![]() ![]() Petersburg on the Gulf of Finland passing through the ghostly Moscow suburbs at 4 a.m. OUR PILGRIMAGE BEGAN with a sixteen-hour overnight train ride across the breadth of western Russia: from St. Petersburg: “That was more interesting than the Hermitage” - one of the world’s premier art collections, which we’d visited the day before. This is a woman, I must note, who commented after our tour of the extraordinary Artillery Museum in St. When I somewhat hesitantly raised the idea of heading far off the beaten track, she surprised me with the enthusiasm of her response. ![]() Joining me on the journey was my Mexican lady-friend Griselda. So when the long dreamt-of opportunity to travel through post-Soviet Russia on the Trans-Siberian Express became a reality, I knew I would have to depart from the east-west axis and make a pilgrimage to Prokhorovka in the deep south of the country, not far from the Ukrainian border. I had long been fascinated by the sheer scale and intensity of the Nazi-Soviet clash, not to mention its unparalleled importance to twentieth-century history. In Russia itself, Prokhorovka has attained mythic status - perhaps not quite as prominent as the siege of Leningrad, or the heroic defense of Stalingrad, but a defining moment nonetheless. The name is obscure outside Russia, but to military historians it signifies the largest and most destructive encounter in the greatest series of tank battles ever waged. ![]() Instead, its decisive clash was fought well to the southwest, on the outskirts of the small town of Prokhorovka. It signifies a turning point in history, or at least the point where a historical shift was sealed.īut the “Battle of Kursk” never came within range of Kursk city itself. For anyone familiar with the Second World War on the eastern front - and it was in the east that the war was won and lost - the name is as evocative as they come. Pilgrimage to Prokhorovka - Text and Photos by Adam Jones ![]()
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