Tyuters, which is still working. The population of the mined island still consists of one person - the hermit Leonid Kudinov, who maintains this very lighthouse. The lighthouse keeper lives on a small plot of land and gets everything he needs from Mainland and does not risk going far from home. After all, any careless step could be your last...
It is quite clear that ammunition was found on the ill-fated island. You don't even need to look for them too much. In dugouts, in warehouses, in open areas and underground, there are thousands of shells, mines, and bombs. Next to them you can see German guns that stood for 60 years. All this is mined and can fly into the air even with a slight impact.
In 2005, sappers from the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations, together with specialists from the Swedish Rescue Services Agency (SHASS), completed the demining of Bolshoi Tyuters Island in the Gulf of Finland.
Sappers discovered and destroyed 30 thousand 339 on the island explosive objects times of the Great Patriotic War.
The expedition, which began on August 10, together with sappers from Sweden, included employees of the 294th Center for Special Risk Rescue Operations "Leader", the 179th Rescue Center and the North-Western Regional Center of the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations.
In addition to numerous mines, shells and aircraft bombs, sappers from the two countries discovered six buried fortifications on the island.
In the Baltic, on the island of Bolshoi Tyuters, the interim results of the expedition to search for and remove equipment from the Great Patriotic War are being summed up
The event, organized by the Russian Geographical Society together with the Ministry of Defense, started in early May and will end on August 14. In less than four months, search engines must comb the island, collect German military equipment, which it is full of, and take it to the mainland. This is the first such expedition: before that only sappers worked here. According to experts, the island can be called unique: wild, almost uninhabited (only two people at the lighthouse), crammed like a museum under open air, artifacts abandoned 70 years ago.
Eight square kilometers of taiga and stone
We depart from Levashovsky military airfield. The weather is flyable, despite the low purple sky. Several officers of different branches of the military are loaded on board. And two soldiers with a can for berries.
“We asked, they took us,” they share, informing along the way that they still have a whopping 4 months left until the end of their service. - Interesting! There will be something to tell at home...
To Bolshoy Tyuters, which, if you look at the map, lies near Estonia and Finland, is about an hour’s flight, 180 kilometers. The island came under the jurisdiction of our country back in 1721, when Peter I defeated the Swedes in the Northern War. In 1920 it unexpectedly became part of independent Finland. After 20 years he returned to us again. After three years the Finns and Germans ruled there. Since 1944 he has been Russian again.
Throughout the post-war period, these eight square kilometers of stone and taiga have been empty: unnecessarily. Yes, and dangerous. Until 2005, when sappers from the Ministry of Emergency Situations came to the island, it was filled with shells and mines.
From the porthole, Tyuters looks like a cozy green fluffy hat in the middle of the water. When lowered, extensive sand dunes on the banks, stepped rock formations. On the western shore there is a lighthouse match. A thread of forest road stretches through the island. And the expedition camp: white military tents, cargo equipment.
Key to the Gulf of Finland
Let's unload. The strong smell of pine needles hits your nose. There is an unusual silence in my ears.
We change into a UAZ and, using the cab to pick up tree branches along the winding path, we drive to the site of one of the finds. A month ago, there, in the windfalls, they discovered a curious specimen - a Wehrmacht anti-aircraft gun.
The island, I must say, looks truly wild. But in past centuries there was a large Finnish fishing village here, there was a wooden church, a school, and later a narrow-gauge railway.
During World War II, the garrison of German troops on Tyuters amounted to 2 thousand soldiers: one person per four square meters! And it is no coincidence - together with neighboring Gogland and a couple of smaller islands, this ridge played a strategic role - the key to the Gulf of Finland. Whoever owned the archipelago controlled the entrance to the bay. Between the islands, the Germans stretched anti-submarine nets and laid mine chains. Gogland was controlled by the Finns, Bolshoi Tyuters by the Germans. Ours made attempts to return them, but to no avail. That is why our Baltic Fleet stood, not entering into major battles until 1944, locked in Kronstadt and Leningrad...
Each field kitchen tank contains a grenade
On one of the hills across the road there is a Ural tractor and a truck crane. Nearby is the same gun - an 88-mm Bofors cannon.
“It was produced in Sweden,” the head of the expedition, General Valery Kudinsky, explains. — One of the best examples of anti-aircraft weapons of that time: automatic, reliable. Her condition is at the moment satisfactory. Clean, restore - and almost like new. They also found ammunition in the ground nearby: 80 shells in oiled paper. They used these very guns to hit our planes.
