Ruined mill from the exposition of the Museum Panorama of the Battle of Stalingrad 格勒战役全景博物馆展览中被毁的磨坊

A destroyed mill from the exposition of the Museum Panorama of the Battle of Stalingrad in the city of Volgograd Gergardt’s Mill, or Grudinin’s Mill, is a steam mill building of the early 20th century, destroyed during the Battle of Stalingrad and not restored as a memory of the war. Part of the Battle of Stalingrad Museum-Reserve. The mill building is one of the first in Tsaritsyno, built using the technology of a supporting reinforced concrete frame and an outer shell of brick walls. Although such construction was a novelty for the city - it was a typical project for a steam mill of the early 20th century, similar buildings were built during this period throughout the Russian Empire. The building is divided into two unequal parts by a firewall. In the greater northern part there were production shops, in the lesser southern part there were warehouses for finished products. On both end walls at the level of the roof, there is a brick inscription “Gergardt” - the name of the owner, Volga German Alexander Gergardt. The same inscription is lined with bricks of a different shade on the Volga side of the building, on the 5th floor, one letter at a time between the window openings. The inscription on the southern end was lost in 2021 as a result of an emergency collapse of brickwork [4]. The building was whitewashed; the remains of the whitewash were preserved on the Volga side of the building. In addition to the building on plot 346, 2 wooden grain warehouses were built along Kazanskaya Street, a one-story office building and garage boxes along Penza Street (they were not restored after the war). In Soviet times, the mill was nationalized, among the Stalingrad mills it received number 4. In 1929 it was named after Konstantin Grudinin. The mill operated until September 14, 1942, when the building was hit by high-explosive bombs, which caused a fire and a work stoppage. On this day, the 42nd Rifle Brigade of General Batrakov, which was defending the central part of Stalingrad, retreated and fought in a small area near the River Station. On the night of September 14-15, General Rodimtsev’s 13th Guards Rifle Division crossed the Volga to correct the catastrophic situation. The unit of Lieutenant Chervyakov occupied the building, left it in the rear and continued the offensive to help the 10th NKVD division, surrounded near the station. However, after fierce battles from September 15 to 20, it was not possible to gain a foothold at the railway station, the surviving Soviet soldiers retreated to the mill. By September 20, the line of defense was established, the 3rd battalion of the 42nd rifle regiment of the 13th Guards rifle division took up defense in the mill [7]. The mill, the house of Pavlov and Zabolotny became the “Penza“ defense center (after the name of Penza street), and the mill building remained the only multi-storey building in the area of the central embankment, held by Soviet troops and, being very massive and durable, became the citadel of the Penza defense center. The last remaining supply route - the salt pier of the central embankment near the Volga - was used only at night, with great risk to boats. Under the current conditions, this pier has become a very important strategic site - one of the few gentle slopes to the Volga. From this section it is convenient to take a bridgehead on the western bank of the Volga (which was done by the 13th Guards Rifle Division), and to control the place of a possible crossing to the eastern bank. The front began to move in January 1943, the 13th division launched an offensive in the Mamayev Kurgan area, the 9th January area ceased to be a no-man’s-land. Only then was it possible to collect the bodies of those killed in the square, lying also from the September battles, and those killed in the winter period [8]. The building was semi-encircled for 58 days, and during these days it withstood numerous hits from aerial bombs and shells. This damage is visible even now - literally every square meter of the outer walls is cut by shells, bullets and shrapnel, on the roof, reinforced concrete beams are broken by direct hits from aerial bombs. Explosions knocked out hundreds of cubic meters of very high-quality brickwork and reinforced concrete from the building. The sides of the building testify to different intensity of mortar and artillery fire - minimal from the Volga, from the other three sides traces of shooting from all types of artillery are visible, as well as loopholes in the window openings made by the defenders of the house. The increased strength and vibration resistance of the reinforced concrete frame, which was necessary for the operation of the industrial equipment of the mill, helped the building survive and not be destroyed to the ground. 这座建筑被半包围了 58 天，在这些日子里，它遭到了多次空中炸弹和炮弹的袭击。 这种损坏即使现在也很明显——实际上每平方米外墙都被炮弹、子弹和弹片切割，在屋顶上，钢筋混凝土梁被空中炸弹的直接撞击破坏。 爆炸从建筑物中炸毁了数百立方米的非常优质的砖砌和钢筋混凝土。 建筑物的侧面证明了迫击炮和大炮的不同强度 - 伏尔加河最小，从其他三个侧面可以看到所有类型的大炮射击的痕迹，以