Mikhail Alekseyevich was born on 8 July 1926 in the village of Zevalovo in the Moscow region. Memories of a veteran: In June 1944 I was called up for military service and went to war. In the "boys' camp" we were sent to Vyshnii Volochek for one and a half months. There we were trained in handling machine guns. I was the second shooter of a light machine gun. Very strong were the fights near Riga. At night we heard a strong explosion, and in the morning we arrived in Riga without a fight, but the Germans were no longer there. When they withdrew, they blew up the bridge over the Daugava River. The local people greeted us with flowers, happy, and in some places shells were thrown at us. At that time the fascist Kurland group was operating in the Baltic States. Our task was to encircle and defeat them. This group was then destroyed until the end of the war, but without us. And we were formed, put into waggons, and the train went to Poland as part of the 3rd shock army under the command of V. I. Kuznetsov. After the liberation of Warsaw, our army was forced to cross the Odr River. The war ended a long time ago, and everything remembers itself. After this fight I got an incurable disease for life - psoriasis. The doctors at the hospital I went to after the fight, which was covered with a rash and crust, said: from a severe nervous shock. I received my first prize for the liberation of Riga and the encirclement of the Kurland group. The second medal was awarded for crossing the Oder and taking Berlin. There were also awards: for the liberation of Warsaw, for the capture of Berlin, for the victory over Germany and the Order of the Patriotic War of the First Degree.