CITY: Melandovo village, Yemetsky district DATE OF BIRTH: 07/27/1907 DATE OF DEATH: 07/16/1943 HISTORY: My great-grandfather Ivan Ivanovich Lokhov was born on 07/28/1907 in the village of Melandovo, Yemetsky area in a large large family. He was the eldest son. In 1935, my grandfather came to work for Bakaritsa at the fourth sawmill, where he met my great-grandmother Natalya Isakovna Podosenova. In 1935 they got married, and in May of the same year they came to the village of Mechkostroy to build a pulp and paper mill. They were the very first inhabitants of our city and started the construction of the plant! Grandfather Vanya was very skilled, he was valued as a worker, the brigade of the Stakhanovite Lokhov Ivan Ivanovich was among the foremost. At the age of 35, in the winter of 1942, Ivan Ivanovich was called up to war. By that time, grandparents already had 2 daughters, Galya and Vera, and grandmother Natasha was pregnant with the third child, a boy named Vitya, whom the grandfather never saw. Hard times came for both grandfather and grandmother. For some time after being drafted into the war, grandfather's unit lodged on Lesnaya Rechka, he came home several times from there on foot. His daughter (my grandmother) Galya remembers her dad sitting in front of them, all overgrown, tearing up an overcoat - "Mom will sew you something ... ..". They were not destined to see each other again ... ... then there were only letters ... ... ... In letters, grandfather writes about his worries about the family, about the house that could not be completed, about goats that need to prepare food, about firewood, about beloved children, about how they grow. In his letters, there was always a belief in a bright, happy future. He was very worried in letters that the children did not write to him. And they were very young and could not write. Then grandmother Natasha wrote letters on their behalf herself, and in response dad wrote a letter to everyone. In letters, my grandmother addressed him only as "my dear Vanyushka", and he wrote to her "dear Talya." Grandfather's unit was transferred to the Leningrad / Volkhov front, he fought as a private, died - blown up by a mine on July 16, 1943 , in the same forest he was buried. During the war, grandfather always carried two photographs with him: little Viti and his wife and daughters. These photos were returned to the grandmother by fellow soldiers after the death of the grandfather. Grandpa Vanya died, but his memory is still alive. Before the war, great-grandfather Vanya managed to start building a house in a village within the boundaries of our city of Novodvinsk; after the war, my great-grandmother Natalya Isakovna finished the construction. Now the house is looked after and taken care by the children and grandchildren of Ivan Ivanovich. The house, as a memory of ancestors, and today with love is already receiving the fifth generation of the family.