Pavlov's House

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Pavlov's House in 2006

Pavlov's House (Russian: дом Павлова tr. Dom Pavlova) was a fortified apartment building which Red Army defenders held for 60 days against a heavy Wehrmacht offensive during the Battle of Stalingrad. The siege lasted from 27 September to 25 November 1942 and eventually the Red Army managed to relieve it from the siege.[1]



The house was a four-story building in the center of Stalingrad, built perpendicular to the embankment of the river Volga and overseeing the "9th January Square", a large square named for Bloody Sunday. In late September 1942, between 30 and 50 soldiers of the 42nd Guards Regiment, 13th Guards Division secured the large apartment blocks from German control, following its reconnoiter by four soldiers four days prior which Yakov Pavlov himself led.


The strategic benefit of the house was that it defended a key section of the Volga bank. The tactical benefit of the house was its position on a cross-street, giving the defenders a 1 km line of sight to the north, south and west.[5][incomplete short citation] After several days, reinforcements and resupply arrived for Pavlov's men, bringing the unit up to a 25-man understrength platoon and equipping the defenders with machine guns, anti-tank rifles, and mortars.

Pavlov's House in 1943

In keeping with Stalin's Order No. 227—"not one step back"—Sergeant Pavlov was ordered to fortify the building and defend it to the last bullet and the last man. Taking this advice to heart, Pavlov ordered the building to be surrounded with four layers of barbed wire and minefields, and set up machine-gun posts in every available window facing the square. In the early stages of the defense, Pavlov discovered that an anti-tank rifle—a PTRS-41—he had mounted on the roof was particularly effective when used to ambush unsuspecting German tanks; once the tanks had approached to within range of the building, their thin turret-roof armor became exposed to AT rifle fire from above, and they were unable to elevate their weapons enough to retaliate.[6]


The Germans attacked the building several times a day. Each time German infantry or tanks tried to cross the square and to close in on the house, Pavlov's men laid down a withering barrage of machine gun and AT rifle fire from the basement, the windows and the roof. Eventually, the defenders—as well as civilians hiding in the basement—had held out during intensive fighting from 27 September to 25 November 1942, and were relieved by counter-attacking Soviet forces.

Uncertainty on dates[edit]




"The defense of the house lasted for 58 days and nights." [1]

Symbolic meaning[edit]


Vasily Chuikov, commanding general of the Soviet forces in Stalingrad, later joked that the Germans lost more men trying to take Pavlov's House than they did taking Paris.[9][10][11]


Pavlov was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union for his actions.[12]

Recent reporting[edit]

A Russian TV documentary in 2009, Legendary Redoubt, (Легендарный редут) on the Russian Channel One reported on Pavlov's House. According to the documentary, the house's defense was in fact led by Lieutenant Ivan F. Afanasiev (Иван Ф. Афанасьев). This report does not discount Pavlov's efforts, which led to his earning the Hero of the Soviet Union and those soldiers who took part in the defense, earning numerous decorations of their own. The last member of Pavlov's group, Kamoljon Turgunov from Turakurgan District, Namangan Province, Uzbekistan died on 16 March 2015, aged 93.[13]

See also[edit]


  1. ^ a b Sputnik. "Surviving the hell of Stalingrad". Retrieved 2 December 2016.
  2. ^ Bull, Stephen (20 December 2012). World War II Street-Fighting Tactics. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 9781782008460.
  3. ^ Mathews, R. (2012). Stalingrad: The Battle that Shattered Hitler's Dream of World Domination. Arcturus Publishing Limited.
  4. ^ Beevor, A. (1999). Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege, 1942–1943. London: Penguin Books.
  5. ^ Pavlov House in Russian
  6. ^ Yoder, Mike (4 February 2003). "Battle of Stalingrad". Military History Online. Archived from the original on 14 May 2019. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
  7. ^ "World War 2 History: Pavlov's House in Stalingrad-- They Shall Not Pass". Owlcation. Retrieved 2 December 2016.
  8. ^ Rottiers, Geert. "Pavlov's house". Retrieved 2 December 2016.
  9. ^ Chuikov, Vasily. Сражение века (in Russian). Retrieved 30 May 2013. Эта небольшая группа, обороняя один дом, уничтожила вражеских солдат больше, чем гитлеровцы потеряли при взятии Парижа.
  11. ^ "European Cultural Benefits" (in Russian). Archived from the original on 3 October 2009.
  12. ^ «Yakov Pavlov 10.17.1917 - 29.09.1981 Hero of the Soviet Union» in Russian
  13. ^ "Ушел из жизни последний защитник дома Павлова в Сталинграде Камолжон Тургунов". Komsomolskaya Pravda (in Russian). 17 March 2015. Retrieved 4 December 2018.

External links[edit]