It is the duty of the descendants of people who survived the Great Patriotic War to tell about the stories they heard and the horrors of wartime they experienced. Thus, we honor the memory of our ancestors, pay tribute to the path traveled and fulfill their main complaint: "Remember this!" Eager to fulfill the covenant of the participants in the War, I want to tell you about my great-grandfather - Yegor Matveyevich Grinin and about the sacrifices that were given to us by the truly Great Victory of 1945. Everything written below is compiled on the basis of family memories and archival documents found so far. Egor Matveyevich Grinin was born in 1920 in the village of Koshibeevo, near Sasov in the Ryazan region. Like many of his generation, at the age of 21 he was drafted into the ranks of the Soviet army at the Sasov military registration and enlistment office. His mother, being an Orthodox woman, sewed into his tunic a belt with the prayer "Living in Help" and a pectoral cross. Throughout the war, Yegor Matveyevich was a tanker (the tank's crew consisted of four people). The young soldier immediately got into the hottest fighting near Smolensk and witnessed the horrors. He took part in the liberation of occupied Nalchik (1942), in the battles of Rostov-on-Don (1943) and eventually reached Budapest and Austria. Once near Budapest, Egor Grinin faced very close to death: during a short halt at the front line, the enemy unexpectedly attacked the detachment, and a bullet shot through the clothes of a young soldier. Then there was greater horror - the same bullet killed his comrade to death right in front of his eyes ... Later, telling this incident, he said with all confidence that the shrine sewn into a Soviet tunic saved his life. Nevertheless, the hostilities near Budapest proved fatal for him. During the next attack, Egor Matveyevich was seriously wounded. Recalling this battle, he said that there really was a very brutal firefight. He lay wounded on the battlefield for a long time. And only after a long period of time he was found, picked up and brought to the hospital. In the hospital, waking up from anesthesia, the soldier could not find his left leg. According to the documents found, the amputation took place in December 1944. Doctors came and offered to amputate the other leg as well, but he categorically refused, saying: “I don’t want to live with a samovar”. In December of the same year, Egor Matveyevich was awarded the medal "For Military Merit". The war continued. The loss of a leg was not a hindrance, and after the hospital Egor Matveyevich immediately joined his own and went, as already mentioned, to Austria. The struggle for the Motherland and the unquenchable hope of meeting his chosen one Vera gave him strength in the war. After the war, Yegor Matveyevich did not immediately return to his wife. He doubted that she would accept him without a leg - a cripple and sent his brother Vasily to his house. When Vasily went to see Vera Evdokimovna, one phrase was enough - “Egor is back. He is now at his father's house. Are you ready to accept it? " Upon learning of this news, there was no response. She immediately ran to her husband's father's house to meet with the one who had been waiting for all these four terrible years of war. And it didn't matter how he was - healthy or crippled. Egor Matveyevich, thanks to his faithful wife Vera, has kept his cheerful spirit. After the war, he started working as a tractor driver. Of course it was difficult. The head of the collective farm understood this and offered to unlearn as a beekeeper in Rybny, Ryazan region, to which he agreed. After that, Yegor Matveyevich began to breed bees, and Vera Evdokimovna continued to work on the same collective farm as a milkmaid. And what is surprising, in their entire life they have never quarreled! Yegor Matveyevich died on September 21, 1982 and was buried in the old city cemetery in the city of Sasovo.