Roman Towns

The Romans remained in Britain, for three hun­dred and fifty years, and during that time they built many towns. Strangely enough, London was not the chief town in early Roman times. The capital city, from which the Romans governed the island, was Colchester.

Many of these towns were large. The walls of St Albans, for instance, were two miles round, and the town covered two hundred acres of land. We know where the Roman towns have stood from the names of the English towns which were later built on their ruins. The names of modern towns ending in -chester or -caster, like Dorchester or Lancaster, come from the Latin word castra meaning a camp or a fortified place.

Each large town had a theatre, open to the sky, with some seats in a great semi-circle. Many towns had amphitheatres like the Coliseum in Rome, but smaller. Here the soldiers did military exercises and played all sorts of games.

There were shops in all Roman-British towns. The shops were usually locat­ed on two sides of the main square. The shops were of all kinds: butcher's, baker's and greengro­cer's; there were shoemaker’s and locksmith’s, carpenter’s and jeweller’s shops. Tailors and leather workers could be seen at work behind their counters, and everywhere merchants invited the passers-by to buy their goods.

The customers were as varied as the mer­chants: Britons in rough woollen clothes, Romans in togas, sol­diers in scarlet and brass, women in grace­ful dresses and cloaks, and slaves in short tu­nics. It was a busy scene.

The social centre of every Roman town was the great building of the baths. This building usually occupied one side of the main square and contained, in addition to the hot and cold baths, the law courts, the municipal offices, the school building and the gymnasium.

The Romans believed in keeping clean. They built wonderful baths and used them two or three times a day. After the bath the young Romans went into the large high gymnasium to practice boxing and wrestling and all kinds of gymnastics.

At the same time, the Roman gymnasi­um was much more than just a place for physical exercise. Many business opera­tions were done in it. There were places, too, in this large building, where peo­ple could buy food and drink. In fact, a Ro­man citizen could go to the baths in the morning and spend the whole busy day there, without wasting a moment.

Twenty-eight heroes

In the autumn of 1941 fascist Germany concentrated strong forces for an offensive against our capital. The first nazi attack on Moscow failed. On the 16th of November the Germans launched the second offensive. During the offensive the 316th Rifle Division held the defense not far from the Volokolamsk Highway. Though the forces of the Germans outnum­bered those of the defenders, they could not break through our positions.

A platoon of 28 Soviet Army men under Sergeant Dobrobabin and V. Klochkov, a Company Political Officer, held the position at Dubosekovo. Supporting the attack of two infantry regiments the artillery and mortar batteries opened fire on the position. More than twenty tanks took part in the attack. Soon a second attack began, and then a third one, but all of them were repulsed. The greater part of our men were killed and wounded. Yet, the fearless Russian soldiers decided to fight to the last.

Towards the evening a new tank attack was launched. Thirty enemy tanks were advancing on our position when V. Klochkov said to his men: "Great is the land of Russia, but there is nowhere to retreat to. Moscow is behind us." With a grenade in his hand the Political Officer went out of the trenches to meet a heavy tank. He destroyed it but at the cost of his life. Under the constant artillery and machine-gun fire one by one the Soviet Army men fell in the unequal battle. Soon all of them were killed except Private Natarov who, badly wounded as he was, managed to crawl away to the forest where he was picked up by our reconnaissance patrol. Before he died he passed on the last message of his comrades-in-arms: "We knew what we were dying for and we performed duty as soldiers, we checked the advance of the enemy. Victory or death! Remember that when you go into battle. There is no other way. We died, but we did not surrender."

A monument was set up over the graves of the 28 heroes of General Panfilov's Division who gave up their lives for the happiness of their Motherland and peace.