Stepan Tatarnikov was born on August 1, 1914 in the village of Mamayevka in the present-day Arys District of the South Kazakhstan Region of the Republic of Kazakhstan. It was a Russian settlement that was formed in 1891 on the bank of the Arys River. Immigrants from the Central Russian provinces came here. In this small village, one of the peasants organized a school in his house. In it, apparently, Stepan studied. Later, the Tatarnikov family moved to Kyrgyzstan, where Stepan finished 7 classes of school. In 1937, he was drafted into the Red Army by the Osh District Military Commissariat of the Osh Region of the Kyrgyz Soviet Socialist Republic, and since 1940 was listed in the Red Army with the rank of Second Lieutenant. In the first year of the war, he was sent to a military school to learn the profession of a tank driver. Stepan served as a crew commander of the ISU-152 self-propelled gun in the 349th Guards Heavy Self-propelled Artillery of the Lvov Red Banner Order of Bogdan Khmelnitsky Regiment. Awarded the Order of the Red Star. Extract from the award list: "Guards Second Lieutenant S. Tatarnikov in the battle to eliminate the encircled enemy group in the town of Breslau showed courage and bravery. On April 8, 1945, in the battle for the unnamed quarter, North of the gas plant, with his bold and decisive actions, he moved his self-propelled gun to an open firing position and destroyed 1 maintenance point, 3 machine-gun points and up to 20 Hitlerites, which ensured the capture of the quarter by our infantry with the least losses. On April 14, 1945, in the battle for the object of #50 Guards Second Lieutenant S. Tatarnikov moved his self-propelled gun to an open firing position and destroyed 1 wood-earth firing point, 2 machine-gun points and up to 15 Hitlerites, which ensured the advance of our infantry. April 23, 1945 in the battle for quarter #428 with bold actions, risking his life, put forward a self-propelled gun and destroyed: 2 wood-earth firing points, 3 machine-gun points and up to 30 Nazis, which ensured the advancement of our infantry and the capture of quarter #428". In 1945, Stepan returned from the war. Married. The Tatarnikov family had two children: a daughter, Larisa, and a son, Sergey. During the entire post-war time, Stepan and his family lived in the Kyrgyz city of Osh, where the head of the family worked as a builder – a profession that he received before the war. He retired at the age of 60. Stepan died In 1982. He was awarded, posthumously, the Order of the Patriotic War II degree in 1985.