To the 40th anniversary of the Great Victory Oshta is a regional center in the north-west of the Vologda Oblast, a few dozen kilometers from the southern shore of Lake Onega. During the Great Patriotic War, this area of the Vologda region was in a combat zone and was partially under enemy occupation. In the autumn of 1941, the situation on the Soviet-German front was very tense. The enemy was blockading Leningrad, threatening Moscow, and rushing to Kharkiv, the Donbas, and the Crimea. The goal of the autumn operations of the fascists was set out in Directive No. 35 of the German Supreme High Command of September 6, 1941: Army Group North was proposed, together with formations of Finland, an ally of Germany, to encircle Soviet troops in the Leningrad region, then until September 15 to release a significant part of mobile troops and aircraft for transfer to Army Group Center, which at the end of the same month was ordered to go on a decisive offensive in the Moscow direction. The Nazis also planned to carry out a complete double encirclement of Leningrad: first, striking across the Neva River to the north, create an inner ring, and then, advancing from the Volkhov River in a north-easterly direction, connect with the Finnish troops on the Svir River1 . With the fall of Tikhvin on November 8, 1941, the last railway line that carried cargo to besieged Leningrad up to the coast of Lake Ladoga was cut. The enemy intended to move further to Vologda and cut off the Soviet North from the Center. The Nazis assigned a significant role in their plans to Finland. One of the Finnish armies, the South-Eastern, was to occupy the Karelian Isthmus and, in cooperation with the troops of Army Group North, capture Leningrad; the other, the Karelian, was to advance between Lake Onega and Lake Ladoga and join the Nazis on the Sviri .2 Reactionary Finnish circles that were then in charge of the country cherished the idea of creating a "Greater Finland". Thus, a Finnish prisoner of war, Cor ... Read more