Contrary to popular belief, the first serious success of the Red Army in the Great Patriotic War was not the famous Zhukovsky counterattack near Yelnya, but the Voroshilov counterattack near Soltsy in July 1941. Why did the German Blitzkrieg fail for the first time in the Leningrad direction, but this first victory of Stalin was actually forgotten after the war? How did our troops manage not only to stop, but to surround the 8th Panzer Division, inflicting heavy losses on the enemy? Is it true that it was this counterattack that saved Leningrad, buying time to prepare for the defense of the city? Why did the North-Western Front fail to develop success then, and how did the fierce battles on the Luga line, near Novgorod, Staraya Russa, Kholm and Demyansky end? Based on archival documents, this book restores the course of hostilities on the distant approaches to Leningrad in the first months of the war.