Defense of the Adzhimushkay quarry The Defense of the Adzhimushkay Quarry ( ) was a guerrilla campaign on the Eastern Front in World War II fought between May and October 1942 in the Adzhimushkay suburb of Kerch during the Nazi occupation of the Crimea ( Ukraine ) . Pre - history . At the time of war , Adzhimushkay was a small mining suburb located five kilometers away from the city of Kerch , where a complex network of catacomb s is located . Limestone was extracted there from 1830 , using both the surface quarry and the underground mines . The latter resulted in the network of tunnels ( catacombs ) , known as the Great and Small Adzhimushkay catacombs . They were first used for military purposes by the pro - Bolshevik armed groups during the Russian Civil War . Start of the guerrilla campaign . When Kerch was first occupied by the Wehrmacht in November 1941 , a squad of partisans already operated in the catacombs . By May 1942 , a massive counteroffensive was staged by the Wehrmacht in order to expel the Red Army both from the Kerch Peninsula and the city of Sevastopol . The Soviet high command had neglected to build comprehensive defenses ; the Red Army was overrun and had to flee , sustaining heavy casualties . By May 19 , 1942 the regular fighting in the area was over , and , to ensure the evacuation of the Soviet troops across the Kerch Strait , a defense group was left in Adzhimushkay , led by Colonel P . M . Yagunov . The group absorbed numerous retreating soldiers , along with numerous civilians fleeing the city , and eventually grew to several thousand strong . When it became obvious that the bridgehead over the strait could not be held , the Adzhimushkay group found refuge in the catacombs . It is estimated that more than 10 , 000 survivors of the surface action fled to the Great Adzhimushkay catacombs system , and 3 , 000 to the Small catacombs system . The larger garrison was led by Yagunov and the smaller one by Povazhniy . Unsustainable resistance . The catacombs were ill - suited for defense , as there were no supplies prepared and all well s were located outside . Any supply of water had to be taken by force since a sortie was needed to reach a well . The Soviet group attempted several counterattacks , including one resulting the defeat of the Wehrmacht garrison in Adzhimushkay on the night of 8 and 9 July 1942 . Colonel Yagunov was killed in that assault . However , most Soviet guerrillas died , as the groups ran out of ammunition , food and water . The group resorted to extreme techniques of survival that included preparing meat of the dead livestock earlier killed in the mine entrances and gathering water condensed on the mine ceilings . The defenders also attempted to dig their own wells in the catacombs , as deep as 14 m , in order to reach the phreatic water layer . The German forces surrounded the quarries with barbed wire fencing , blocked the entrances and exits and bombed and shelled them . General Ochsner , chief of the chemical forces , proposed that a non - lethal irritant gas be used to smoke the partisans out of such hiding places . Permission to carry out the attack was denied . Crushing of the guerrilla forces . On October 30 , 1942 , German forces finally entered the catacombs and captured the remaining defenders . There are conflicting reports on the number of guerrilla fighters surviving the 170 day siege and final clash ( ranging from 48 to 300 ; out of initial 13 , 000 strength of the Soviet group ) and their subsequent treatment by Nazis . Remembrance . The Adzhimushkay campaign was largely covered up by Soviet propaganda until the end of Joseph Stalin ' s rule , as part of the general controversy concerning the fate of the crushed Soviet Crimean Front . It was only with the beginning of the Khrushchev Thaw that the Adzhimushkay Defense began to be popularized . Several books and songs were written to commemorate it . A museum was established in the quarry in 1966 and the memorial erected in 1982 . In popular culture . The 1986 perestroyka drama film " " ( ) features the story of an ordinary Soviet couple that struggles with the difficulties of post - World War II life . It is only in the film ' s finale that the horrible ordeal of their survival in the Adzhimushkay Quarry is revealed . Soviet cinema star Aleksandr Abdulov was cast in the film .