Animals at war

Artillerymen firing at the enemy on a street of Budapest

Residents of Budapest on one of the city streets cut up the corpse of a dead horse for later use of its meat for food

Arctic Dogs

Reindeers deliver bombs to the Pe-2 aircraft

Friends-scouts, 1942

Red Army soldiers change a firing position of anti-tank gun to the southwest of Klaipeda, October 1944

Preparing wounded Red Army soldier for transportation to a field hospital by sled dogs string

Sending wounded Red Army soldier from forward position to a hospital by string of sled dogs

Shamykov Konstantin Petrovich

Red Army soldiers prepare improvised dog-drawn carts to transport the wounded to a military hospital, Orel Region, 1943

Horse train. Western front

The Great Patriotic War is the most tragic page in the history of our state and the whole world. It left the deepest trace in the life of every family, and victory came at too great a price. This national tragedy has not bypassed our family. We are proud that our grandfather, Zlufarov Umer Kubedinovich, was a soldier of this war and forged the Great Victory. Grandfather was born in the village of Kuchuk Ozenbash Bakhchisarai district in a peasant family. He graduated from high school and then entered the Chair trade school in Koreiz village. From 1932 to 1939, Umer Kubedinovich was a student at the Crimean Agricultural Institute named after Kalinin and received a specialty in winemaking and viticulture. In 1939 he got married. At first, after graduating from the Institute, he worked as a winemaker in Sudak District, and in 1940 he was transferred to the post of chief winemaker at Yalta winery of Crimea. Fate promised bright future, prospects were seen, plans were made... But the war started. On July 16, 1941, Umer Kubedinovich was mobilized to the southern front. He began the war as the chief of the construction detachment, because by that time he had completed army service and knew the military business. The task of the detachment was to erect defensive lines on the outskirts of the city of Krasnodar. Here, he was also awarded a diploma of the 9th Directorate of Non-Profit Organizations. From 1942 to 1943, he studied at the Blagoveshchensk Machine-gun School in Bashkir SSR. After graduation, he commanded a tank company of the 36th Tank Brigade of the 4th Stalingrad Guard. The tank landing force was breaking through into the enemy zone, distracting the enemy, while the main forces were developing the offensive. In my grandfather's memory, like potographs, came up horrible moments: "Once, the path ran through a vast meadow covered with corpses, and as the tanks passed, parts of human bodies hit the body of the combat vehicle.” Party members were obliged to command penal companies for 3 months, but due to the absence of a replacement for the guard, Lieutenant Zlufarov Umer Kubedinovich had to manage 208 separate army penal companies for almost half a year in 1944. The commander was required to have special stamina and the ability to influence the subordinates with his authority. Umer Kubedinovich coped with the command of the company and had special respect, both among his subordinates and those of the superior command. With the battles of the Guards, the lieutenant passed through Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria, was wounded 4 times (certificate № 6229, № 609, № 1371, № 28), has 16 awards, including the Order of "Patriotic War I and II degrees", the Order of Courage, 8 medals, 3 thanks and 1 diploma from the Krasnodar Regional Council. He was demobilized from Vienna in 1945, and he was told: 'Comrade Lieutenant, if you want to live in Crimea, you need to change your passport'. At that time, the family was already deported from Crimea; he found relatives in one of the villages of Namanganskaya Oblast, Uzbek SSR. On the basis of medical report, he managed to transfer the family to Frunze town, Kyrgyz SSR, where he continued working as head of chemical and technological laboratory at fruit and vegetable station. Then he was appointed chief winemaker and chief champagne maker of the Kyrgyz Champagne Plant. He was awarded the sign "Excellent worker of food industry of the USSR" and the sign "Excellent worker of state farm of Kyrgyz SSR". In 1958 he was awarded the big silver medal of VDNKh of the USSR. At the tasting of European countries champagne plant received a large gold medal of Europe for Kyrgyz dry champagne. Umer Kubedinovich did not allowe even his nephew into the bottling shop, as he worked as a driver, and the smell of gasoline could affect the quality of wine. In 1962 he moved to the city of Yangiyul, Tashkent region, Uzbek SSR, where he worked as a shift supervisor at the hydrolysis plant. Pre-war colleagues and rector of Crimean Agricultural Institute named after Kalinin repeatedly advised Umer Kubedinovich to move to Crimea. On September 5, 1967, USSR Supreme Soviet's Presidium's Decree 'On citizens of Tatar nationality living in Crimea' was issued, and certain part of Crimean Tatars believed and decided to use this decree. Having often sold their houses for a fraction of the price, they began to return to Crimea. Lieutenant Umer Kubedinovich Zlufarov, the pre-war winemaker at Yalta Guards' Winery, was among the first. In 1968, the Zlufarovs' family bought a resettled house in Simferopol, but couldn't get a residence permit for over 6 months. From one instance they were sent to the next, and then everything was repeated in a circle. Four times Umer Kubedinovich was at a reception with N.V. Bagrov, who after a short conversation assured: "Go, I'll call - they will give you a residence permit". Each time the passport office answered: "Nobody called us". The last conversation with N.V. Bagrov took place in a slightly higher tone and ended with the following phrase: "If you want to live in the Crimea, speak a tone lower. Go ahead, I will call". And this time the answer in the passport office was the same. Then, Umer Kubedinovich began to put hope only in patience of his wife: 'Fatime Mamutovna, I can no longer vouch for myself, now you try to finish the job. The policeman regularly visited the Zlyufarovs' family under various pretexts, and only Fatime Mamutovna's hospitality and tact prevented the policeman from doing what they did to others who lived without a residence permit. And such people in the town were mostly officers, pre-war officials, such as pilot A. I. Reshidov, Hero of the Soviet Union, Captain O. N. Memetov, representative of the Crimean ASSR People's Commissariat of Land Resources, who after long attempts, having undergone a humiliating procedure, got registered. Fatime Mamutovna for another 4 months beat the doorsteps of the passport table, listening to various bureaucratic tricks. Only stamina and patience helped her to get registered. The registration allowed her to look for a job and to get rid of intrigues of local authorities. In addition to Umer Kubedinovich, 4 war veterans lived in this alley of the city and every year they were congratulated on Victory Day, and the lieutenant's guards was ignored, but despite this, he hung the Red Flag over his house every year. Opposite the Zlyufarovs' yard was the house of the family of another war veteran - pilot navigator Rikman M., who, together with Amet-khan Sultan, graduated from the Kachinsk Flying School and went through the entire war. Friendly relations of these two families have been maintained by their children and grandchildren from the first days of their return to the present day. After receiving registration (not without the help of his pre-war colleagues), Umer Kubedinovich got a job at the head winery № 1 in the city of Simferopol and was appointed head of the souvenir shop, where the highest sorts of cognac were poured into small containers. Having worked at this factory for more than 10 years as a good worker and specialist, he was honored to receive a well-deserved retirement.

