Dolgobrod Ivan Vasilievich
Dolgobrod Ivan Vasilievich_x000D_
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Flipping through the pages of the Internet, on the site pobedileli.ru I came across a document in which the name of my own uncle flashed among many names. It was a decree on awarding the medal "for Bravery" for military distinctions in the great Patriotic war of 1941-1945 in the Volga military district of Ivan Dolgobrod. This document brought back memories of the last meeting with his family-his daughter and granddaughter. On a long white night, such as it is in Karelia in summer, we looked at an album with yellowed photos, front – line letters and postcards-witnesses of the war. And they talked and talked until morning, sharing bits of memories of the stories of our fathers-brothers IVAN and PAVEL about the difficult front-line everyday life that they had to experience. Nina (Ivan's daughter) recalled how the war entered their lives. She was 6 years old. Summer day. They and their father, happy to communicate with nature and each other, return home after a morning walk on the Ural river in the Orenburg region, where they then lived. A little girl runs in a jump, laughing from an overabundance of energy and fullness of life. The father laughs and tells his daughter something about traveling ants, about the life of nature… At the house, Nina's tearful mother runs out to meet her, throws herself with tears on Ivan's neck with the word "war". That's how, by contrast-the sun, happiness and a tearful mother-a picture was deposited in the memory of my cousin for the rest of her life. And then Nina continues the story: "my Father goes to the front. He hugged his wife, hunched his shoulders, and walked quickly. He returned, picked up his little daughter in his arms and could not let go. Finally, he lowered it without looking at it, put it on the ground, and almost ran away without looking back." Ivan's granddaughter joins the conversation: "My grandfather fought in the infantry. He told me how in battle the most difficult thing was to learn not to be afraid of tanks. "Our regiment is mostly guys from villages and villages. A cow or a horse is a common thing. But this huge, metallic, roaring monster that is coming at you, caused such panic that many, mad with fear, jumped out of the trench and tried to escape, falling under the fire of machine-gunners. Many died like this..." - "Grandfather, how do you hide from the tank? (This is me with my questions)", - " the Tank is coming at you-lie down at the bottom of the trench. The most important thing is to survive while it is above you – the earth crumbles, you are buried alive, the roar is extraordinary, the fear and horror are unbearable. But you have to endure, and then, when the tank passed, you missed it - you need to get up and throw a grenade at it. Get up, get off the ground – that's where the will and strength were needed... " that's not so heroically simple and scary grandfather told about the war. In one of the winter battles near Volokolamsk, my grandfather was wounded. The shrapnel from the shell passed a few millimeters from the heart, obliquely severing the tendon and nerves of the left shoulder. The battle was in the afternoon, everyone was raised to attack. In the heat of the battle, I suddenly felt that my chest was baked and my hand was warm. There was no pain, but I was surprised to see the swollen left sleeve of my greatcoat filled with blood. My legs stopped holding me, I fell and lost consciousness. I woke up at night in the snow, in the cold. An unconscious grandfather made for yourself girl orderly. The doctor said that he was born "in a shirt" - the bullet passed very close to the heart, plus a lot of blood loss, frost, a little more and… For the rest of my grandfather's life, the fingers of his left hand did not unbend and practically did not move. But my grandfather never considered himself disabled and categorically refused all social benefits and payments, famously compensating for the ability to hold something with his left hand, working with his shoulder and teeth. My grandfather brought not only injuries from the war, but also awards. There were no orders. But there were a lot of medals." But the medal "for Bravery" was awarded to Ivan 50 years after the end of the war. And I remembered about your father Dolgarrog Pavel Vasilyevich. At the beginning of the war, he served in the repair and restoration battalion as a car mechanic. Then-a Rifleman in a rifle brigade, an electrician in a fuel delivery company. My father's stories were always based on memories of the difficulties of auto-crossing under the whistle of bullets, the roar of guns, the explosion of mines. They escaped from the German "Messers", miraculously escaped from the bombing, paving the "road of life" in those brigades where fuel and ammunition were needed. Two siblings-Ivan from the Orenburg region and Pavel, whose fate brought him to Ukraine, defended the United Homeland from fascism. Two families are descendants of Ivan, who live in Karelia, and Pavel, who found their fate in Ukraine. And there is no power to sever these ties of blood between us.