Voyskove village is located 70 kilometers from the Dnipro river towards Zaporizhzhya. You can’t get here by “passing through” as it is located far away from the highway. There are broken roads, 500 people, several military cemeteries and most importantly – a huge memorial.
History of forcing the Dnipro
The Dnipro bridgehead memorial was built in 1985 and is dedicated to the event of the formation of the Dnipro River in 1943, after which it became possible to liberate the then Dnepropetrovsk from German occupation.
On September 24, 1943, a large number of Soviet soldiers in many units landed in this place to continue the offensive on Dnipropetrovsk and Dniprodzerzhinsk. Battles were fought here for several days and thousands of soldiers died during it.
At the same time to the north – in the area of Auli village near modern Kamianske a similar operation was carried out – transfer of soldiers from the left to the right bank in order to take the cities in pincers.
This battle can be visually seen in the diorama of the Dnipro city, which is also dedicated to it. And this battle will go down in history as one of the largest on the territory of Ukraine. About 4 million soldiers from both sides took part in it.
Dnipro Forcing Memorial
In fact, it is difficult to call this structure a monument. It is a whole complex. In the middle of the forest, a few kilometers from the village is a large territory. There are roads, buildings (it is not clear what their purpose is), monuments, a cemetery, and artillery cannons as part of the exposition.
The bank of the Dnipro River is poured with concrete, laid with concrete beams. Further from the bank there are plaques with the names of the units that participated in the forcing. Among them there is a plaque of the 17th Air Army, the monument to the pilots of which stands in Dnipro on Solnechnaya Embankment.
Further on there is a concrete wall with a huge red star and a black monument symbolizing fire. There is also a star with a hammer and sickle inside it.
There are large asphalted glades on the territory – I think they are parking lots, because groups of people could be taken to the memorial on commemorative dates. For example, schoolchildren.
Decommunization of a Soviet memorial
Contrary to the prevailing opinion about Ukraine, especially from Russian propaganda, no one is touching the monument and is not going to demolish it. You can see that the territory is being taken care of. It is clean, neat, the concrete has been painted, and the star has been replaced with plastic to keep its color longer.
In fact, in Ukraine they do not touch the graves of Soviet soldiers and in particular the Dnipro bridgehead memorial is proof of that.
How to get to the Dnipro bridgehead memorial
There is a bus from Dnipro to Voyskove. Its final stop is on Topol near the Epicenter store. On weekdays it has one schedule, on weekends another – only 2 times a day. The bus arrives at the Voyskovoye Center, and you will have to walk to the memorial or ask someone for a ride. In terms of distance it is about 3,5 km.
With a car you can drive directly to the memorial. From Dnieper to here is 58,8 km (the odometer on the car showed 71). From Zaporizhzhya it is about the same distance.