The search work, the general explains, has now been completed. From May to June, the expedition members combed the island length and breadth: they walked in chains, 20 - 30 meters from each other. Now the task is to deliver what was found to the pier. A total of 207 objects were discovered. 137 of them need to be pulled out using heavy equipment - these same tractors and cranes. Half are already on the shore, half in the forest. Among the finds are anti-aircraft guns, anti-tank guns, anti-aircraft fire control posts, field kitchens, searchlights, trailers of various capacities, and fuel barrels.
All without exception, it must be said, are out of order. The Germans left the island hastily. They abandoned everything and left this land on September 18, 1944. Guns and trailers were blown up. Each field kitchen tank contains a grenade. There are several through shots into each barrel...
All-terrain vehicles and helicopters
It takes about half an hour to load the cannon. Despite its seemingly compact size, it does not fit entirely onto the tractor. During transportation, on one of the hills it falls creakingly onto the stones. Again we have to adjust the crane, hook the cable...
At the pier we are met by the deputy head of the director of the expedition center of the Russian Geographical Society and the main inspirer of the entire process, Artem Khutorskoy.
“You have to tinker with almost every object like this,” he says. — But some things cannot be removed with wheeled vehicles at all - rocks, windbreaks. We will try by air, using a helicopter.
And he adds that, despite the difficulties, all the work is a joy. They dreamed of this project for many years and studied archives, including German ones. But it was impossible to just pick up and go here—considerable funds were needed. Last December, the project was presented to the President of the Russian Geographical Society Sergei Shoigu, and the Minister of Defense gave the go-ahead: go ahead.
Three-inch gun, unfound aircraft
The result of the work of the military and geographers is obvious: there is a picturesque pile of metal near the pier. For specialists, all of these are valuable exhibits, which in the near future will probably take their place in various military museums across the country.
“Here are the fuel barrels, standard, two-hundred-liter,” says Khutorskoy. — From several countries at once. German, Finnish, Latvian, French. Look at their round timbers - you can make a whole collection here! Or another very interesting object: a three-inch cannon, manufactured in 1917 at the Putilov plant. It went to independent Finland. And she fought against us during the Great Patriotic War...
- What about the people who died? - I’m interested.
— As for the Germans, from 1941 to 1944, about 20 soldiers died on Bolshoi Tyuters for various reasons. We found the site of a possible cemetery - eight name tags were found there, which were attached to grave crosses. But the Nazis suffered the main losses in neighboring Gogland. In 1944, when Finland had already withdrawn from the war, the Germans decided to intercept Gogland - after all, it could have gone to us! At first they tried to negotiate peacefully, then they began to intimidate, and in the end they sent their troops there. And the Finns - yesterday's German allies - gave them a serious rebuff. Moreover: they requested air assistance from Soviet troops- this became the only thing similar case during the Great Patriotic War. Then ours and the Finns completely defeated the Nazis: up to 700 Germans died, went missing, and were wounded.
- And ours are here, on Bolshoi Tyuters?..
— There were losses. And when we left in '41. And when in 1942 they tried to storm it twice. It is known that later two of our scouts landed here. But they went missing. They lie in the swamps soviet planes- one or two. The lighthouse says that as a boy he remembers the tail of a plane in one of the swamps. But where is unclear. We found parts of the fuselage skin. Nothing more...
Delivery of equipment to the pier will continue in the next two weeks. Then - sending on landing boats to Kronstadt, placement at one of the military arsenals of the Leningrad region. It is likely that in the coming years, teams will begin work on this patch in the middle of the Gulf of Finland to search for dead soldiers.
By the way
As part of the Russian expedition Geographical Society and the Ministry of Defense at the end of July - beginning of August, search activities are also carried out on the island of Gogland. Unlike Bolshoi Tyuters, only search engines work on Gogland, who are engaged in discovering the graves of our soldiers (military equipment was removed from here almost immediately after the war). According to preliminary data, about 500 Red Army soldiers died and were buried here. Work on the island is carried out by a search group of the North-West association of 16 people (including various detachments of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region). This is the first such large-scale event. Currently, many household items and weapons of both Soviet and Finnish soldiers have been discovered - grenades, shells, rifle shields, communication coils, flasks, mugs, spoons, teapots, sanitary stretchers. And the remains of one Red Army soldier: on a cigarette case found nearby, the surname is Sapozhnikov. The search is complicated by the rocky nature of the soil. The island's landing areas are currently being combed.
