""Ivan Grigorievich Karavayev was born in 1923 in the village of Gramoteyevo, Kungursky region, Perm Krai. When the war broke out, he was working as a village teacher at an elementary school. He immediately wanted to volunteer to the front, but only on his third application (after all, teachers had ""reservaton"", they had to work, not fight!) was enrolled as a cadet of Perm Machine-gun Mortar School, where he studied for six months (from February to July 1942) as a machine gunner of heavy machine gun ""Maxim"". The cadets were taught to shoot all kinds of weapons, and as part of the legendary 62nd Army of Stalingrad Chapay - V.I.Chuikov they were sent to defend the city on the Volga - Stalingrad. On the night of 11 to 12 September 1942, 184th machine gun battalion of the 193rd division, where I.G. Karavayev was, crossed the Volga from the peaceful coast to the blazing and fighting city. Machine gun company was assigned to 685 rifle regiment, which took up defense near the factory and the village of ""Red October"". On the shore of the fighting city there were huge posters with inscriptions: ""Russia is great, and nowhere to retreat – there is the Volga behind!"", ""We will stand to the death!!! These words were not perceived then as agitation. They seemed to come from the heart of every fighter. Love for the Homeland was above all! The fiercest fights in the city flared up in the second half of October 1942. The enemy took up to 10-15 attacks per day, trying to throw everyone into the Volga and capture Stalingrad by October 7, but the enemy miscalculated. Defenders of Stalingrad saintly executed the order of Supreme commander-in-chief I.V.Stalin #227 dated July 28, 1942. This order was severe and fair: ""Not a step back - stand to the death! This is evidenced by Ivan Grigorievich's preserved badge and certificate. On one of the last days of October 1942, the fascists carried out 12 psychic attacks, fascist ""vultures"" hung in the sky almost continuously, German artillery and mortars were not kept silent, and fascist tanks were climbing up. Another day began - a new hot battle began. Fascists were like avalanches, chain by chain, one after another, went into mental attacks. Ivan Grigorievich says about the war: ""Me and my corporal uncle Kolya Vinokhuzin from the second floor of the stone house from ""Maximka"" poured lead on enemy's bullets, and enemy attacks were choked up. Then the enemy tanks ""pierced"" us, paving the way for their drunken infantry, rushing to the Volga. One of the enemy tanks was hit by our “pacific man” Mikhail Panikaho. As I can see now, an enemy tank is ""crawling"" at us. Mikhail swung a Molotov cocktail at the tank, but the fascist machine gun line broke the bottle, scorching Panikio. The defender turned into a solid flame. Mikhail did not get rid of the fire, but grabbed an anti-tank grenade in one hand from a trench niche, another incendiary bottle and rushed to the enemy tank and burned with it. ""Stalingrad Danko, a Marine from our 193rd Division, performed his immortal feat thinking not of himself but of his beloved Motherland. Surely many people remember the main character of this famous novel - if not by book, then by the movie of the same name. Kirill Lavrov played there the role of Ivan Sintsov, the main character. His ordeals became the basis of the plot: having lost, by not fault of his own, his part-ticket and other documents when being surrounded, the officer had to go into battle as an ordinary soldier, proving with blood that he was not a coward or a traitor. Ivan Karavayev's fate, perhaps, was even more terrible and cooler than that of his literary namesake. For the first time, Karavayev was buried alive near Stalingrad: the doctors told the comrades that he was mortally wounded and that there was no hope. Ivan Karavayev's mother was told that her son had died heroically. From the story of I.G. Karavayev: ""Angry Hitlerites were continuously bombing and shelling the city and our positions. The house where we held the defense, where our machine gun stood, collapsed from the shelling, and we barely managed to save our loyal friend ""Maximka"" and take a new firing position in the vegetable warehouse. At the smallest respite between fire, my friends and I tried to ""water"" the machine guns, otherwise because of the red-hot barrel ""Maximka"" did not shoot, but spit. In addition, I had to prepare new loaded machine gun belts. And grenades, fuses to them, incendiary bottles and water to cool the machine gun - all this should be at the soldier's hand in battle. By the evening of October 25, everything seemed to be at an end: both power and ammunition, and I had no water to cool the machine gun barrel. We waited for the 13th attack of fascists. The last belt was loaded into the machine gun and I put the last two ""lemon"" grenades next to me. And if fascists will go in attack today, probably, it will be necessary to go in hand-to-hand attack, we thought. But Hitlerites, probably, were fed up too - they didn't go into attack, but decided to bring down heavy artillery and mortar fire on us at the end of the day. Taking