In October 1941, when the front rolled up to Moscow within a cannon shot, it was decided to evacuate government offices and foreign diplomatic missions to Kuibyshev. Thus, the city on the Volga became the temporary (until August 1943) capital of the state.
Parade on Red Square on November 7, 1941. Hood. Konstantin Yuon
It is not surprising that it was here on November 7, 1941 that the country's main military parade took place on the occasion of the 24th anniversary of the October Revolution. The parade was attended by selected formations of the Volga Military District - over 50 thousand soldiers and hundreds of units of military equipment. The troops were commanded by Lieutenant General Maxim Purkaev, and Marshal of the Soviet Union Kliment Voroshilov received the parade. Military attaches and journalists from foreign countries watched the passage of the military columns with curiosity and, judging by the newsreels, were surprised by the power of the Red Army.
Simultaneously with the resettlement of the government and diplomats, large-scale construction was underway in the vicinity of the city. Several lines of defense were erected around Kuibyshev. Remnants of the fortified areas are still preserved on the territory of Ulyanovsk, Penza and a number of other regions. In the fall of 1941, a total of 300 thousand people were involved in construction work.
For the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, that is, for Stalin, an office was equipped in a five-story building in the very center of the city - opposite the local drama theater. In the early 1940s, this building housed the headquarters of one of the combined arms armies stationed in the Volga region, and after the war - the Kuibyshev regional party committee. So the building was equipped with all the necessary communications. In it, on the second floor, a study was prepared for Joseph Vissarionovich. And under the building, at a depth of more than 30 meters, the construction of a bunker for the Supreme Commander-in-Chief began - in case of air raids and any other emergency situations.
In the terminology of that time, Stalin's bunker was referred to in the documents as "object No. 1".
Parade in Kuibyshev on November 7, 1941
Construction was carried out in the strictest secrecy. They say that the ground from under the building was taken out at night in special bags so as not to attract attention. It is not surprising that the residents of the city found out about the Stalinist bunker in the center of Samara only in the early 1990s, when “object No. 1” was declassified.
Stalin's bunker is a huge seven-story structure, hidden under the ground and protected from a direct hit from an aerial bomb by a four-meter concrete slab. The first (from the surface of the earth) six floors are technical rooms where air purification equipment and other vital systems are installed, as well as rooms for guards and servants. On the lowest floor are the meeting room of the State Defense Committee (GKO) and the rest room of Stalin himself - a small room with a work desk, a leather sofa and a portrait of Suvorov on the wall. All floors are connected by a vertical shaft of 5 meters in diameter. Initially, there were no elevators, but the spans of the stairs and the height of the steps were thought out in such a way that even an elderly person could climb from the lowest floor to the surface (Stalin, recall, in the fall of 1941, when the bunker was being built, was over sixty). In addition to the main builders, they also made a spare shaft, along which in case of force majeure it is possible to rise to the surface.
At that time, Stalin's bunker in Samara was the deepest and safest structure of its kind in the world. Only one organization could build such a miracle in those years - the Moscow Metrostroy. Therefore, at the end of 1941, six hundred of the best specialists-metro builders were urgently sent from Moscow to Kuibyshev. Working seven days a week, in several shifts, the builders were able to complete the "object No. 1" in record time - in nine months. The bunker was designed by the famous Soviet architect and engineer Julian Ostrovsky, the author of several Moscow metro stations. By the way, the meeting room of the "facility number 1" looks very much like the station "Airport", which Ostrovsky built on the eve of the war.
It is interesting how the author of the project solved the problem of a closed space, which is very relevant for underground structures of this kind. In Stalin's rest room, for example, very modest in size and furnishings, Ostrovsky made as many as six doors. Of these, only two were workers, the rest were just props on the wall. But it was the presence of these elements in the design of the room that made it visually more spacious and psychologically comfortable. You are in it - and you do not feel that you are sitting at a great depth, actually walled up under concrete slabs. In addition, along the walls, between the doors, Ostrovsky ordered to stretch blue fabric canvases, which also had a beneficial effect on the psyche.