A German anti-aircraft battery covered with sand for 70 years, members of a joint expedition of the Ministry of Defense and the Russian Geographical Society. They cleared mines and examined this small piece of land in the Gulf of Finland, which the Nazis turned into a real citadel during the war. There have never been journalists here before - this granite rock bunker was discovered quite recently. The researchers were able to get inside only after clearing the entrance from the rubble. And immediately opening! On the walls there are inscriptions in German and the date - March 1944.
“There was a command post here, a reserve one. That is, at the moment when the air raids began, the commandant of the garrison and his headquarters came down here - control was conducted from here,” says the head of the Gogland complex expedition, Artem Khutorskoy.
The island of Bolshoi Tyuters in the middle of the Gulf of Finland during the Great Patriotic War became a kind of castle with which the Germans blocked the exit to the Baltic from Leningrad. Then the small island was defended by a garrison of three thousand people with a powerful defense system - traces of that war are still everywhere here. This is already the sixth season of the joint expedition of the Russian Geographical Society and the Ministry of Defense - the island has become a “war reserve.” Leaving the island in 1944, the Germans blew up all their equipment so that the guns would not fall to our troops. Over the years after the war, the battery was completely covered with sand. They also tried to destroy this anti-aircraft gun, but it is completely intact.
“All the guidance devices have been preserved, even the wooden handles are intact, the lifting and turning mechanisms have been preserved - they are in excellent condition,” says Alexander Artemyev, a Western Military District serviceman and artillery specialist.
No Russian museum has such guns - this is a real artifact, and now the anti-aircraft gun will become one of the most valuable exhibits of the Patriot Park branch in Kronstadt. But first it needs to be completely dug up - and here is another find, an extremely unpleasant one. Under the barrel there is a stack of shells, in full combat readiness, as if they were placed here quite recently, and not more than 70 years ago.
Researchers from the Russian Geographical Society could not work here without the help of the military: the island is still fraught with danger. Sappers will have to neutralize an entire warehouse of 76 mm caliber ammunition - they were found here, in the dunes, at a depth of two meters. We were able to find all this thanks to high-precision magnetic surveys. With such a “frame” behind them, day after day, geophysicists comb kilometers of territory.
“The device allows you to passively measure the magnetic field, so above large objects, accumulations of metal, we see what mine detectors do not see,” says geophysicist Alexander Borisik.
Researchers still have a lot of work ahead: year after year they manage to make more and more new discoveries here. And this despite the fact that the harsh island in the Gulf of Finland is extremely reluctant to reveal its secrets.
Last week, the Gogland search expedition, sent by the Russian Ministry of Defense to the island of Bolshoy Tyuters in the Gulf of Finland, loaded several dozen German units onto landing boats of the Baltic Fleet. military equipment and weapons from the Second World War (this is reported by the Internet portal of the Russian Ministry of Defense). At the end of the war, the Germans, hastily leaving Bolshoy Tyuters, were forced to leave large number heavy weapons, military equipment, ammunition and other property. Among the finds discovered by the expedition are the legendary German FlaK 18/36 anti-aircraft guns of 88 mm caliber, the Swedish Bofors L60 anti-aircraft gun and rare models of German artillery trailers.
The island is located west of Baltic shores Russia, so for an observer from St. Petersburg the sun sets behind Bolshoi Tyuters
hodar.ru
The expedition has been working on the island since July 15: it includes representatives of the All-Russian public organization"Russian Geographical Society", All-Russian social movement to perpetuate the memory of those who died defending the Fatherland and the “Russian Search Movement”. The total number of the expedition is more than 80 people.
There are many large and small islands in the Gulf of Finland. It has long been known that some of them contain ruins of fortifications and the remains of broken military equipment. A scientific expedition of the Russian Geographical Society (RGS) in 2013 examined a group of Outer Islands and confirmed these facts in its reports. Islands such as Gogland, Maly Tyuters, Bolshoy Tyuters, Sommers and Seskar, which have a strategically significant location, served as important strongholds for the Germans during the war.
Bolshoi Tyuters Island (marked in red)
navytech.ru
Bolshoi Tyuters Island is located 180 km west of St. Petersburg, is about 2.5 km across, and its area is approximately 8.3 square meters. km. Bolshoi Tyuters is located south of the island Gogland, forming with it a kind of gate through which the main sea route leading to the ports of St. Petersburg and Vyborg passes. It was this location of the island that determined its role as a location for coastal batteries. Currently, of the existing buildings on the island, there is only a lighthouse with a height of 21 m.
