The island of Bolshoy Tyuters in post-war times, especially in the seventies, was called nothing more than the "island of death." He received such a terrible nickname thanks to the active work of the Germans - they totally mined his territory. A lot of time has passed since the end of the war, but peaceful sappers and researchers are dying from the diligent work of the Nazis. The conditions and nature on the island are such that it is time to build sanatoriums and recreation centers, but the war still throws up its terrible "gifts".

Role

Islands throughout the world are numerous. Each has its own purpose. One of them - heavenly corners for recreation, others are trading harbors or pirate havens. Likewise, the island of Bolshoi Tyuters has its lot. His fate was the defense against enemies from the sea. The war sprinkled the island with blood - fierce battles were fought here. For several centuries, he now and then passed from one hand to another. Most often they were Russians. Everything passes by it - ships, people, it seems that time stopped here 60 years ago. Very few people visited it during this period - mostly they were expeditions.

Characteristics of the island

Bolshoy Tyuters Island in the Gulf of Finland is a granite rock with an area of ​​just over 8 square meters. km. It has two capes - Tuomarinem and Teiloniemi, an indicator highest point- 56 meters. The soil on it is diverse, this is due to a variety of geological and morphological conditions. In addition to bare granite rocks, you can also find places with unique glacial wells on the island - they are also called boilers.

The east coast is characterized by dunes, sparse groups of plants. Also here you can find a place where there are about 300 species of flora on just one square meter. The central part was occupied by forests, 10% are swamps. Among them, small hanging swamps are considered to be a very interesting phenomenon; they are most often located in rock crevices. On the island you can see forests, rocks, swamps, coastal shallows, meadows, beaches, dune fauna. On the sites of villages that were once inhabited, individual vegetation is also present.

The inhabitants of the island. Lighthouse

The island of Bolshoy Tyuters in the Gulf of Finland has, in addition to interesting landscapes and vegetation, an equally fascinating fauna. A rare species of mollusks - a predatory black slug - found its habitat here. Especially a lot of them can be found at the foot of the rocks. Among the inhabitants of the island there are raccoon dogs, at least their traces were found many times. In addition, a wild ram runs around the island; several years ago, he ran away from the former lighthouse.

By the way, about the lighthouse. It is the only habitat on the island. Its height is 21 meters, the focal plane is located at 75 meters. Two people live on the island - the caretaker and his wife.

Big Tyuters in the Gulf of Finland has never had a significant population. For some time there was a village of Finn fishermen on it. However, the war swept her off the face of the island.

Island today

Bolshoy Tyuters Island in the Gulf of Finland is one of those places where time has stopped. Buildings and structures are overgrown, even the lighthouse keeper does not risk moving far from his workplace, as the island can present an unpleasant surprise, which the Germans generously endowed him with. Since the latter left it in a hurry, they left behind not only but also a lot of equipment, ammunition, heavy weapons. But at the same time, nature here is simply indescribable beauty, which, unfortunately, only a few can see. To neutralize the dangerous island, sapper troops are regularly sent to it. In addition, they are often joint, for example, the work of Russian and Swedish sappers in 2005 made it possible to detect and neutralize more than 30 thousand objects that could explode at any moment. There were seven such landings in the post-war years. However, even half of the island cannot be called safe.

Forgotten technique

Bolshoy Tyuters Island in the Gulf of Finland, the photo of which can be seen in the review, is the present. Considering that its samples are abundant on the island, there are unique ones among them. Such as, say, the Boforos 40 caliber automatic anti-aircraft gun. The amount of equipment that the Germans left behind can be enough for a large museum. Expeditions that explore its territory discover many specimens, some can be restored. To date, about two hundred units of equipment that have been moved to the mainland. There are also 6 deep fortifications on the island.

