October 1941 It was the fifth month of the war, the enemy occupied the Baltic republics, most of Belarus and Ukraine, and came close to Moscow. The front line stretched from the Barents to the Black Sea. In the Karelian direction, the fascist rushed to Murmansk and Kandalaksha, trying to cut off the Kola Peninsula from the mainland and deprive the Northern Fleet of its naval bases.
On October 5, 1941, the Arkhangelsk Party Committee turned to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) with a proposal to use sled reindeer as vehicles in the northern sector of the front. Moscow supported the initiative. And they decided to supply from the Nenets Okrug for the needs of the Karelian Front 6,000 sled reindeer, 1,200 cargo and sledges with harness, and also organize 600 mushers no later than January 1, 1942.
On November 22, 1941, the military commissar of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug S. E. Panov. received an order according to which deer, people and even dogs were subject to mobilization.
The first to carry out the order were in the Kanino-Timansky region, where the 1st, 2nd and 3rd echelons began to form at the same time. The commanders were appointed: I. Detyatev, S. Panyukov, I. Taleev. Each of them had 100 people under their command, who served about 1000 deer. They had to go from Nizhnyaya Pesha to Arkhangelsk, the rate of movement was set at 50 km per day. It was November, a month of great darkness, and there were terrible frosts. Exhausted, people and deer went to the front, in conditions of complete off-road conditions, the echelons managed to walk 10-15 km a day. Every day, every minute of this journey was a feat.
At this time, the 4th echelon began to form in Kotkino, the head of which was B. V. Preobrazhensky. Four teams were formed in three days. Preobrazhensky brought 2,500 sled reindeer to the gathering place.
According to the food standards, each echelon participant was supposed to have 900 g of bread per day, 20 g of flour, 140 g of cereals, 30 g of pasta, 150 g of meat, 20 g of vegetable oil, 35 g of sugar, 1 g of tea., makhorka 20 gr., three boxes of matches were issued for a month. However, the ration was calculated taking into account the fact that all trains were to arrive in Arkhangelsk by January 1. But even the first three echelons, which were forming the closest to Arkhangelsk, arrived half a month late.
Nowadays, few are able to overcome the road that deer and people walked. The hardest journey lasted thousands of miles. The echelons went through the places without food, the reindeer fell exhausted and were laid on sledges, while the shepherds themselves walked alongside, on foot. According to the laws of wartime, the loss of a deer was punished severely. Only in mid-January, when the trains approached Arkhangelsk, did people and deer get eight days of rest.
For further training of people and deer, they are assigned to the 295th regiment, which is being formed in Rikasihi and Shikharihi, and mobilized fighters of the ski battalions are also located here.
During the battles of the Karelian Front, reindeer-ski battalions passed 16 thousand km along the enemy's rear, 47 "languages" were taken prisoner, more than 4,000 fascists were destroyed, 10 thousand wounded were taken out by reindeer teams, more than 17 thousand military cargoes were transported, delivered from the tundra 162 damaged aircraft. About 8,000 partisans and servicemen were transported to carry out combat missions, many to the far rear of the enemy.
Reindeer herders saved many lives of soldiers and commanders of the 14th Army and the Northern Fleet. The army leadership praised the contribution of the reindeer transport to the victory.
Commander of the 14th Army of the Karelian Front, Lieutenant General Vladimir Ivanovich Shcherbakov:
The military correspondents of that time, Konstantin Simonov and Yevgeny Petrov, reflected their impressions of the reindeer units.
NOTES FROM THE ZAPOLARS
After the Petsamo-Kirkenes operation, the remaining reindeer were transferred to the Polish state farm, and only seven riding bulls returned to their native Nenets tundra.
