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  • World War II

    ON MOSCOW’S DOORSTEP

    Oct 02, 2018 4 minutes
    STORY AND PHOTOS BY BILL YENNE

    THE LAST PATCHES OF WINTER SNOW crunch beneath my feet as I make my way through the birch forests along the banks of the Vyazemka River. With the new foliage of spring bursting forth, it is hard to imagine the blustery days of Russia’s infamous winter when the season’s snow fell. It is also hard to imagine that, amid this peaceful landscape, one of history’s most terrible battlefronts bisected this very spot.

    In Golitsyno they remember: they know all too well the winter cold and what happened here in December 1941, when the German armies churned through the snowbanks in their last-gasp effort to reach the gates of Moscow.

    It was here in Golitsyno, just 27 miles west

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