another breath, I ran to the funnel for water to ""water"" my machine gun. At that moment, a strong explosion of an enemy mine or shell was heard. Our fire point was crushed by a collapsed vegetable storage facility. As it was told later in the dugout under the Volga river bank by soldiers - paramedics, my machine gun was completely crushed, the helmet was pressed into the head of Nikolay Vinokhuzin, eyes popped out of the orbits and hanging on their nerves like on white threads. At home, six small children had been waiting for him from the war. I was concussed and lightly injured in the head and in my right leg. When I came to my senses in the dugout, the first thing I asked the soldiers was if the fascists broke through to the Volga? They answered that they did not. And who saved me? The familiar paramedics said, that my friend - the machine gunner of ""Maximka"", the fellow countryman, the moustached Volodya Lyamin had pulled me out from under the ruins of a storehouse. But when he handed you over to us and ran to his machine gun, the Nazis noticed him and shot - they killed your savior. Since then, in memory of my friend, the savior, I have been wearing a ""Lyamin mustache"". And I named my first son Volodya in memory of my friend. And thirty years after the war - that's happiness for sure! - Volodya Lyamin and I met by chance in Perm. It turned out that the medics thought he was dead a bit too early, too. Ivan Grigorievich did not die in the Stalingrad battles - he was hospitalized, and his friend Volodya Lyamin was lucky to be alive. This is how Vladimir Vitalievich Lyamin himself will talk about it more than forty years later in his article ""In burning Stalingrad: - There came a short break. I just thought that the German would have lunch now, as we were again bombed and fired at with guns. Nearby, there was an explosion. I look and see, that the warehouse, where Karavayev's unit was placed, collapsed, and smoke was coming out of it. I ran there and looked at the dead gunner lying in the door, his helmet pressed into his head. I look farther: I can see the boots from under the collapsed logs. I scatter the logs and pull the legs. I saw that it was Ivan. I drag him to the exit. I pass Ivan over to the running sanitary instructor and then I went to my unit. I had just run up - an explosion. I was knocked down. I was lying down and thinking: ""Killed, or what? But since I am thinking so myself, it means I am alive."" I lift my head, blood runs down my face. I feel my head - here, though it’s humming in it like in an empty barrel. I feel that something is wrong with my left foot. Ivan Grigorievich was treated in a hospital in the town of Srednaya Akhtuba near Stalingrad and did not know yet that the command presented him to the medal ""For bravery”. In early December 1942, a sergeant from his battalion, Pyotr Bazhukov, was with him in his room. Together, after recovering from their wounds and pain, they began to walk intensively: Peter was on crutches, and Ivan Grigorievich was with a walking stick. In the new year 1943 they were invited to school, to high school students for a meeting as soldiers from the fighting Stalingrad. After the meeting with the schoolchildren, Peter and Ivan did not return to the hospital, but went out on the road and caught a car carrying barrels of lubricants to their division. So they found themselves again in their native 193rd Division. The command of the division gave them both the military rank of ""petty officer"". There was a war, brutal, full of losses and casualties, but there was more than that in it. There were unforgettable meetings. Many military meetings continued in peacetime. From the story of Ivan Grigorievich: ""So, if we, four front friends, were still alive from the war, we decided to play our Victory Weddings. Having received the consent from our beloved girlfriends - to marry them, in the morning of May 9, 1945 all four officers: Barkhatov, Dyachkov, Karavayev and Larevsky - submitted a report to the regiment commander Colonel Batov for permission to play Victory Weddings in the officer's canteen of the regiment. Having received the permission and parting word of the commander of the regiment Batov and his deputy for political part Major Emelianov, they crossed their family ties in Tatishchevsky district registry office of Saratov region. At 6 pm after the war, on May 9, 1945, a big victorious wedding was held. The homeland is great: all four victorious, married couples scattered around the country. The law of life was stronger than the law of death for Ivan Grigorievich, he survived, as they say, climbed out of the bony paws of death. He was with death, as they say, ""on you"" - but he survived. Ivan Grigorievich says about himself: 'I was doomed to live'. Awards: - Order of the Great Patriotic War, I degree; - Order of the Red Star; - the medal ""For Merit in Combat""; - the Medal ""For the Defense of Stalingrad""; - Medal ""For the Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945""; - numerous jubilee medals. This year, on September 12, 2020, Ivan G. Karavaev will be 97 years old"". "