Expeditions

The expedition goes to Bolshoy Tyuters Island to study the "white spots" on the map of Europe. Due to dense mining, military personnel died on it even decades after the end of the war. It is for the neutralization of the territory that such studies are carried out. One of the last was the Gogland expedition, which, in addition to Bolshoi Tyuters, also covered some of the outer islands of the Gulf of Finland. Before the landing of the main landing force, berths and platforms for helicopters were equipped. Of her achievements, one can note the discovery of about 200 units military equipment, weapons. Most of them are unique. After examining it for the presence of equipment, representatives of the Ministry of Defense and the Russian Geographical Society followed the search engines. On the this moment a search is underway for the remains of soldiers who died during the Great Patriotic War.

Travel to the island

It is very dangerous to go to the island on your own. Of course it is historical place, where unique samples of equipment and weapons are located, but there are much more mines on it. Its nature is amazing, it is very quiet and calm here. The only thing that betrays the island, which works to avoid shipwrecks. Vessels have been passing by for over 60 years. This is the peculiarity that the island of Bolshoy Tyuters has. How to get to it is immediately visible on the map. The main routes are by water or by helicopter. If, nevertheless, there is a great desire to touch this part of history, you can go to the neighboring one, and from it you can also see Bolshoy Tyuters from afar.

Island ghosts

This is what they call the technique that “rests” on the territory. Big Tyuters in Gulf of Finland, if not mined, could be called a museum of military equipment under open sky. It seems that anti-aircraft installations have become part of nature, sometimes it is difficult to distinguish them from tree trunks or a branch that has fallen. It can sink into the dunes and only a third of itself can be identified from under the sands. 37 caliber defensive weapons can be seen in the trees on the coastal slopes. Parts of equipment, including engines, are scattered everywhere. In the forests, you can even find a gas generator station and a cable layer. Fuel barrels are scattered here and there. You can also find personal flasks of the Germans. All the equipment simply united with nature, trees sprouted in the bodies of the machines, some tools were covered with moss and grass. If it were not for the danger that lurks at every corner, it would be possible to conduct exciting excursions here.

findings

The island has long been considered a forbidden territory. There have been successful attempts to clear it, but it is not yet possible to fully ensure safety. In far-reaching plans - to make an open-air museum on the territory of Bolshoi Tyuters. But everything depends on the financial part of the issue. It takes a lot of money to create a minimal infrastructure. In addition, the path to the island is very difficult and expensive. That is why it remains completely unexplored and almost deserted.

In ancient times, Tyuters was a haven for the Vikings, then a shelter for smugglers. Here, Polish and Swedish privateers robbed merchants on their way to Narva, and here, it happened, they hid the loot. Northern granites, plowed by an ancient glacier, hide many secluded places.

All Russian tsars, starting with Peter, attached great importance to the protection of the capital of the empire from attacks from the sea. The most important and most fortified defense nodes were the islands of the Gulf of Finland. And the first on the way of the enemy were two rocks: Gogland and Big Tyuters. During the war for the islands, fierce battles were fought. Our landings went on the assault. And the Germans and Finns held the defense.

The only possible fairway for heavy ships and submarines is exactly at the distance of their artillery shot from the island. And this means whoever owned Tyuters also owned the entire Gulf of Finland.

For the last three centuries the island has been Swedish, Russian, Finnish, Russian again, German and Russian again. But there has never been a large population here. From the XVIII century until 1940 - only the village of Finnish fishermen. After the Winter War, little was left of her. There was also a Lutheran church, but relatively recently burned down.

Thousands and thousands of ships pass by Tyuters every year. But for recent years 60 almost no human foot has set foot on it.

Tyuters is strikingly beautiful. It's so quiet it's ringing in your ears. Mushrooms, fish, berries, rocks, forest, clear water. It would be nice to build sanatoriums here, breathe the healing pine air and watch the sun set in the cool waters of the Baltic. But the war made its own adjustments to this picture.

The only intact building on Tyuters is a lighthouse. Without it, in any way, the fairway in these places is very difficult. So Bolshoi Tyuters shines at night: 1 second on, 1 second off, then 3 seconds on, 9 seconds off. Although the lighthouse is the most high building on the island - 21 m, it is impossible to see something below from it. There were no people here for 70 years, roads and buildings were overgrown, nature took its toll. Even traces railway- and here she was - covered the crowns of silent Karelian pines.