The lighthouse of Bolshoy Tyuters Island is maintained by a keeper who does not risk straying far from it, fearing the deadly “surprises” of wartime
smallbattle. ru
Over the years, garrisons were stationed on the islands, fortifications with minefields were built, and coastal batteries were installed to keep the sea routes at bay. Some islands changed their owners, alternately being Swedish, Finnish, Russian, and during the Great Patriotic War, some of them were occupied by German troops (Bolshoi Tyuters was held by the Germans almost until the end of 1944). Fierce battles in the Gulf of Finland cost the warring parties thousands of casualties, and the exact number of Soviet soldiers and officers who died here has not yet been established.
Channel One's story about the search expedition to Bolshoi Tyuters
Not all islands were completely cleared of mines and shells after the end of the war, especially those in border areas that were closed to the public. There is reason to believe that in addition to old military equipment, the remains of soldiers who died in the battles for their liberation may be found on the islands.
At the end of the war, the Germans, hastily leaving Bolshoy Tyuters, were forced to leave a large amount of heavy weapons, military equipment and ammunition on it. In addition, minefields and barriers remained here, and in such large numbers that Bolshoi Tyuters earned the reputation of an “island of death”, since military personnel continued to die there for many years after the war. In the post-war period, sapper units arrived on the island several times (seven such landings are known) and carried out work to clear the territory. In particular, in 2005, a joint expedition of Russian and Swedish sappers worked here, neutralizing more than 30 thousand explosive objects.
Despite all efforts to clear mines from the island, Bolshoi Tyuters still poses a great danger to people
postleduvremeni.ru
Preparations for the expedition of the Russian Ministry of Defense to the islands of the Gulf of Finland began in the spring of this year. The Gogland reconnaissance expedition, consisting of representatives of the Russian Defense Ministry, the Russian Geographical Society and participants in the search movement, visited the Outer Islands at the end of May and completed a large amount of work: studied the area, outlined search areas, laid out routes, carried out engineering markings, prepared berths and sites, compiled inventory of the remains of weapons and military equipment.
The island, closed to visitors, has become a kind of nature reserve, preserving weapons and equipment from World War II in its forests.
poludurkoff.net
After a reconnaissance expedition in early July, a landing party of sappers from the Baltic Fleet naval engineering regiment was landed on the islands. Naval sappers, working on maps prepared by the reconnaissance expedition, conducted a study of a number of areas, freeing them from explosive objects. During a week of work, sappers discovered more than seven hundred mines, shells and other ammunition, which were destroyed by explosion. Anti-personnel mines posed a particular danger, the fuses of which had been activated for several decades and could detonate at any moment.
Among the military equipment found there are many valuable samples. In the photo - presumably a Bofors L60 automatic anti-aircraft gun of 40 mm caliber
postleduvremeni.ru
Specialists of the Russian Ministry of Defense working on the islands report that about two hundred samples of German weapons and military equipment have already been assembled and shipped. After delivery to Mainland those found samples that are subject to restoration will be restored and will become exhibits of Russian military history museums and memorial parks. As Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said in a recent interview, the restored samples of weapons and equipment will become exhibits of the Patriot military-patriotic park, where it is planned to transport the exhibitions of some military museums.
Loading finds onto ships of the Baltic Fleet
military.rf
The expedition also reportedly discovered the remains of a Red Army soldier, who has yet to be identified. Work on the island will last until August 14.
A truly historical event took place during the complex expedition "Gogland" to explore the Outer Islands of the Gulf of Finland. The three-year search for the plane shot down during the Great Patriotic War was crowned with success: at the end of May, the wreckage of the Soviet Pe-2 dive bomber and the remains of the pilots were found, and their names were soon established. This is the crew commander, 19-year-old junior lieutenant Mikhail Kazakov, 23-year-old gunner-radio operator Arseny Tyshchuk and navigator Mikhail Tkachenko. The Gogland team even managed to contact the relatives of the fallen heroes.
A Pe-2 dive bomber was shot down on Bolshoi Tyuters Island on the night of September 8-9, 1943.
Death Island, as Bolshoi Tyuters was called during the war, was a well-fortified, ammunition-stuffed and military equipment granite citadel. In September 1944, the three-thousand-strong German garrison hastily left the island, having previously mined it. Since then, Bolshoy Tyuters has been cleared of mines several times, but even now, after several operations and after the titanic work of sappers, ammunition is still being found left on the island. Perhaps that is why the Gogland team managed to get to the crash site only now, after three years of searching and painstaking work in Russian and German archives.
