DATE OF BIRTH: 12/01/1924 _x000D_ DATE OF DEATH: 01/23/1944 _x000D_ Title: Red Army Soldier_x000D_ Subdivision: 3rd Guards Motorized Rifle Division. Nikolai Ivanovich Potapov was born into the family of Ivan Andreevich and Maria Ivanovna Potapovs. He was the eldest son. After graduating from a seven-year school, 17-year-old Nikolai was called up to serve in the Army on August 23, 1942. His uncle Pavel Andreevich Potapov was a Colonel, then on 06/03/1944 became a Major General, he wanted to transfer Nikolai to his Rifle Division. The plan did not come true due to the hard wartime. Major General P.A. Potapov passed away on August 24, 1944 near the city of Tartu, Estonian SSR. _x000D_ Nikolai had reached Hungary, where he was seriously wounded and passed away from a great loss of blood in the hands of his comrade. Nikolai's friend wrote about this in a letter to relatives in Moscow, where Nikolai's uncle, Pyotr Andreyevich Potapov, and his cousins, Zinaida and Valentina, lived. At home, they did not know that the son and brother had passed away and until the very end they hoped that he would return from the war. _x000D_ On a sunny July day in 1947, his mother Maria Ivanovna came home sad and announced to her 13-year-old daughter Vera: "Nicholai was killed." _x000D_ In her hands she was holding a death notification. Later, relatives who had received a letter from a friend of Nikolai admitted that they did not tell Maria Ivanovna about the death of her son on purpose. _x000D_ Until the end of their days, the mother and wife kept and cherished the memory of the son and husband who did not return from the war. Many years after the Victory over the Nazis, I received a letter from pioneer pathfinders, who reported that her son Nikolai Ivanovich Potapov was buried in a mass grave in Hungary in the city of Bicske and invited me to come to the grave. Maria Ivanovna refused to travel. I later explained her refusal by the fact that she was not ready to go through the loss of her son. _x000D_ The name of Nikolai Ivanovich Potapov is immortalized on a memorial, where rallies are held annually on the Victory Day, and where relatives and friends come to bow to the dead soldiers-fellow villagers.