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At the end of September, a platoon from the 42nd
Guards had seized a four-storey
building overlooking a sqaure some 300 yards
from the top of the riverbank.
Their commander, Lieutenant Afanas'ev, was blinded
early in the fighting, so Sergeant
Yacov Pavlov took over command.
They discovered many civilians in the basement
who stayed throughout the fighting.
One of them, Mariya Ulyanova, took active part
in the defence. Pavlov's men smashed
through cellar walls, to improve their communications,
and cut holes in the walls, to make
better firing points for their machine guns and
long-barrelled anti tank rifles. Whenever
panzers approached, Pavlov's men scattered, either
to the cellar or to the topfloor, from
where they were able to engage them at close
range. The panzers crews could not elevate
their main armanent sufficiently to fire back.
That house, known as "Pavlov's house", became
a symbol of determination of
Russians to hold the city no matter what. Completely
surrounded by Germans,
Pavlov's soldiers were holding the constantly
attacked house until the relief came.
That intensive fighting was going on for 59 days
!
Chuikov later liked to make the point that Pavlov's
men killed more enemy soldiers than the
Germans lost in the capture of Paris.
Yacob Pavlov - Hero of the Soviet Union.
Yacob Pavlov later became the Archimantdrite Kyrill in the monastary
at Sergievo,
formerly Zagorsk, where he attracked a huge following of the faithfull
that had nothing
to do with his fame from Stalingrad.
Pavlov was born 1917, drafted into
Red Army 1938 (artillery?). The next we know he is part
of Rodimtsev's 13th. Guards in
Stalingrad. Badly wounded in the defence of "his" house he
was hospitalised for a time. Made
lieutenant in 1944, re-joined 13th. (now 8th.) Guards.
Made senior lieutenant &
participated in taking of Berlin. Komsomol member, KPSS
member in 1944, Hero of Soviet Union
in 1945. After the war became a monk,
then archimandrite.
He died 1981.
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