The search team of the Russian Geographical Society managed to discover the first wreckage of the plane on May 25, on the first day of the search, during a repeated combing of the supposed square, located almost in the very center of Bolshoi Tyuters. Under the shallow soil layer and intertwined tree roots, license plate engine parts, pieces of burnt aluminum casing, a center section wing, an unopened burnt parachute and a large number of fragments were found. Almost everything around them was strewn with them, since the impact of the downed 7-ton bomber was so strong that it split a granite boulder, pressing the fragments into a shallow layer of rocky ground.
There are plenty of versions about the exact cause of death: but it is absolutely clear that the heroic Pe-2 completed its task and fell into an impenetrable forest thicket with empty ammunition. “Most likely, the plane was shot down by German anti-aircraft artillery, but it is likely that the enemy was not immediately able to detect this, since there are no messages about this in the combat log for September 8 and 9, 1943,” says a member of the search party of the Russian Geographical society Sergei Karpinsky.
“This is the first combat aircraft found by the search team of the Russian Geographical Society,” emphasizes Artem Khutorskoy, head of the expedition, deputy executive director of the expedition center of the Russian Geographical Society. “In the second shift of the expedition’s work on Bolshoy Tyuters, the searchers need to once again, layer by layer, examine the crash site for objects discovery of the tail section and the remains of the crew in order to bury them in a military cemetery in the Leningrad region."
The environmental watch continues...
The second shift of the environmental watch on the Outer Islands of the Gulf of Finland - Gogland and Bolshoi Tyuters - began on June 2, 2016. Long road along a busy sea route was filled with conversations and anticipation of meeting with mysterious islands, because getting to them is a dream come true for three dozen volunteers who came from the most remote corners of our country.
Evgeny Selivanov from Chelyabinsk is a professional traveler. Having received a diploma in tourism 4 years ago, the graduate decided to experience first-hand what it means to be a traveler in the 21st century. Since then, he has traveled all over Russia and visited many countries. Before participating in the change of the Russian Geographical Society on the Outer Islands of the Gulf of Finland, he built ecological trails in Kenozerskoye national park Arkhangelsk region, after Gogland he is going to the Arctic shift of the Youth Forum "Morning" in Khanty-Mansiysk.
Artem Zaguraev graduated from the Faculty of Geography of St. Petersburg State University, with 10 years of field life behind him, participation in the Russian Geographical Society project "Kyzyl - Kuragino" in 2012. Since then, he has been following the projects of the Russian Geographical Society, and here is his luck - in February, when he went to the Society’s website, he saw an advertisement for volunteers and applied, planning his vacation in advance. Artem’s energy showed up on the very first day. Early in the morning, after a long trek, Artyom was already busy washing the dishes and putting things in order in the forest kitchen of the volunteer camp.
Sargey Vaganov is a professional diver, diving and organizing expeditions to the Barents Sea. I learned about the expedition by chance from social networks, but, like many St. Petersburg residents, I heard a lot about the islands and always dreamed of going to them. For the sake of this chance, I put aside all my personal and professional affairs for a while and went on an expedition.
Pavel Chukmeev represents the easternmost region of the country - Khabarovsk region. An ecologist by profession, Pavel took part in expeditions to Sakhalin and Kunashir Island, where he studied the biodiversity of the soil inhabitants of these islands. In 2015, he spent a shift in the Ermak camp of the Kyzyl-Kuragino archaeological and geographical project. Having learned about the expedition from social networks, he sent an application, and when it was approved, he took a vacation and came to St. Petersburg.
22-year-old lawyer Dmitry Anatsky from Moscow decided to go on the expedition after his girlfriend worked on a three-month expedition in Antarctica. He considers himself lucky that he will work on Bolshoi Tyuters - literally only a few have managed to visit this island, Dmitry notes with enthusiasm.
Igor Zelkin studies at the Faculty of Geography of Krymsky federal university, a member of the Crimean branch of the Russian Geographical Society, last year spent a month in Kyzyl-Kuragino, after which, like many of his expedition comrades, he began to regularly follow the Society’s projects.
The first thing the volunteers of the second shift of the complex expedition “Gogland” saw on Bolshoi Tyuters were two huge piles of rusted metal standing on the pier, like a giant gate, conveying a symbolic greeting from the pioneers of the ecological landing.
Perhaps, if not for these trophies, it would be difficult to imagine that this peaceful island, fragrant with lilacs and blossoming apple trees, once wore such scary name– Island of Death. Clear this unique corner Volunteers will have to explore nature and history from the legacy of war and the more recent traces of human activity that disfigure the island in the next two weeks.
Text and photo: Tatyana Nikolaeva, Andrey Strelnikov