In October-November 1939, more than 2,000 bombs were dropped on Tyuters and 4,500 shells were fired. But it was, if I may say so, only shooting.

In October 1941, under the onslaught of the Germans, the island was abandoned by the Red Army, but the Soviet command quickly realized their mistake. The narrowness of the bay turned it into a trap - the passage along the fairway for our ships became deadly. The fleet was locked up in Kronstadt, as if in a mousetrap. AT new year's eve In 1942, troops of the Red Army and Marines landed on Tyuters, but did not last long. There was no food and ammunition supply, the reinforcements that had been sent simply did not reach: the ice on the Gulf of Finland was not yet strong, there were polynyas under it, and half a meter of ice water above it. The fighters froze right on the way, and few managed to return to the mainland.

Subsequently, it was more and more difficult to take Bolshoy Tyuters. The Germans transferred so many forces and means here that it became the largest stronghold among the islands of the Gulf of Finland, they installed batteries of large-caliber guns, anti-aircraft guns and ship cannons on the island.

The Nazis, who were preparing for a serious battle in the Baltic, brought a fantastic amount of ammunition to the island. And the rest of the part cannot be counted, but how many were fired on our ships? By our landings? After all, there was a second landing. And the third. And the fourth. No one can say how many of our soldiers lie here.

It is believed that the Germans mined the area before their flight from the island, in 1944. This is not true. Studying German maps and documents, examining the former minefields, you see that the most powerful fortifications of Tyuters did not appear suddenly. All three years that the Germans were on the island, they meticulously built up its defenses. Others were added to one row of thorns, new mines were placed both between old and new places, until the amount and density of all this iron amounted to some fantastic value.

When the Germans left the island, for several months it had not played its former strategic importance for them - in September 1944, the Red Army was already very far to the west. It seems that this is another example of Hitler's stubbornness, to cling to such patches of land even when they no longer had not only a strategic, but even a tactical need. And then they themselves and their garrisons turned into a burden, which was no longer possible to take care of and which was not worth evacuating. Obviously, Tyuters also turned into such a burden - the thrifty Germans could not, as usual, take the equipment with them and limited themselves to damaging it.

And no matter how saturated with ammunition Tyuters, there were even more of them in the strait between Tyuters and Gogland Island. During the war in these waters, on the minefield "Zeigl" ("Sea Urchin"), the Germans in total were exposed to several tens of thousands of mines, and almost half - on 9 and a half nautical miles between Gogland and Tyuters.

Under enemy fire, our minesweepers made passages in minefields, and the Germans methodically dumped new mines into the strait - a thousand after a thousand.

In the days of the war, a few submarines of the Baltic Fleet crossed this deadly fairway. The power of the fleet was not fully used, and the war left here only in 1944. Yes, it's gone too far. How much explosive metal is at the bottom: dead submarines and boats with torpedoes, downed bombers with full ammunition, dozens of drowned transports with ammunition, several artillery ships with full cellars. These waters will be unsafe for a long time to come. Such a concentration of combat losses in one place speaks of the colossal importance attached to the island by the warring parties.

Today the island is the farthest part of Russia in the northwest. On the northern coast - Finland, on the south - already Estonia. Special border zone, special access regime. But thanks to the assistance of border guards and specially organized expedition The Russian Geographical Society gave us the opportunity to find out what Bolshoi Tyuters, the most mysterious island of the Gulf of Finland, is like, and to answer the question of what exceptional significance it had for the German forces in the Baltic. It is not easy to talk about this, but: perhaps it was this small battle for Tyuters, lost by the Soviet troops at the very beginning of the war, that enabled the Germans not only to maintain a long blockade of Leningrad, but also delayed our victory.

The first shelters and burrows were dug here in the time of the Varangians. In tsarist times, artillery positions and gun cellars were built. The Finnish army, having received Tyuters from Russia, started a large construction of fortifications. Before the big war, Soviet troops also built their own fortifications - aboveground and underground. On the German map from the archives of the Abwehr - there is an interesting inscription. It says that there should be 15 underground structures on the island. The last joint Soviet-Swedish demining mission on the island found six bunkers on it. The remaining nine have never been found. Maybe they didn’t look carefully, or maybe they hid these bunkers with knowledge of the matter? For how long?

