Hitler's favorite tank sits rusting on a dumping ground in the Russian province

Tank that is on display in one of the provincial museums can be worth tens of millions of dollars

It is hardly a surprise that some specimens of vintage military equipment still scattered across Russia are impossible to evaluate. The tank that used to stir up an argument between the two Russian governors falls under the priceless military artifacts category dating back to WWII. Some sources indicate that the Tiger in question was Adolf Hitler's favorite toy, according to Versia.

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The refusal of the former Saratov governor Dmitry Ayatskov to return the tank to the Istra museum of military equipment, the place it had been borrowed by Mr. Ayatskov in 2001, gave rise to a lot of fuss over the rusty Nazi “monster.” Mr. Ayatskov and the governor of the Moscow region Boris Gromov were involved in litigation for several years. Finally, the case was closed and the tank returned to its original location in the museum of military equipment. According to a source sited by Vesti, the tank had been slightly vandalized while in the Saratov museum. The tank's numbers and crosses had been gone.

The Tiger became a museum exhibit in 1973. Yuri Nikitin discovered it sitting in a bog in the Moscow region. There were five American Shermans, a heavy Tiger, a half-crippled Panther and some old Soviet tanks stuck in the mire on the edge of an abandoned tank range located in Nakhabino. As it turned out, the Tiger was seized near the village Sinyavino at the Leningrad front and sent straight to the tank range. Mr. Nikitin was quick to realize that he had come across a real treasure. He knew that there was only one Tiger in the Kubinka museum. Other tanks of this class were thought to have been destroyed.

The Germans used Tigers on the Leningrad front just once. They brought six tanks into action on September 21st, 1942. Therefore, the Tiger found in the bog is one out of six German tanks that came under fire while moving along the road Mga-Sinyavino. The first battery of 1225 Soviet howitzer regiment fired at the tanks on that day.

The event entered the memoirs of Albert Speer, a minister weapons and ammunition of the Third Reich. According to him, at the break of day on September 21st, 1942, six Tigres accompanied by a light tank T-III began crawling along the narrow dam built over the bog. There was not enough room for maneuvering. The light tank was heading the column. No sooner had the German tanks approached the positions of the Soviet troops than the head tank was hit and burned down. Then the Tiger at the end of the column was hit and its engine stalled. The remaining Tigers were destroyed within a few minutes. The Germans could not recover them since the Soviet howitzers kept firing away.

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