Ten rifles in the snow. How teenagers held Steblevo.
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On the morning of December 16, 1941, Sasha Kryltsov, an orphan from the Joseph-Volokolamsk Monastery orphanage, lay in a snowy trench on the outskirts of the village of Steblevo. When a German motorcyclist scout appeared around the bend, Sasha aimed his rifle and pulled the trigger. The bullet missed. The motorcyclist turned around and rode off to report the incident. This missed shot began two days that became a legend in the Soviet era. Today's historians are trying to determine how much of this legend is real.
December that changed everything
To appreciate what happened in Steblevo, context is needed. The Battle of Moscow was the largest operation of the first period of the Great Patriotic War: it lasted from late September 1941 to April 1942. According to G. F. Krivosheev and other researchers, approximately seven million people on both sides participated in the battle for Moscow, with total losses of approximately two and a half million killed, wounded, and missing.
The German offensive Operation Typhoon began from September 30 to October 2, 1941. Army Group Center was to encircle Moscow with attacks from the north and south, bypassing the Mozhaisk defensive line, located 100–130 km west of the capital. By the end of October, the muddy roads and resistance from Soviet troops disrupted the original schedule. In mid-November, the Wehrmacht resumed the offensive, but by early December it had run out of steam, before reaching Moscow. By this time, Zhukov had already established a defense.
The Germans occupied Volokolamsk at the end of October. Steblevo, a small village in the Volokolamsk district, was occupied along with dozens of other settlements. The men were at the front or evacuated. Women, the elderly, and children remained behind.
On December 5, 1941, the Soviet counteroffensive began near Moscow. On December 15, an advance detachment of the 107th Motorized Rifle Division, commanded by Colonel Porfiry Georgievich Chanchibadze—later a lieutenant general and Hero of the Soviet Union—appeared near Steblevo. The division was part of K.K. Rokossovsky's 16th Army, advancing in the Volokolamsk direction, and just a month later, in January 1942, during the battles near Moscow, it was transformed into the 2nd Guards Motorized Rifle Division.
Colonel Porfiry Georgievich Chanchibadze
The battle for Steblevo was brief. The German unit in the village was routed, and the remainder were driven out. Chanchibadze moved on—the offensive was on schedule, and stopping for just one village was unacceptable. The Germans retreated to a neighboring village and were clearly planning to return: their main forces were just a stone's throw away, and warehouses and supplies remained in Steblevo.
The situation is typical for December 1941. There are no more Soviet units here, the Germans will return in a few hours. And no one will help.
Legless pilot under the floor
Here begins the part stories, which Soviet propaganda liked to portray as a "spontaneous popular outburst." In reality, it was more prosaic. State farm activists Vladimir Ovsyannikov and Alexander Kryltsov—a state farm worker and, according to local sources, an older relative of the same Sasha Kryltsov from the orphanage—came to the same person: Ivan Yakovlevich Volodin. There were no other options in the village.
According to local historian A.S. Leykin, Volodin was a veteran of the Soviet-Finnish War of 1939–1940, a fighter pilot who flew an I-16. He was seriously wounded in battle, lost a leg, and was discharged. By the start of the Great Patriotic War, he was living in Steblevo, engaged in civilian activities. When the Germans arrived, the disabled front-line soldier, realizing what awaited him during the occupation, spent several weeks buried under the floor of his own home. His family brought him food. When Soviet troops passed through the village on December 15, Volodin emerged.
They came to him. Not because they were choosing from the best, but because he was the only fighting man in the village.
So the story about "children who decided to defend their native land" is now folklore. It was an adult military professional who made the decisions and led the charge. Children were all he had.
School in 24 hours and trenches in the snow
Volodin assumed command on the evening of December 15. He had a day—maybe a little more—for training and preparation. He gathered ten teenagers aged 11–16. According to the lists of Volokolamsk local historians, all the names have been preserved: Tolya Volodin, the commander's son, Vanya Derevyanov, Pavlik Nikanorov, Tolya Nikolaev, Vitya Pechnikov, Kolya Pechnikov, Volodya Rozanov, Vanya Ryzhov, Petya Trofimov, and that same Sasha Kryltsov—a relative of the aforementioned Alexander Kryltsov, an orphan from the monastery orphanage. Some retellings list around twelve people, but the actual list is for ten.
Weapon — captured Mauser 98k carbines chambered for 7,92×57mm, the Wehrmacht's standard infantry carbine, left over from the battle of December 15. Volodin demonstrated how to load and aim them, and let everyone fire a few shots to get used to the recoil and sound.