There are many versions about the purpose of the mysterious bunkers. The most interesting one, of course, is that the values ​​stolen by the Nazis were kept here. After all, the army group "North", to which the Tyuters garrison belonged, marauded in these parts with all the breadth of its Teutonic soul. Pskov and Novgorod, Oranienbaum and Peterhof, Tsarskoye Selo, Gatchina and Strelna - many treasures and objects of art after the war were never found either in Germany or anywhere else. Why don't the Germans store them here, under the protection of granite dungeons and the most powerful fortifications of Tyuters?

During the war years, the perimeter of the island was braided with barbed wire in several rows. And mines - tens of thousands. And then - guns and machine guns at close range. Our troops landed here. It seems to me that it is impossible, hopeless, to attack here, in an open place, under dagger fire, through a minefield. If the cruisers and battleships of the Baltic Fleet had approached, mixed the German defenses with the fire of their twelve-inch guns, the landing force would have succeeded. But the tragedy was that the ships of the fleet could sail these waters only on the condition that the island was occupied by ours.

Another version: in these dungeons, the Germans had a plant for the production and equipping of ammunition. This, of course, is not the Amber Room, although there would be little left of amber in the local dampness.

In general, some kind of shelters, caches are often found here. And almost everywhere there are traces of human presence. But for something serious, they obviously do not pull. For weapons production, larger sizes are needed, and for storing valuables - paintings, sculptures - special conditions.

The complex expedition "Gogland" to explore the Outer Islands of the Gulf of Finland, a truly historic event took place. A three-year search for an aircraft shot down during the Great Patriotic War was crowned with success: at the end of May, the wreckage of a Soviet Pe-2 dive bomber and the remains of the pilots were found, and their names were soon established. These are the crew commander, 19-year-old junior lieutenant Mikhail Kazakov, 23-year-old gunner-radio operator Arseniy Tyshchuk and navigator Mikhail Tkachenko. The Gogland team even managed to contact the relatives of the dead heroes.

A Pe-2 dive bomber was shot down on Bolshoy Tyuters Island on the night of September 8-9, 1943.

The island of death, as Bolshoy Tyuters was called during the war years, was a well-fortified granite citadel stuffed with ammunition and military equipment. In September 1944, the three thousandth German garrison hurriedly left the island, having previously mined it. Since then, Bolshoi Tyuters has been repeatedly demined, but even now, after several operations and after the titanic work of sappers, abandoned ammunition is still found 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 the Russian and German archives.

The search team of the Russian Geographical Society managed to find the first fragments of the aircraft on May 25, on the very first day of the search, during the re-combing of the alleged square, located almost in the very center of Bolshoi Tyuters. Under a shallow soil layer and woven tree roots, numbered engine parts, pieces of burnt aluminum skin, a center section wing, an unopened burnt parachute and a large number of fragments were found. Almost everything around them is dotted with them, since the impact of a downed 7-ton bomber was so strong that it split a granite boulder, squeezing the debris into a shallow layer of rocky earth.

There are enough versions about the exact cause of death: but it is quite clear that the heroic Pe-2 completed its task and fell in 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 did not immediately manage to detect this, since there are no reports of this in the combat log for September 8 and 9, 1943,” says a member of the search detachment 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, expedition leader, deputy executive director of the expeditionary center of the Russian Geographical Society. detection of the tail section and the remains of the crew in order to bury them in the military cemetery in Leningrad region".

Environmental watch continues...

The second shift of the environmental watch on the Outer Islands of the Gulf of Finland - Gogland and Bolshoy Tyuters began on June 2, 2016. The long road along the busy sea route was filled with conversations and the expectation of meeting with the 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 of a specialist in the field of tourism 4 years ago, the graduate decided to own experience see 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 Kenozero national park Arkhangelsk region, after Gogland 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, 10 years of field life behind him, participation in the project of the RGS "Kyzyl - Kuragino" in 2012. Since then, he has been following the projects of the Russian Geographical Society, and here is good luck - in February, when I went to the website of the Society, I saw an advertisement for the recruitment of volunteers and applied, having planned my vacation in advance. Artyom's energy manifested itself on the very first day. In the early morning, after a long walk, Artyom was already washing 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 Petersburgers, I heard a lot about the islands and always dreamed of getting to them. For the sake of such a chance, he put aside all his 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 camp "Ermak" of the archaeological and geographical project "Kyzyl - Kuragino". 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.