My grandmother Katya is 95 years old. Russian beautiful woman. A face with wrinkles that betray such a difficult life path behind his shoulders, kind eyes, hands folded in humility on his knees. She never condemned anyone, did not impose her opinion, she prayed fervently and sincerely for everyone. She was 17 when the war began. My father immediately went to the front. The elder sister followed. My grandmother was also eager to leave, but my mother would not let me in: “As I am alone with small children, I need an assistant,” she complained. There were five more children in the family, small is smaller. The tanks drove into the village of Staro-Mikhailovskoye without a fight, the German soldiers scattered to their homes in search of Russian soldiers and looting. Mother hid her grandmother and sister in the cellar, fearing violence from the daring Prussians, who felt they were masters in a foreign land. Having torn the lock into the cellar, the German saw two girls huddled together, trembling with fear. He looked into the frightened children's eyes and regretted, did not touch, apparently, he remembered his own. Fighting began on New Year's Eve. The snow turned scarlet, corpses lay everywhere. The village passed from hand to hand. To help the family, my grandmother got a job on the railway as a tanker for steam locomotives. Echelons of military personnel (military echelons) went to the front, taking away military equipment and artillery. The soldiers were transported in the same trains. When planes with a black cross appeared in the sky, they announced their barracks position. People were hiding from the bombing in barrels of water. Later, my grandmother with the same young girls blew up German trains. "Was it scary, grandma?" “Of course it's scary. People, guns - everything flew in different directions. But we covered our face with our hands so as not to damage the beauty (smiles). What endurance must one have to talk so calmly about these horrors of war ?! And at the same time not to become bitter, not to become embittered, to remain a loving mother, grandmother, great- and even great-great-grandmother. Later, my grandmother was transferred to work in the frontline zone in Kaluga, where she unloaded coal. The hardest work paid off in full: the ration was given out for all the young members of the family: a little flour, cereals, a handful of sugar, salt, matches, soap and mixed fat - a modest prosperity fed the whole family. In 43, during the retreat, the Germans burned entire villages behind them. The turn came to Staro-Mikhailovskaya. The distraught mother (my great-grandmother) jumped out of the hut and rushed barefoot through the snow towards the Germans, shouting in despair: "Pan, Sieben Kindern!" (Sir, seven children!). The German who was taken aback by such assertiveness, who had begun to set fire to our house, the last one in the village, retreated in shock, and did not finish his dirty deed. The house, burnt, but intact, served as a haven for the cold winter for an entire village. Our family was lucky: they survived the famine, my grandfather returned from the front wounded, but alive. And we, children of peacetime, every time we meet, we ask grandmother to tell about those distant times when the meaning of life was in life itself.

Situation in Donetsk region. Soldier of the DPR People's Militia and service dog performing combat tasks in suburbs of Mariupol.

Farmers of one of the villages of the Kiev region drive cattle from the front line. September 1941