Kerch is one of the oldest cities in the world. This year it will celebrate its 2612th anniversary. Its history begins more than 26 centuries ago when, under the name of Pantichope, it was the capital of the Kingdom of Bosporus.
For many centuries of its existence, this city has repeatedly changed owners. He was Greek, and Roman, and Byzantine, and Genoese and Turkish. And since 1774, Kerch, after many years of fighting with Turkey, became the first Russian city on the Crimean peninsula.
Now about the distant Turkish past, reminds the Yeni-Kale fortress located on the European coast of the Kerch Strait – Cape Tarkhan. It can be clearly seen from the ships passing by. Which was built in the XIV-XV century, with the ruins of the more ancient settlement, which was located nearby, being used as the main material.
The city of two seas – Black and Azov, Kerch and in the Russian state has seen a lot. This is also the revolution of 1917, when Russians were opposed to Russians for life and death. But despite the destructive revolution and civil war, Kerch soon became a major industrial center and a flourishing city of Crimea.
But at 41m the war again rolled into the blooming city. Difficult tests had to endure him during the Great Patriotic War. In the battle for the Caucasus and in the defense of the Crimea, a special place was occupied by the heroic struggle for the cities of Novorossiysk and Kerch.
In the struggle for the Crimea, the battles on the Kerch Peninsula and directly behind the city of Kerch, which had an advantageous strategic position, were an important link between the Crimea and the North Caucasus with particular bitterness and stubbornness.
For many months, the fiery tornado of war flared here, leaving terrible traces of destruction. The fascist invaders over the population of the city repaired the massacre. But neither mass executions, nor cruel torture, nor the tragedy of the Bagerovsky ditch, where thousands of civilians died, did not break the will and spirit of the Soviet soldiers – defenders and liberators of Kerch, its inhabitants, courageous partisans, underground fighters, all those men and women, young men and women who fought for the freedom and independence of the motherland.
The legendary page in the history of the Great Patriotic War was the long and persistent struggle of Soviet patriots in the Adzhimushkay quarries. The photo shows exactly these quarries. Deprived of light, food and water, they courageously fought against the Nazis for a long time, died, but did not surrender to the enemy. It was a manifestation of the indomitable will, the irresistible perseverance of the Soviet people.
It was in those difficult days, being in the quarry besieged by the enemy, one of the brave adzhimushkay-politruch Stepan Chebanenko, referring to the Soviet people, wrote in his suicide letter: “I am only a Communist-Bolshevik and a citizen of the USSR. And if I died, so let children, brothers, sisters and relatives remember and never forget that this death was a struggle for communism, for the cause of the workers and peasants. The war is cruel and is not over yet. And yet we will win!
In the memory of the Soviet people will forever be the feat of the participants of the Kerch-Eltigen landing operation. The earth was burning, the sky was covered with smoke from the fires, but the Soviet soldiers did not flinch, defending the occupied bridgehead to the last. After the heavy fighting on April 11, Kerch was cleared of fascist troops. Victory banner proudly hoisted where the granite arrow of the Obelisk of Glory on Mount Mithridates now stands and the Eternal Flame burns in memory of the fallen and in honor of the living, those who, being a particle of the Soviet people, here on the land of Kerch, defended the freedom and independence of the mother Homeland.
A month later, on May 12, 1944, the entire Crimea was liberated from the German occupiers. Almost two hundred thousandth German army was utterly defeated.
For resilience and courage in the battles of the liberation of Kerch more than 10 thousand soldiers and officers were awarded orders and medals. 138 soldiers awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union. The 18 formations and units that distinguished themselves in the battles for Kerch received the proud name “Kerch”.
Huge material damage – more than one and a half billion rubles – was inflicted by the German fascist invaders on the city of Kerch. All enterprises were destroyed, 85 percent of the housing stock. In a short time, the hero-city of Kerch was restored from ruins and ashes.
