About the book: 2021 / TO THE 80TH ANNIVERSARY OF SERPUCHOV’S HEROIC DEFENSE! “Serpukhov must not be surrendered under any circumstances!” - this is exactly the order that the head of the Serpukhov garrison, the most important transport hub on the approaches to Moscow, received personally from Stalin. The loss of Serpukhov would mean a blockade of Tula and the Wehrmacht reaching the capital from the south. On October 19, near Vysokinichy, in the context of the withdrawal of the Red Army along the entire Western Front, a special detachment of the 49th Army, reinforced with a T-34 tank, began to operate. The crew of the Thirty-Four was commanded by the most successful tank ace of the Great Patriotic War, Dmitry Lavrinenko (in 2.5 months of fighting in October-December 1941, he destroyed 52 German tanks). As a result, about a hundred Red Army soldiers with T-34s inflicted a crushing defeat on the Nazi forces that were five times superior to them. This book tells in detail about the most famous battle of D.F. Lavrinenko. Archival documents of the Red Army and the Wehrmacht make it possible to objectively show the history of the feat of Soviet soldiers near Serpukhov on October 19, 1941. Moreover, for the first time you can look at the fighting with the participation of Lavrinenko’s crew not only from the Soviet, but also from the German side. The course of the legendary battle is described against the backdrop of a wide panorama of events that unfolded in the regional centers of Serpukhov and Vysokinichy near Moscow in October 1941, highlights the life of front-line Serpukhov, the military-administrative authorities of the city, the composition of local military rifle formations, and analyzes the disposition of the Red Army in the period 17–21 October 1941 on the lines of defense along the river. Protva.