The 22nd Karelian Fortified Region (KaUR; ) is a 60 km wide

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

defensive fortified district to the north of

Leningrad Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

(now Saint Petersburg) that was built in 1928–1932, 1938–1939, 1941–1944 and 1950–1965 in the Soviet part of the

Karelian Isthmus The Karelian Isthmus (; ; ) is the approximately stretch of land situated between the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ladoga in northwestern Russia, to the north of the River Neva. Its northwestern boundary is a line from the Bay of Vyborg to the we ...

amongst other fortified areas (including the Stalin Line) constructed around that time in order to defend the western borders of the Soviet Union. The KaUR spans the old Finno-

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

border from Valkeasaari near the northern shore of the

Gulf of Finland The Gulf of Finland (; ; ; ) is the easternmost arm of the Baltic Sea. It extends between Finland to the north and Estonia to the south, to Saint Petersburg—the second largest city of Russia—to the east, where the river Neva drains into it. ...

through Lempaala to Nizhniye Nikulyasy Bay on the western shore of

Lake Ladoga Lake Ladoga is a freshwater lake located in the Republic of Karelia and Leningrad Oblast in northwestern Russia, in the vicinity of Saint Petersburg. It is the largest lake located entirely in Europe, the second largest lake in Russia after Lake ...

. The 42nd Rifle Division was formed from individual infantry and

construction battalion United States Naval Construction Battalions, better known as the Navy Seabees, form the U.S. Naval Construction Forces (NCF). The Seabee nickname is a heterograph of the initial letters "CB" from the words "Construction Battalion". Dependi ...

s within the Region on 17 January 1940. Its commander in 1941 was General Major Mikhail Andrianovich Popov. Among Soviet definitions of Fortified Regions were: *Fortified Region as a fortified area, equipped in engineering terms for defence, line of defense in the form of long-term centers of resistance strongholds that are in interaction and forming general group (tens of kilometers of engineering structures, different obstacles, managed and unmanaged minefields),Soviet Military Encyclopedia 8 185 with a

garrison A garrison is any body of troops stationed in a particular location, originally to guard it. The term now often applies to certain facilities that constitute a military base or fortified military headquarters. A garrison is usually in a city ...

of Fortified district troops designed to perform defensive tasks.Military Encyclopedic Dictionary (WEC), Ṃ, VI, 1984, 863 pages with illustrations (plate), 30 sheets (plate) *Fortified area as a system of permanent fortifications, permanent resistance in these special

s and

combined arms Combined arms is an approach to warfare that seeks to integrate different combat arms of a military to achieve mutually complementary effects—for example, using infantry and armoured warfare, armour in an Urban warfare, urban environment in ...

. Restricting the opponent for all his front, they create the possibility of concentration of large forces and means for applying the enemy crushing blows in other areas. Troops battling in fortified areas require special tenacity, endurance and stamina.Source = Chapter Two, "The organization of the Red Army troops" 1. Combat arms and combat use, the Red Army Field Manual (CP-39)
Red Army Field Manual (IP-39), 1939

References

External links

KaUR (Karelian Fortified Area at the Northern Fortress)
History of the Karelian Isthmus World War II defensive lines World War II sites in Russia Fortified regions of the Soviet Union {{soviet-stub

See also

References

External links