Dmitry Anatsky, a 22-year-old lawyer from Moscow, decided to join the expedition after his girlfriend worked on a three-month expedition in Antarctica. He considers himself lucky that he will work on Bolshoy Tyuters - literally a few managed to visit this island, Dmitry notes with enthusiasm.

Igor Zelkin studies at the Faculty of Geography of the Crimean Federal University, a member of the Crimean branch of the Russian Geographical Society, last year he spent a month in Kyzyl-Kuragino, after which, like many of his expedition comrades, he began to regularly follow the projects of the Society.

The first thing that the volunteers of the second shift of the "Gogland" complex expedition on the Bolshoy Tyuters saw were two huge piles of rusted metal standing on the pier, like a giant gate, conveying symbolic greetings from the pioneers of the ecological landing.

Perhaps, if not for these trophies, it would be hard to imagine that this peaceful and fragrant island with lilacs and flowering apple trees once bore such a terrible name - the Island of Death. Volunteers will have to clear this unique corner of nature and history from the legacy of the war and later traces of human activity that disfigure the island in the next two weeks.

Text and photo: Tatyana Nikolaeva, Andrey Strelnikov

In the Baltic, on the island of Bolshoi Tyuters, summing up the intermediate results of the expedition to search for and export equipment from the Great Patriotic War

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, the search engines must comb the island, collect the 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 on the lighthouse), stuffed like an open-air museum with artifacts abandoned 70 years ago.

Eight square kilometers of taiga and stone

We depart from the Levashovsky military airfield. Flying weather despite low purple skies. Several officers of different branches of the armed forces are loaded on board. And two soldiers with a can-bast basket - for berries.

- They asked, they took us, - they share, informing along the way that they still have hoo - 4 months left until the end of the service. - Interesting! There will be something to tell at home ...

To Big Tyuters, which, if you look at the map, lies near Estonia and Finland itself, 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 suddenly became part of independent Finland. After 20 years, he returned to us again. After three years, Finns and Germans were in charge there. Since 1944 he is Russian again.

Throughout the post-war period, these eight square kilometers of stone and taiga have been empty: unnecessarily. Yes, and it's dangerous. Until 2005, when sappers from the Ministry of Emergency Situations came to the island, it was stuffed with shells and mines.

From the window, Tyuters looks like a cozy green fluffy hat in the middle of the water. When descending, extensive sand dunes on the banks, stepped rock formations. On the west bank- lighthouse match. A forest road runs through the island. And the expedition camp: white military tents, trucks.

Key to the Gulf of Finland

Unloading. A strong smell of pine needles hits the nose. In the ears - an unusual silence.

We transfer to the UAZ and, picking the branches of trees along the winding path with the cabin, we go to the place of one of the finds. A month ago, there, in the windbreaks, they discovered a curious specimen - an anti-aircraft gun of the Wehrmacht.

The island, I must say, looks really wild. But in past centuries there was a large Finnish fishing village, there were wooden church, school, later - narrow-gauge railway.

During the Second World War, the garrison of German troops on Tyuters was 2 thousand soldiers: one person per four square meters! And it is no coincidence that, 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 pulled anti-submarine nets, stumbled mine chains. Gogland was controlled by the Finns, Big Tyuters by the Germans. We made attempts to return them, but to no avail. That is why our Baltic Fleet stood still, not entering into major battles until 1944, locked up in Kronstadt and Leningrad ...

In each tank of the field kitchen - a grenade

On one of the hillocks across the road there is a Ural tractor and a truck crane. Nearby is the same gun - an 88-mm cannon of the Bofors system.