However, Stalin never once used his Samara bunker, since he never came to Samara. Even in the fall of 1941, when many middle and senior managers were scrambling from Moscow, Stalin did not leave for the east and remained in Moscow throughout the war. However, rumors about some secret refuge of the leader, where he supposedly sat out in the most dramatic moments of the war, are still circulating. Even during the war, German intelligence, trying to figure out the location of the Stavka reserve command post, came to the conclusion that it was located somewhere not far from Kuibyshev, in the Zhiguli Hills. According to German intelligence, it was there, in the rocks, that the Russians, they say, managed to carve out the whole city, where Stalin and his inner circle were supposed to be hiding.
Joseph Stalin's office in an underground bomb shelter
This version was eagerly picked up during the years of "perestroika" by domestic fans of sensations. It was rumored that this underground city in the mountains was built by prisoners on the eve of the war, that there was everything for a full life for several years, and Stalin regularly visited Kuibyshev to visit his daughter Svetlana, who was evacuated with the government and the diplomatic corps.
The fact that there are voids in the Zhiguli mountains is an indisputable fact. Holes in the rocks on the right bank of the Volga are visible to this day, if you sail on a motor ship not far from the coast. But they have nothing to do with Stalin and his secret refuge. This is the result of stone mining, which has been carried out in the Zhiguli Hills for many years. Until now, there is a plant for the production of cement and crushed stone for construction needs, one of the largest in the Volga region.
But the underground city on the eve of the war really began to be built. True, not in the Zhiguli mountains, but in Kuibyshev itself. Even before the war, Kuibyshev was considered as a reserve capital of the country in case Moscow had to be surrendered to the enemy. In the fall of 1940, to the great surprise of the residents of the city, towers with machine gunners appeared on one of the central squares, and the territory was surrounded by barbed wire. Day and night on the fenced area construction was in full swing. The official version is the new building of the Kuibyshev Drama Theater. However, the theater was not the main goal of the builders. An underground bomb shelter was erected here for the top leaders of the state. Thus, Stalin's bunker, designed later by Ostrovsky, became part of a huge underground structure stretching under the central part of the city.
Even ordinary residents of Samara know today that there is something underground. Although the true scale and purpose of this underground facility still remain a mystery, sealed with seven seals.
Meeting room of the State Defense Committee in the underground bomb shelter
As for the well-known parade on Red Square in Moscow on November 7, 1941, like any epoch-making event, it is shrouded in many legends.
For example, many believe that fresh divisions that arrived in the capital from Siberia and the Far East took part in the parade. Having passed through Red Square, the troops went to the front, which was then literally 30 miles from the Kremlin, to the sound of the "Farewell of the Slav" march. This is not entirely true. On the morning of November 7, soldiers and officers of the active army marched across Red Square. Among the units of the Moscow garrison involved in the parade was the well-known division of the internal troops named after Dzerzhinsky, which by that time had distinguished itself in battles on the near approaches to Moscow. On November 7, three divisional regiments marched along the cobblestones of Red Square and a tank battalion marched through.
The march "Farewell to the Slav", contrary to popular belief, was not performed at the parade. And it could not be performed, because in the 1940s it was banned. Rehabilitated "Slavyanka" only in 1957, after the resounding success of the film "The Cranes Are Flying". But the author of the march, Vasily Agapkin, was present at the parade. In November 1941, Agapkin served as a military conductor of the same division named after Dzerzhinsky and bore the rank of military commander of the 1st rank. It was he who led the combined orchestra of the troops of the Moscow Military District, which inspired the participants in the parade.
Preparations for the parade began at the end of October, but until the last moment it was not clear whether it would take place at all. Everything depended on the weather. If the sun was shining on the morning of November 7, the idea of a parade would have to be abandoned - the Luftwaffe bombers would have had ten minutes to reach Red Square. And only late in the evening on November 6, when meteorologists reported to Stalin that it would be cloudy in the morning and it would snow, the leader made the final decision to hold a military parade.
Comrade Stalin's office was equipped in this building on the second floor.
By the way, about the leader. There is still debate about whether Stalin was on Red Square that morning or whether his speech, recorded in advance in the studio, was broadcast in front of the parade participants. In the end, though, it doesn't really matter. It is much more important that it was on the morning of November 7 that Stalin's speech formulated the main ideological principles with which the army and the people fought for the next three and a half years.
In total, on that day, November 7, 1941, three military parades were held in the USSR: in Moscow, Kuibyshev and Voronezh.
