He was a native of the Kalinin region but moved with his family to Pryazha in 1940. Voldemar Martynovich Gailin was first called up into the Red Army and was appointed a commissar in a fighter battalion. Our red army soldiers were poorly armed, sometimes one unit of weapons accounted for several people. This is how Voldemar Martynovich himself recalls this in a letter: “We went to eliminate the landing of saboteurs for more than a hundred kilometers from Pryazh, entered the battle, and ran into a large column of enemy tanks. We - with only rifles, and even civilians, could not do anything, although we twice engaged in battle... " Retreating with the fight, they secretly reached Pryazh, eating forest berries. After 22 days they came to Pryazh with their weapons. Then Voldemar Martynovich, having appeared at the military enlistment office, received a new combat mission - to organize the evacuation of reisdents of Pryazh before the occupation and to lead the train with the evacuees to the Molotov (now Perm) region. Evacuation of the population became inevitable, it was necessary to organize it urgently and decisively. Most of the civilian population of Pryazh were evacuated to the Ivanovo, Vologda, Arkhangelsk and Molotov regions. Not all residents of Pryazh wanted to leave their home, leave their loved ones, and leave their property. He had to go to every house, to explain, to persuade, sometimes to order and then to organize transport. This difficult work was entrusted to Voldemar Martynovich Gailin. In the fall of 1941 he learnt about the death of his son Valentine. In correspondence with a classmate of his son there are piercing lines: "Here, Vladimir, if you still have to fight with the fascist beast, you also take revenge for the death of your comrade.” Valentin - the middle child in the family of Voldemar Martynovich - was born in the Kalinin region in 1923. A few years later the family moved to Karelia. Until 1940 the family lived in Pudozha and in the summer moved to Pryazh where Valentin graduated from the 9th grade. In 1941 he graduated from high school in the village of Korza (there was no 10th form in Pryazh). In the first days of the war he was called up into the Soviet Army as a scout. He was killed at the end of September – beginning of October 1941 near Petrozavodsk. In Voldemar Martynovich's letters there are many messages about the fate of other classmates of his son – about how they fought, who died, who met whom on the front roads. There is so much of paternal care in these lines and as well as of pain for young children who have grown up overnight! In 1943 Voldemar Martynovich was again called up into the Red Army. In 1946 he was discharged and the Gailin family returned to their native Pryazh.