“It was made in Sweden,” the head of the expedition, General Valery Kudinsky, brings up to date. - One of the best examples of anti-aircraft weapons of that time: automatic, reliable. Her condition is currently satisfactory. Cleaned, restored - and almost like new. Ammunition was also found in the ground nearby: 80 shells in oiled paper. Of these same guns, they thrashed our planes.

The search work, the general explains, has now been completed. From May to June, the expedition members combed the island up and down: they walked in chains, 20-30 meters apart. Now the task is to deliver what was found to the pier. A total of 207 objects were found. 137 of them need to be pulled out with the help of heavy equipment - these same tractors and cranes. Half already on the shore, half in the forest. Among the finds are anti-aircraft guns, anti-tank guns, anti-aircraft fire control points, field kitchens, searchlights, trailers of various capacities, and fuel barrels.

All without exception, I must say, disabled. The Germans left the island in a hurry. They abandoned everything and on September 18, 1944 they left this land. Guns and trailers were blown up. In each tank of the field kitchen - a grenade. In each barrel - several through shots ...

ATVs and helicopters

It takes half an hour to load the cannon. Despite its seemingly compact size, it does not fit entirely on the tractor. During transportation, on one of the hillocks, it falls with a creak on the stones. Again you have to adjust the crane, hook the cable ...

At the pier, we are met by the Deputy Head of the Director of the Expeditionary Center of the Russian Geographical Society and the main inspirer of the whole process, Artem Khutorskoy.

“Almost every object has to be dealt with like this,” he says. - And something in general cannot be taken out by wheeled vehicles - rocks, windbreaks. We will try by air, with the help of a helicopter.

And he adds that, despite the difficulties, all the work is a joy. They dreamed about this project for many years, studied archives, including German ones. But just like that, it was impossible to take and go here - considerable funds are needed. In December last year, the project was presented to the President of the Russian Geographical Society Sergei Shoigu, and the Minister of Defense gave the go-ahead: act.

Three-inch gun, unfound aircraft

The result of the work of the military and geographers is obvious: at the pier there is a picturesque pile of metal. For specialists, all these are valuable exhibits, which in the near future will probably take their place in various military museums in the country.

“Here are the barrels for fuel, standard, two hundred liters,” says Khutorskoy. - Immediately from several countries. German, Finnish, Latvian, French. Look at their round logs - here you can make a whole collection! Or another very interesting object: a three-inch cannon, made in 1917 at the Putilov factory. She went to independent Finland. And she fought during the Great Patriotic War against us ...

What about the people who died? - I'm interested.

- As for the Germans, from 1941 to 1944, about 20 soldiers died for various reasons on Bolshoi Tyuters. 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 Hogland - after all, we could get it! 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 the Soviet troops - this was the only such case during the Great Patriotic War. The Nazis were then completely defeated by ours and the Finns: up to 700 Germans died, went missing and were wounded.

- And ours here, on Bolshoi Tyuters? ..

- There were losses. And when we left in the 41st. And when in the 42nd they tried to storm twice. It is known that later two of our scouts landed here. But they went missing. In the swamps lie Soviet aircraft- one or two. The lighthouse says that he remembers the tail of the plane in one of the swamps as a boy. But where is unclear. We found parts of the fuselage skin. Nothing else…

In the next two weeks, the delivery of equipment to the pier will continue. Then - sending on landing boats to Kronstadt, accommodation at one of the military arsenals of the Leningrad Region. It is likely that in the coming years, detachments to search for dead soldiers will begin work on this patch in the middle of the Gulf of Finland.

By the way

As part of the expedition of the Russian Geographical Society and the Ministry of Defense in late July - early August, search activities are also carried out on the island of Gogland. Unlike Bolshoi Tyuters, only search engines work on Gogland, which are engaged in discovering the burial places of our soldiers (military equipment was removed from here almost immediately after the war). According to preliminary data, about 500 Red Army soldiers were killed and buried here. Work on the island is being 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 action. At present, many household items and weapons of both Soviet and Finnish soldiers have been found - grenades, shells, rifle shields, communication coils, flasks, mugs, spoons, teapots, sanitary stretchers. And the remains of one soldier of the Red Army: on a cigarette case found nearby, the name is Sapozhnikov. The search is complicated by the rocky nature of the soil. At present, the landing-prone areas of the island are being combed.

