The story of my grandfather – Gilmutdinov Mirhatip of Khairetdinovich. “I circled death three times around my finger,” - my grandfather used to say shaking his hand, which, oddly enough, was just missing three fingers. He lost them when he was a child, during children's games. My grandfather was born and raised in the village of Suermetovo, the Ermekeevsky district of the Republic of Bashkortostan. My grandfather grew up without a father. His mother, driven to desperation by extreme poverty, sent him to an orphanage. From where he escaped after a while, and this saved his life – the next morning all the children were hospitalized with severe poisoning (poisoned at breakfast with canned food); most of them did not survive. Just before that fateful morning my grandfather had made his escape. He returned home and lived with his mother again. At the age of 11 he was already an orphan. Again death crept up on him. This time he was almost killed for a piece of land that belonged to him. “It was common to take a man's life for the sake of the land. Especially if you are a child and you have no father, no protection... - my grandfather recalled. “...I hid under the bridge of a small river where there was a hidden place. I could hear their boots rattling and I could hear their conversations. They were right above me.” But they didn't find him. And he again makes an escape, this time from his native village. So begins the story of his wanderings. He walked all over the entire Soviet Union, working as he had to. Despite missing three fingers he was a Jack-of-all-trades. Still it prevented him from going to the front when the war started. “More than once asked but they refused. You can't do it without fingers on your right hand, they say” There was plenty of work in the rear, too. As part of the labor army, my grandfather worked at the Ural Aluminum plant (UAZ), in Kamensk-Uralsky: during the war and three years after – for seven years (from 1941 to 1948). He worked as a locksmith on furnaces for smelting aluminum from ore. “Seven years we breathed smoke and soot”. There he earned consumption (tuberculosis). “This disease has claimed almost all of my comrades... One doctor told me that if you want to prolong your days, move to a place where there are forests and clean air. As far away from industrial cities as possible. You won't last long.” After the dismissal Mirhatip Khairutdinovich settled at his friend’s in the village of Kamyshevo, the Dyurtyulinsky district. After building a house, he got married. He and his wife had lived a good, good life together. My grandfather died at the age of 81.