Rank: Petty officer of the 2 class. Military branch: aviation. Division: 5th mixed aviation division. Brothers Vyacheslav and Sergey graduated from high school in the late thirties of the last century. They were born in Moscow, but in their school years the family moved to Crimea. They fell in love with this amazing area and learnt all about it. At first, they went on trips on a cart drawn by a bityug horse with their teacher and other students. The teacher was not young but took every opportunity to show the children something novel and interesting. Later, as they grew older, they rode bicycles around the Peninsula along with their friends. They rode to Nikolaevka to swim in the sea, rode out for overnight trips near rivers and waterfalls, mountains and prairies. In 1937, Vyacheslav graduated school and entered the Kherson Agricultural Institute. The world was in a restless state: there was a war with Finland; despite the pacts, Germany was still a threat. After finishing the second year of the institute, Vyacheslav was drafted into the army. He studied at the Kirovobad aviation school. At the aviation school, together with other cadets, he studied the structure of aircrafts, learned to fly Yak fighter planes and Ilah attack planes. He met the Crimean, Ruslan there. He became friends with the Belarusian, Dmitry, and the Yakut, Vasily. Dad recalled that there the cadets saw for the first time the blooming, with a unique subtle aroma, and then fruit-bearing, tangerine gardens. Persimmons and pomegranates grew there as well. And never again in their lives did they eat so many and such delicious tangerines and other fruits. Once they even found a canister of alcohol on the railway tracks; they tried it, but not everyone liked it. In the aviation school, many cadets, including Vyacheslav, got small tattoos on their shoulders with outstretched wings, which demonstrated that they belonged to aviation. After graduating from aviation school, Vyacheslav served in the 61st independent engineering and airfield battalion of the 5th air army of the Transcaucasian front with the rank of sergeant and was a battalion commander. The terrible, merciless war began. From airfields that were built and restored by the battalion, combat fighters and attack aircrafts took off, pilots destroyed the invaders in Crimea as well as other regions, where parents, friends and girlfriends remained: the peninsula was already occupied by the Germans and Romanians. After the occupation of Crimea by the Nazis, my grandmother had to burn all the letters from her sons, as it was dangerous to leave frontline letters in the house. At the front in 1942, Vyacheslav joined the communist party. As part of the 1st Belorussian front, he liberated Belarus, Poland, and Germany. At the end of the war, the unit in which he served became part of the Polish Army. At that time, Vyacheslav was a party manager of the 483rd battalion of the air force squadron. He celebrated the victory in Berlin. He was wounded several times. At the frontlines, friends gave him a small trophy accordion, which he quickly learned to play, remembering his piano lessons. Later, they managed to find a violin, which was played by his comrade Boris from Odessa. In Poland, the unit was placed in Lodz at first, then was transferred to a small town of Novy Dvor. There, in one of the rooms, they found an out-of-tune piano. There, during times of rest, they were able to hold real concerts and invite other soldiers of the battalion to them. The piano was played by Taras from Kharkov. Vyacheslav's friend Tolik Koroteev from Gorky city sang. There were many other friends and acquaintances with whom my father and we maintained relations after the war. My father did not return home until the summer of 1947. His father and mother survived the German occupation, were alive and well. But his younger brother, whom Vyacheslav loved very much, was not anywhere to be seen. And their search for him was unsuccessful… A long, decent life lay ahead. It entailed participating in the restoration of a war-torn country, studying, working, loving, building a family, participating in the transformation of the Crimea into a land of orchards and vineyards, getting hobbies...