Prokhorovka



View of Kurst Salient Memorial



Our train pulled into Belgorod on Wednesday 8th on-time at 7:23 am, where we were met by Alex, who was to be our guide. After checking in to our hotel, we set off.



Our objective was to explore and understand the Battle of Prokhorovka - the link gives a good overview of the battle and why it was important. Prokhorovka is a village about 50 km north of Belgorod.



Matthew, Michael, T-34 at Kurst Memorial



First stop was the Kursk Salient memorial. As with all the memorials we saw, it was adjacent to the fields where the battles occurred. The country is very gently rolling agricultural land - there are no real hills, only rises and depressions, so that the countryside is largely featureless. The Salient Memorial is actually a series of memorials; a large main memorial comprising of a wide steel sculpture and a number of smaller memorials, including a re-creation of the defensive trenches and a T-34 tank on a plinth. This was not the last T-34 that we would see this day. There is a good museum underneath the memorial itself, though all the captions are in Russian only.

The proximity to the battlefield tells the greater story - with green fields rolling away from the memorial.



At the Prokhorovka Memorial bell-tower


Next we went to the Prokhorovka memorial. This is a large bell tower at one side of the Prokhorovka battlefield, with an adjoining field displaying Russian tanks, tank-killers, armoured vehicles and howitzers.This ia a relatively recent memorial (in the last ten years) and is well done. The battlefield itself spreads away in front of the memorial.

After this we went into Prokhorovka village itself. This is a small village, but it now contains a hotel, a memorial church and a museum. The memorial church seems recent (especially inside) and is quite moving with the names of Russian dead etched in gold in the marble walls inside the church.

The adjacent museum is only one year old, but it is excellent. It tells the story of the people of the village in the war, including its occupation, and of the battle in the surrounding field. Captions in English make the experience vivid. Graphics display the defences of the Soviet army and the penetration of the German tanks.



View from the bunker - just a field - but where it all happened

Outside the museum, a recreation of battlefield defences shows the entrenchments used, but is enhanced by parts of destroyed tanks and vehicles found in the battlefields. In fact, battlefield remnants are still being found, as are remains of combatants.



We had a good lunch in the Prokhorova hotel. Afterwards we went to the battle bunker of the commanding Russian General, which was brilliantly placed to survey the battlefield.

The spring water is good

Then we went to a communal gravesite memorial in a small village. For many of the dead, communal gravesites are all that remain. At this memorial, we forutitously met a woman who was the administrator of the local village area. While she had only Russian, she insisted on taking us on a tour of local sites.



She led us to a lake, with a sandy beach being enjoyed by a number of locals. The lake was fed by a number of springs of clear, cold, delicious water. The local community were developing an tourist attraction around this spring, including a plunge pool and a museum of typical past housing. We had the full tour.

Battlefield memorial to a brave anti-tank crew

She then took us to a small memorial in a field of small sunflower plants. This was in remembrance of one Russian unit and the particular bravery of an anti- tank group that destroyed seven Panzers before being overwhelmed, but who thereby blunted the German advance. This position was actually directly over the rise from the bell-tower memorial and emphasised the tightness of the battle and the effect of the low rises.



She then led us to a crossroads where she passed us over to another man, who seemed to be a representative of the adjoining village area. While we initialy thought that the woman, who was unsmiling or was unhappy with our presence, she proved to be delighted that Australians were there and determined to show us important things and to generously give up her time to help us.

Mass grave & memorial in a local village

Our new local guide led us to a local memorial. This was another mass-gravesite, with a prominent Orthodox cross (erected since the fall of Soviet Russia). Ths gravesite is now closed, but others remain open to accept the remains that continue to be found.

We headed back to Belgorod and our hotel. Given the early start, this had been a full day and much more than we really expected, given that we really didn't know what we might find here.

A beer and a shower refreshed us enough to head for the restaurant that was next to the hotel. It was quite good, with good food and a fine Chilean chardonnay. This was our last dinner in Russia and we enjoyed it.