Rostokino Communist Volunteer Battalion was formed in this school in 1941
A commemorative plaque was installed in memory of the formation of the Communist workers’ battalion of the Rostokinskiy district of Moscow. In the most difficult days of the Battle for Moscow, on October 13, 1941, when the Moscow militia divisions of the summer formation heroically fought being surrounded by near Vyazma, a resolution was adopted at a meeting of the active Moscow Party Organization on the mobilization of all communists, Komsomol members and workers of Moscow to defend the capital. In pursuance of this decision, the Division of Moscow workers was created literally in 3-4 days on the basis of 25 (according to the number of districts of the city) volunteer communist battalions and companies. On November 14, 1941, the division was assigned the name of the 3rd Moscow Communist Rifle Division. The formation of the battalion of workers of the Rostokinskiy district was supposed to take place at the address: 17, Sukonnaya Street, but the actual gathering place was the school building in 2nd Fabrichnaya Street (now it is Kasatkina Street). The number of the battalion, according to the certificate of the MGK of the CPSU (b) dated November 15, 1941, was 180 people. Most of the volunteers were sent by party and Komsomol organizations of institutions, plants and factories of the Rostokinskiy district (which included almost the entire modern north-east of Moscow and the Sretenka district). Some Muscovites came to the assembly point on their own, without receiving a formal referral. Deputy battalion commander K.P. Frolov later recalled: «At 9 o’clock in the morning on October 14, all the volunteers who signed up, filled with hatred for the enemy and ready to defend their native capital of the Soviet Union, Moscow, gathered at the school in 2nd Fabrichnaya Street. In the battalion, men and women ranged in age from 17 to 50 years: workers, employees, engineers and scientists». The division, which became the 130th Rifle Division in January 1942, and the 53rd Guards Division in December of the same year, participated in the Battle of Moscow, the Demyansk, Leningrad-Novgorod, Pskov–Ostrovsky, Tartu and Riga offensive operations of the Red Army.
Address: Moscow, Kasatkina str., 1