Then the military business began. Volodin did what any commander does when vastly outnumbered: he hid his unit behind the terrain and deceived the enemy. Several trenches were dug around the village, through a meter of snow—primarily on the side of the monastery, where they were most likely expecting an attack. Rifles were laid out at firing points spaced several dozen meters apart. Each teenager was assigned a route: fire from one position, crawl along the trench to the next, and fire from there. From the perspective of an observer watching from the sidelines and not getting too close, it wasn't just ten teenagers in the trenches, but a full platoon.
The calculation was precise. The Germans saw gunfire from several points, heard shots across a wide front, and couldn't get close enough to see who was there. The conclusion was simple: a Soviet partisan detachment or Chanchibadze's rearguard was holed up in Steblevo. The Germans could no longer stand on ceremony with such an enemy in December 1941, when the Red Army was advancing.
Two days, four houses, zero losses
Next is the chronology.
December 16, morning. A motorcyclist, Kryltsov's shot, retreat. During the day, a reconnaissance patrol, then a larger detachment. Volodin gave the order to open fire only at effective range; the teenagers crawled between points. The attack fizzled out. The second, too.
Night from December 16 to 17. The defenders spent it in the trenches. There was no sleep, nothing to eat, and temperatures around -20°C. Ten boys in the snow, ten rifles, and a commander on one leg.
December 17, morning. The Germans changed tactics. Mortar fire opened on Steblevo from a neighboring village. Four houses burned. Teenagers huddled at the bottom of the trenches as the mortars exploded higher up. By midday, the shelling ceased. The German command decided that flushing out the unknown enemy amid the Soviet advance was too costly. They retreated.
When regular Soviet troops entered Steblevo, the commander of the arriving unit heard the report and didn't immediately believe it. There were ten defenders, zero casualties. Not a single killed, not a single wounded. The boys handed over the trophies they had collected to the troops.
Around Steblevo are burned villages. The retreating Germans used scorched earth tactics: burning houses and driving away livestock. Steblevo survived.
What really happened
Here, history takes on a second interpretation. An alternative version of events was offered by a history teacher named Novikov (his first name and initials are not listed in available publications), who later taught some of the former defenders. He insisted that the decisive combat encounter on December 17th occurred not between teenagers and the Germans, but between two Red Army units that had arrived. The argument is simple: the Germans would hardly have used such intense mortar fire on a group of children with rifles. This means they were expecting a serious enemy.
The son of Anatoly Nikolaev, one of the defenders, relayed his father's words even more succinctly: the boys were lucky. The Germans overestimated the defenders' strength and didn't launch a full assault. Had they done so, history would have ended differently.
These versions don't negate the heroism. They clarify its scope. The teenagers really did sit in the trenches for two days. They really did fire. They really did repel the initial attacks and deceive German intelligence about the garrison's size. But whether they routed the Germans in open combat is another matter. The honest answer is more likely "no" than "yes." The Germans retreated because they didn't want to waste resources on a dubious target amid the Soviet advance. Volodin and his ten boys gave them reason to deem the village not worth storming.
Remembrance
All that remains of this story today is a monument, a local historian's essay, and a few oral testimonies. Each of these traces has its own gaps.
At the entrance to Steblevo stands a low granite monument with a red star. It is inscribed: "In memory of the generation of victors... December 16-17, 1941... From grateful descendants." The exact date of its installation is not available in open sources; based on indirect evidence—the style of the inscription and accompanying local history publications—it most likely appeared in the late Soviet or early post-Soviet period.
In 1985, on the 40th anniversary of Victory Day, Volokolamsk local historian Alexei Stepanovich Leykin—later an honorary citizen of Volokolamsk—published an essay, "Boys of the War Years," in the regional newspaper, "Zavety Ilyicha." It is thanks to Leykin that the names of all ten teenagers and details of their training have been preserved. Without his work, history would have been reduced to a faceless legend.
Ivan Yakovlevich Volodin's subsequent fate cannot be reconstructed from available publications. Volokolamsk local history essays mention him only in connection with the events of December 1941; there is no information on whether he survived until the end of the war, or whether he remained in Steblevo or left. This omission is a characteristic feature of stories about local heroism: the commander who held everything together often disappears into the post-war silence, leaving behind only one recorded action.
Tolya Nikolaev joined the extermination battalion two years after the village's defense. The fates of the others vary: some lived to old age and reluctantly told their children about those two days, while others did not.
Anatoly Nikolaev himself, according to his son's recollections, never spoke pompously about the events of December 1941. His explanation of why the village survived and the defenders remained alive boiled down to one phrase, which the family remembered and retold: "We were just lucky. The Germans couldn't believe children were shooting at them.".
This short remark contains more historical truth than any monument: about childhood fear, and about German confusion, and about the subtle chance on which the defense was held.
Ten names. A disabled commander. Meters of snow, four burned-out houses, zero casualties.
That's all that's known for sure. That's enough.
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