On the fourth day of the war, June 26, 1941, the leadership of the Empress Catherine II Saint Petersburg Mining University raised the question of forming a combat regiment composed entirely of its students and faculty. By the morning of June 30, more than 900 applications from university members had been submitted for enlistment in the Red Army.
The regiment was incorporated into the People’s Militia and divided into specialized units. Geologists formed reconnaissance groups due to their exceptional skills with maps and compasses; geophysicists trained as radio operators; mining engineers became sappers; and metallurgists and mechanics were assigned technical support roles.
Alongside mobilization efforts, valuable items began pouring into the Defense Fund. The university’s professors—including Saldau, Kell, Nalivkin, Aseev, and German—donated field binoculars, Leica cameras, and various gold items. They did so modestly, without the fanfare often associated with such gestures, like the later famous donation by Ferapont Golovatov. Golovatov, a Soviet farmer, became a legend when he sold 200 kilograms of honey at the market and used the proceeds to purchase a Yak-1 fighter aircraft. He requested that his name be inscribed on the fuselage as a gift and that the plane be sent directly to the front lines.
The dean of the Mining and Metallurgy faculties and secretary of the Communist Party Committee, Pyotr Dmitrievich Trusov, owned no valuables to contribute to the war effort—he was still too young to have accumulated any. But he was certainly no coward.
«A person of high principles and culture, boundless kindness, straightforward yet wise, supremely benevolent, flexible when needed, yet unyielding and steadfast in matters of principle, an unchallengeable arbiter of honor, a brilliant teacher and lecturer, a talented and inquisitive seeker of scientific truth—he was immensely popular, respected, and loved by the institute’s faculty and students», - wrote Naum Greiver, a graduate of the Leningrad Mining Institute (LMI) and future laureate of two Stalin Prizes for developing technologies to extract nickel, copper, cobalt, molybdenum, and platinum group metals from copper-nickel sulfide ores.
Pyotr Trusov was born in 1904 in the city of Kokand, Uzbekistan. A bright student, he began contributing to his family’s income as a child. He worked as a newspaper vendor and tutor, joined the Komsomol after high school, and held various jobs, including as a school teacher, editor-proofreader at a publishing house, and accountant at the Department of Public Education in Bishkek (then Frunze).
In 1925, a new chapter began for Pyotr Dmitrievich. He enrolled in the Leningrad Mining Institute (LMI) at the Faculty of Metallurgy and, with characteristic enthusiasm, immersed himself in scientific work. His primary focus became the enrichment of mineral resources. While still a student, he began working at the specialized research institute "Mekhanobr". After defending his diploma, Trusov continued in postgraduate studies at the Department of Mineral Resource Beneficiation.
A humorous incident soon followed. In 1932, Pyotr Dmitrievich received a patent from the Committee on Inventions for an innovative "method of flotation for apatite and other ores" and wrote a dissertation on the same topic. However, he couldn’t defend it as the manuscript was misplaced by one of the reviewers. At the time, dissertations were handwritten, and producing a new copy was a time-consuming process. As a result, he was offered a position as an assistant professor in the Department of Mineral Resource Beneficiation at his alma mater, albeit without a degree. It wasn’t until 1940 that he found time to defend a new dissertation.
According to the minutes of the LMI Council meeting, the attending scholars unanimously concluded that "the applicant’s work merits the conferral of a doctoral degree, not a candidate's." A proposal to treat the defense as a doctoral one gained significant support. Unfortunately, bureaucracy prevailed—the standard procedure was adhered to, with the promise of awarding a doctorate next time.
By the early 1940s, Trusov had earned a reputation as a true authority in his field. Fellow scientists remarked that he was the only one at the institute who was a "worthy successor and continuer of innovative research in flotation theory" following Konstantin Beloglazov, the author of the kinetic theory of flotation and a Stalin Prize laureate.
Pyotr Dmitrievich led the Scientific Research Council of the institute. From its inception, the council’s central focus was the study of nickel from the Monchegorsk tundra. Researchers worked on achieving a full processing cycle—from raw ore to metallic nickel on an industrial scale. They explored processing ores and concentrates into roast matte and fayalite matte, separation of copper-nickel mattes, and purification of solutions during nickel electrolysis. These studies were scientifically significant for ore deposits across the Soviet Union.
