My father Alexander Iolievich Berdyugin was born on September 5, 1921 in the Tyumen region, in the city of Yalutorovsk. After graduating from school in 1939, he was drafted into the Red Army and entered the Leningrad Military School of Instrumental Intelligence, from which he graduated on June 2, 1941, with the rank of lieutenant. My father participated in the battles for the defense of the Caucasus as a part of the anti-aircraft artillery regiment (as commander of the instrumental intelligence regiment) in the Transcaucasian front. Then he liberated Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, and Austria being part of the 4th and 3rd Ukrainian fronts (as commander of communications of the rifle battalion and the commander of the fire platoon of the machine-gun company). In the fall of 1945, my father was sent to a Panzer division as the secretary of the military tribunal. But he did not want to continue in the military path and retired to the reserve in 1947. In 1948, he was enrolled at the faculty of history in the department of art history in Moscow State University. He graduated from the university in 1953. During his years of study, he joined the ranks of the CPSU (b) in the year of 1951. After graduating from MSU, he worked as the head of editing department in the magazine "Art", and later the chief of organizational and creative department of the Art Fund of the USSR, He took the position of the executive secretary of the journal "Decorative Art"; since 1959, worked in the Moscow City Organization of the Art Fund of the RSFSR. Father was awarded 5 military and 9 peace medals: in November 1944, the medal "For Courage" (for advancing his platoon into attack) and the order "Red Star", in May 1944, a medal "For Defense of Caucasus", in May 1945, the medal "For Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945" and the medal "For the Capture of Budapest"; his peace awards: 1965 - medal "Twenty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945", 1967 - medal "50 years of the Armed Forces of the USSR", 1970 - the medal "For Valiant Labor in Commemoration of 100-anniversary of the Birth of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin", 1975 - the medal "Thirty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945", 1978 - medal "60 Years of the USSR Armed Forces", 1985 - medal "Forty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945" and the order "Patriotic War of the 2nd degree", 1988 - medal "70 Years of the Armed Forces of the USSR", previously awarded the medal "Veteran of Labor". My father died on November 4, 1990 of heart failure and never learned about the collapse of the country he had defended.