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 units of German military equipment and weapons from the Second World War onto the landing craft of the Baltic Fleet (this is reported by the Internet portal of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation). At the end of the war, the Germans, hastily leaving Bolshoy Tyuters, were forced to leave a large amount of heavy weapons, military equipment, ammunition and other property on the island. 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 to the west of the Baltic coast of 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", the All-Russian Public Movement to Perpetuate the Memory of Those Who Died in Defense of the Fatherland and the "Search Movement of Russia". The total number of the expedition is more than 80 people.

There are many large and small islands in the Gulf of Finland. The fact that on some of them the ruins of fortifications and the remains of broken military equipment have been preserved has long been known. A scientific expedition of the Russian Geographical Society (RGO) in 2013 examined a group of the Outer Islands and confirmed these facts in their reports. Such islands 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 years.

Bolshoi Tyuters Island (marked in red)
navytech.ru

Bolshoy Tyuters Island is located 180 km west of St. Petersburg, has a diameter of about 2.5 km, and its area is approximately 8.3 square meters. km. Bolshoi Tyuters is located south of the island of Gogland, forming with it a kind of gate through which the main sea route passes, leading to the ports of St. Petersburg and Vyborg. It was this location of the island that determined its role as a place for placing 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 served by a caretaker who does not risk going far from it, fearing deadly "surprises" of wartime
smolbattle. en

Over the years, garrisons were placed on the islands, fortifications with minefields were built and coastal batteries, held at gunpoint sea ​​routes. Some islands changed their owners, alternately being Swedish, Finnish, or Russian, and during the Great Patriotic War, some of them were occupied by German troops (Bolshoy Tyuters was held by the Germans almost until the end of 1944). Fierce battles in the Gulf of Finland cost the belligerents thousands of victims, and the exact number of Soviet soldiers and officers who died here has not yet been established.

The plot of Channel One about the search expedition to Bolshoy Tyuters

Not all islands were completely cleared of mines and shells after the end of the war, especially those that were located in border areas 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 can be found on the islands.

At the end of the war, the Germans, hastily leaving Bolshoi 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 in large numbers that Bolshoy Tyuters earned a reputation as an "island of death", since servicemen continued to die on it for many years after the war. In the post-war period, sapper units arrived on the island several times (seven such landings are known), which carried out work to clear the territory. In particular, in 2005, a joint expedition of Russian and Swedish sappers worked here, neutralizing more than 30,000 explosive objects.

Despite all the efforts to clear the island, Bolshoy Tyuters still poses a great danger to people.
posleduvremeni.ru

Preparations for the expedition of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation to the islands of the Gulf of Finland began in the spring of this year. The Hogland reconnaissance expedition, which consisted of representatives of the RF Ministry of Defense, 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 terrain, outlined search areas, laid routes, carried out engineering markings, prepared berths and sites, compiled inventory of the remains of weapons and military equipment.

The island, closed to the public, has become a kind of nature reserve, preserving weapons and equipment from the Second World War in its forests.
poludurkoff.net

After a reconnaissance expedition, in the first days of July, a landing of sappers from the naval engineering regiment of the Baltic Fleet 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. For a week of work, sappers found more than seven hundred mines, shells and other ammunition, which were destroyed by detonation. In this case, anti-personnel mines were of particular danger, the fuses of which had been in an activated state for several decades and could detonate at any moment.

Among the found military equipment there are many valuable samples. In the photo - presumably, a Bofors L60 automatic anti-aircraft gun of 40 mm caliber
posleduvremeni.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 being delivered to the mainland, those found samples that are subject to restoration will be restored and become exhibits of Russian military history museums and memorial parks. As Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said in a recent interview, the restored weapons and equipment will become exhibits of the Patriot military-patriotic park, where it is planned to transfer the expositions of some military museums.

Loading the finds on the ships of the Baltic Fleet
military.rf

The expedition also reportedly unearthed the remains of a Red Army soldier whose name has yet to be established. Work on the island will last until August 14.