Prospekt of the 25th of October, Gatchina. Palace park. January 26th, 1944 / Prospekt of the 25th of October, Gatchina. Palace park. May 2021.
Red Army soldiers getting across the ruined bridge across the canal from the Black lake to the White lake.
From the memoirs of Alexander Fyodorovich Fuyodorov (1907-2001). Major, Deputy Regiment Commander on Political Affairs, 120th Gatchina Rifle Division. Honorary citizen of the Gatchina District of the Leningrad Province:
"We marched all the way to the town almost without fighting and at dawn on January 26th, 1944 we captured Gatchina by storm. One of the most beautiful environs of Leningrad in the past, it was reduced to ruins by the Fascists. Not just wooden but stone houses were burning on the Prospekt of the 25th of October. Singular shots of enemy guns could be heard from the side of Karl Marx street. Our artillerymen quickly eliminated pockets of enemy resistance, firing at them over open sights. Our movement along the Prospekt of the 25th of October ceased for some time: two bridges between the House of Culture and the Connetable square were blown up by the enemy, and the House of Culture was razed too. A huge metal swastika was perched on top of the Connetable Obelisk. Soldiers kept nagging their commanders with requests to let them blast it down with a shot from a field artillery piece... Soon combat engineers arrived, built temporary bridges and we started marching further, to the West".