Monument to the 23rd Guardsmen

Yuri Vizbor has a song “The Price of Life” dedicated to these events, in one of its verses it is said about what task the guards received:

"The task is to break into the city,

Take the bridge and save it from the explosion.

Bridge not to give, hold, hold

Before our tank forces approach.”

The bridge over the Western Dvina in Polotsk was mined by the Germans. It was necessary not to let it blow up, and with its help to force the Western Dvina in a short time. If the bridge were blown up, the offensive of our army would be disrupted and the enemy would have time to pull up reinforcements. On July 3, 1944, the 23rd Guardsmen approached their deaths with a desperate determination to carry out their mission and ensure the advance of the Soviet army. They did it at the cost of their lives. Almost all were killed, only one of them survived the battle - Mikhail Kozhevnikov.

The memory of the 23 heroes was immortalized in 1989, installing a monument on the site of their deaths depicting Lieutenant Grigoriev with three comrades breaking through to their final frontier. To the right of the four figures stands a stele on which the names of all 23 Guardsmen are engraved. The special piercing of the composition is given by three cranes as if soaring into the sky from a column with the names of the dead. The soldiers, who did not come from bloody fields, did not fall into our land once, but turned into white cranes.