Shukshin Cliff

Shukshin Cliff (Shukshinsky Utyos) is a chalk bluff on the right bank of the Don in the Kletsky District of the Volgograd Oblast, near the khutor of Melokletsky, within the Great Bend of the Don. The cliff is part of the chalk hills lining the river. On its top stand a chapel, a mass grave of the defenders of Stalingrad and the memorial "They Fought for Their Country", and its edge serves as a viewpoint over the Don and its floodplain.

History

In the summer of 1942, during the Battle of Stalingrad, the front line ran through this area, and fighting for the Don crossings went on until autumn. The neighbouring khutor of Perekopka was completely destroyed. Old trenches, worn down and overgrown with grass and shrubs, can still be seen on the slopes.

From May to October 1974 Sergei Bondarchuk shot the film "They Fought for Their Country", based on Mikhail Sholokhov's novel, in the Kletsky District. The battle for the Don crossing was filmed in the very places described in the novel. Vasily Shukshin, who played the soldier Lopakhin, liked to spend time alone on this cliff, as local people recall. On 2 October 1974 he died in his cabin aboard the river ship Dunai, moored by the bank, before filming was finished. After that people began to call the cliff Shukshin's.

In 2003 St Basil's Chapel was built on the top with money raised by local people and consecrated with the blessing of Metropolitan German of Volgograd and Kamyshin. The actor Pyotr Zaichenko, regarded as Shukshin's godson in cinema, gave three evening performances to raise funds for it. On 15 October 2004 the remains of Red Army soldiers found by the search team "Vzryv" were reburied next to the chapel, and a monument to the defenders of the bridgehead near Kletskaya was put up.

What to see

• St Basil's Chapel with an icon of St Basil the Great.
• The mass grave and the memorial "They Fought for Their Country"; local people call the cliff their own Mamayev Kurgan, and every year veterans, schoolchildren and young people gather here.
• An obelisk with a memorial plaque and a bench above the Don where Shukshin is said to have liked to sit.
• The view from the bluff over the Don and the chalk slopes, best in the evening when the setting sun lights the cliffs.

Shukshin is also remembered in the stanitsa of Kletskaya: the district library bears his name and keeps a copy of his story collection "Zemlyaki" with his inscription, a small square with his bust, "Shukshin's Yard", opened in 2022. A reconstruction of his cabin from the Dunai can be seen in the Museum of the History of the Don Cossacks.

Getting there

From Volgograd take the M-6 highway and cross the Don by ferry at the stanitsa of Novogrigoryevskaya. Then follow the road towards Kletskaya as far as the khutor of Logovsky, turn left in the village and take the dirt road towards the Don, past Perekopka, to the cliff. There is a holiday camp at the foot of the cliff.

Good to know

Shukshin Cliff has no official status as a protected historical or natural monument. It makes a good day trip; take care near the edge of the bluff.