In addition to overseeing these projects, Trusov conducted his own groundbreaking research. His studies on Kola apatite beneficiation and polymetallic ores found practical applications in producing valuable raw materials without relying on expensive imported flotation reagents.
In 1940-1941, the Mining Institute developed a simple and effective method for extracting precious metals from nickel electrolysis sludge. A month before the war, Pyotr Dmitrievich traveled to Monchegorsk, where he discussed the implementation of these studies with the plant manager, Mikhail Tsarevsky. After explaining the method and the prospects for constructing the relevant facility, he received full approval. However, he was not destined to oversee the process.
On the first day of the war, the 37-year-old scientist returned to Leningrad, where a district party committee decision awaited, appointing him to a position designated for "the best representatives of the institute."
Within the volunteer combat regiment of the Mining Institute, a specialized "commando" unit was formed. Senior students and young instructors, bonded by years of shared academic and expeditionary experience, were assigned to destruction battalions—well-armed, trained, and prepared for executing high-priority missions for the Leningrad Front Command.
«In enemy-occupied territories, partisan detachments must be established," Stalin announced on July 3, 1941. "Create sabotage groups to fight enemy units, ignite partisan warfare everywhere, blow up bridges and roads, set fire to forests, depots, and supply lines. Make the enemy's occupation unbearable, pursue and eliminate them at every step».
As a result, a combat-ready destruction unit was formed—the 6th Destruction Battalion of the 5th Partisan Regiment "Ded Yakov," commanded by a professional military officer and Civil War veteran, Grigory Rekk. Pyotr Trusov was appointed as its commissar.
Seventy-one representatives from the institute joined the battalion. They were tasked with operating within the Northwest Front zone, conducting combat and sabotage missions in the triangle of Strugi Krasnye – Pskov – Karamyshevo. Their goals included disrupting enemy communications, such as the Warsaw railway and Kyiv highway.
Three weeks after the war began, the battalion was deployed behind enemy lines.
Their first battle occurred near the village of Grigoryevka, close to Luga, where they annihilated a column of German troops, destroyed the headquarters of a large garrison, seized documents, weapons, and burned vehicles and motorcycles. Near the village of Gavrilovka, they eliminated an armored vehicle with two officers and about twenty soldiers, capturing grenades, machine guns, and ammunition. In subsequent days, the mining engineers attacked a motor convoy heading to the frontline and derailed several trains, disrupting enemy supply lines of weapons, ammunition, and food.
The partisans' successes did not go unnoticed. The enemy launched targeted countermeasures, including ambushes and forest sweeps with detachments of up to 150 soldiers. Many battalion members died heroically. Tragically, Commissar Pyotr Trusov was among the fallen.
On September 12, 1941, between the villages of Zamoshki and Lazun in the Pskov region, a large group of Nazi forces, aided by a local informant, discovered the partisan headquarters in a forest clearing. Most of the scouts were on a mission, leaving the outpost lightly guarded. The sentry spotted the approaching enemy too late. The headquarters held seven people, including the commissar and commander. The Germans surrounded the area and began shelling it with mortars. The barn caught fire, leaving retreat into the forest as the only option.
Archival documents contain testimonies of witnesses describing the execution of the battalion's leadership:
«When alerted by a warning shot from the sentry, the commanders rushed out but were immediately wounded. The Germans captured them. During interrogations, the Germans tortured the commanders, then mutilated their bodies, cutting their hands and backs and crushing their skulls».
This marked the third month of the war....
The deaths of Trusov and Rekk did not break the spirit of the destruction battalion. With renewed vigor, they continued their sabotage and combat activities behind enemy lines. By November 1941, after months of grueling raids, limited supplies, and a lack of communication with the central command, the 5th Partisan Regiment, including the 6th Battalion, crossed the frontline and rejoined Soviet forces.
Pyotr Dmitrievich was buried by the residents of a nearby village the day after his death. After the war, his remains were reinterred at the Bogoslovskoe Cemetery in Leningrad.
The miners honor the memory of their heroes. Every year, on September 12, students of the Empress Catherine II Saint Petersburg Mining University lay flowers at the commissar's grave.
The university regularly hosts exhibitions dedicated to the partisan units of the Leningrad Mining Institute.
Ahead of the 80th anniversary of Victory, the memorial honoring mining engineers who perished on the front lines has been reconstructed. One of its key features is a bust of Pyotr Trusov.
